Etiological pathways of depressive and anxiety symptoms linked to personality traits: A genetically-informative longitudinal study
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: The comorbidity of depression and anxiety is associated with an increased risk of prolonged adverse mental health status. However, little is currently known about their genetic and environmental influences that help to explain both the comorbidity and distinctiveness. Using longitudinal twin data, the present study investigated both the overlapping and distinct relationships between depression and anxiety viewed from the perspective of Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST): two personality traits of the Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Systems (BIS and BAS). METHODS: A total of 422 twin pairs (298 monozygotic and 124 dizygotic pairs) participated by completing a personality questionnaire at wave 1, and mood symptoms questionnaires at wave 2. The waves were on average 2.23 years apart. RESULTS: Multivariate Cholesky decomposition indicated that the genetic variance of the personality traits (BIS and BAS) explained all of the genetic variance in depressive and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, genetic factors related to the BIS positively explained depressive and anxiety symptoms, whereas genetic factors related to the BAS negatively explained only depressive symptoms. LIMITATIONS: Limitations include shorter time interval and the reliance on self-reported data. CONCLUSIONS: The present study provided evidence explaining the overlap and differentiation of depressive and anxiety symptoms by using data on personality traits in a longitudinal, genetically-informative design. The findings suggested the personality traits from Gray's RST model played an important role in the prediction, and clarified the description, of both depressive and anxiety symptoms.
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Maladaptive personality, motivational systems, and intolerance of uncertainty are important sets of dispositional constructs in the statistical explanation of symptoms of depression and anxiety.
“Maladaptive personality, the motivational systems, and intolerance of uncertainty play important roles in the statistical explanation of depression and anxiety.”
From Dispositional factors in the explanation of symptoms of depression, anxiety, health anxiety and COVID-19 Phobia (2024) · cites this paper as [2]
The Introduction and §1.2 link Neuroticism and the BIS/BAS motivational systems to depressive and anxiety symptoms, supporting the personality and motivational-systems portions of the claim. The available passages have no page numbers, and a search of the full-text copy found no discussion of intolerance of uncertainty; that part is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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“The motivational systems are considered relatively stable throughout life and are relevant for mental health [2].”
BackgroundInfluential
- Authors
- Takahashi, Y., Yamagata, S., Ritchie, S. J., Barker, E. D., & Ando, J.
- Affiliations
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Nagoya University (JP)
- King's College London (GB)
- Keio University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Takahashi, Yusuke
- Venue
- Journal of Affective Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-08
- Volume
- 291
- Pages
- 261-269
- ISSN
- 0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3163628544
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5
- FWCI
- 3.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Kyoto University Research Information Repository (Kyoto University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Pfizer Health Research Foundation
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (19K03229)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- depression, anxiety, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, personality traits, Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory, behavioral inhibition system, behavioral activation system, genetic factors, heritability, comorbidities, monozygotic and dizygotic twins, longitudinal twin study
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Personality, Personality Inventory
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