Exploring the association between the big 5 personality model and body image

Abstract

Personality can briefly be defined by its characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique. A popular personality model is the Big-5 that includes the following personality dimensions: neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness. The Big Five personality characteristics are rather constant over time and can predict different things in an individual’s life including job performance, academic achievement, delinquency, personality disorders, adjustment and divorce. Little is known about the interaction between the Big Five personality characteristics and body image. The goal of the present research is to shed some light on the association between the Big-5 personality model and appearance-related aspects of body image. 99 participants including males and females completed the MBSRQ-AS and the TPQUe questionnaires. The results of the present work showed that individual differences in a person’s personality are associated with evaluative components of their body image. Through regression analyses and multiple regression models, it was found that extraversion and conscientiousness were related to more positive body image evaluations, whereas high levels of neuroticism were linked to negative body image evaluations specifically in the group of males.