The Big Five Personality Traits as Predictors of Depression

ABSTRACT: Depression continues to be one of the most common and debilitating mental health disorders worldwide, prompting extensive research into its underlying risk factors. Among these, personality traits have attracted considerable attention due to their potential predictive value. Individuals experiencing depression may feel sad, unmotivated, and lonely. Personality describes the patterns in how people behave, think, and feel. Depression has also been found to be associated with the Big Five (BF) personality traits. This study investigates the predictive role of the Big Five personality traits openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism on depressive symptoms in a university student population. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI) were employed. A total of 400 undergraduate students, both Turkish and international, participated in the study and completed standardized self-report measures assessing their personality traits and levels of depression. The study aimed to examine the relative contributions (in terms of regression coefficients) of the Big Five personality traits and social variables in predicting depression. To evaluate the relative importance of each Big Five trait in predicting depression, a backward multiple linear regression (MLR) model was applied. The regression analysis revealed that neuroticism was a significant positive predictor of depressive symptoms, whereas extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness were negative predictors of depression severity. All participants were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Engineering and Natural Sciences, or Business and Management Faculties at either International University of Sarajevo or Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University. Keywords: Big Five personality traits, depression, university students, mental health