Neuroticism (emotional sensitivity)

Neuroticism describes how often and how intensely you feel negative emotions: worry above all, but also irritation, sadness and embarrassment. On the result we call it emotional sensitivity. People who score high notice what might go wrong sooner than most and take longer to settle after a bad day. People who score low, toward emotional stability, stay even under pressure and shake off setbacks quickly.

Neuroticism is not a measure of mental health. The test describes normal variation and cannot detect, predict or rule out any condition. If your mood or worry is getting in the way of your life, talk to a doctor or a psychologist; a personality score is no substitute.

The six facets

In the IPIP-NEO-120 Neuroticism is made up of six facets (Johnson, 2014):

• Anxiety: worrying and feeling tense.
• Anger: getting irritated and frustrated easily.
• Depression: feeling sad, discouraged or down (a tendency of mood, not the clinical condition).
• Self-consciousness: feeling awkward and fearing judgment in company.
• Immoderation: struggling to resist cravings and urges.
• Vulnerability: feeling overwhelmed and panicky under stress.

Researchers split the trait into two aspects: Volatility, quick and strong reactions such as anger, and Withdrawal, the pull toward worry, sadness and avoidance (DeYoung, Quilty and Peterson, 2007). A person can flare up fast and calm down fast, or never raise their voice and lie awake worrying.

High and low in everyday life

Toward the high end, an unanswered message can occupy your evening, and a small criticism at work can stay with you for days. You often see problems coming that other people miss. The cost is the time spent worrying about things that never happen, and the energy that goes into calming down.

Toward the low end, you sleep well before an exam and a delayed train is an inconvenience, not a crisis. People find you steadying in an emergency. The cost is subtler: a risk that really deserves worry may not get it, and you may underestimate how much a situation is upsetting someone more sensitive.

What the research links it to

Mental health. Neuroticism is the Big Five trait most strongly associated with anxiety, depressive and substance use disorders. In a meta-analysis, people with these diagnoses scored on average 1.65 standard deviations higher than controls (Kotov et al., 2010). That is a large group difference, and it still says nothing certain about any one person. Lahey argues that because the trait predicts so many conditions, it matters for public health as much as many specific risk factors do (Lahey, 2009).

Well-being. Neuroticism is one of the strongest Big Five correlates of lower life satisfaction and more negative emotion (Steel, Schmidt and Shultz, 2008).

Relationships. Of the five traits, low Neuroticism had the largest link with partners' satisfaction in a meta-analysis of couples (Malouff et al., 2010).

Age and sex. On average Neuroticism declines across adulthood, most between 20 and 40 (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006). Women score higher than men on average in most cultures studied, a small to moderate difference (Costa, Terracciano and McCrae, 2001).

A common misreading

Two opposite mistakes are common. One treats a high score as a diagnosis; the other insists it is a hidden gift. The research mostly documents costs of high Neuroticism, and the claims that it brings compensating advantages, such as better threat detection, rest on much thinner evidence. The honest reading is the plain one: a high score means that difficult feelings come more easily to you than to most people, and that is worth knowing, not worth fearing.