As far as we know, this is the first study to explore the trait-to-symptom associations and gender difference between Big Five personality traits and SA symptoms in college students via the network analysis. The result indicates that there are several distinct connections between Big Five traits and SA symptoms, while the most robust edge exists between Neuroticism and SA3 “Get embarrassed very easily”. The bridge centrality analysis reported that Neuroticism has a positive bridging effect on SA symptoms cluster while other traits have negative bridging effects on SA symptoms cluster. In addition, the bridging effects of Neuroticism on SA symptoms are significantly greater in females than in males.
Neuroticism is positively linked with SA3 “Get embarrassed very easily”, SA2 “Troubled when being watched” and SA5 “Anxious when speaking to group”. Previous research has extensively documented the relationship between Neuroticism and SA [21, 35, 51]. The current findings build upon this knowledge by revealing a nuanced connection: neuroticism may be closely linked to specific SA symptoms (i.e., performance subtype of SA; [52]), such as fear during public speaking or discomfort when under scrutiny. However, it appears unrelated to other SA aspects, like being in large groups, initiating interactions with strangers, or adapting to new environments. This distinction may suggest that individuals high in neuroticism are especially prone to anxiety in situations where they are the center of attention [53-55], potentially triggering a deep-seated fear of (both positive and negative) judgement [33, 36, 56]. Therefore, anxiety management strategies that specifically address these fears may prove more effective than general social skills training.
Recent review has been suggested that Extraversion appear to be related to several mental problems in an opposite manner to Neuroticism [57]. However, our findings suggested that SA3 “Get embarrassed very easily” has the strongest edge with Neuroticism, but the connection between Extraversion and SA3 is the weakest among all connections through Extraversion correlated with SA symptoms, which indicated that the potential connection pathway of Neuroticism and SA is different with of Extraversion and SA. Therefore, the interventions of SA targeted symptom SA3 might be effective for neurotic individual and invalid to introverted individual, which partly explained the poor efficiency of some existing treatments [58].
Our results indicated that Extraversion and Openness are basically negatively linked with all SA symptoms. A recent study also reported that the Extraversion-Openness interaction were connected with significantly lower levels of SA, and further suggested that the interaction of traits offers accumulatively greater protection against SA [21]. Together with Agreeableness, Extraversion and Openness mapped onto the same SA symptom SA4 “Hard to talk to strangers” negatively. Individual high in Extraversion, Openness and Agreeableness might have more courage to step outside internal network and interacting with strangers [20], which may increase the probability to get more positive interactive experiences and feedbacks on their interaction. Conversely, those who exhibit low in the same three traits may tend to avoid interactions with strangers and less engaged in social interactions [59]. Our findings basically support the view that high level of Extraversion and Openness individuals are more likely to be protected against SA symptoms [37, 60].
The relations of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness to SA reported in previous studies were inconsistent, but most studies indicated that Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are negatively associated with SA [26, 61]. The present results provided the more fine-grained correlation evidence and showed the negative edges existed between Conscientiousness and SA3 “Get embarrassed very easily” as well as Agreeableness and SA4 “Hard to talk to strangers”. In addition, Individuals high in Conscientiousness and those high in Agreeableness may share a common tendency towards compliance with normative rules [26, 62-64], which may predispose them to a specific SA symptom, namely, experience shyness in new situations (SA1). Individuals high on Conscientiousness, characterised by meticulousness and adhere strictly to standards, may feel shy in new settings (where the rules and expectations are not clear to them) due to a fear of not performing correctly according to unknown standards. On the other hand, individuals high on Agreeableness (characterised by desire for harmony and aversion to conflict), might exhibit apprehension in new situations due to the fear of unintentionally breaking social norms and disrupting harmony.
The BEI of each Big Five personality trait was calculated to quantify its protective or risk ability on SA. Results showed that Neuroticism activated the SA symptoms cluster, while remaining four traits deactivated the SA symptoms cluster, indicating Neuroticism could manifest as a risk factor and other four personality traits could manifest as protective factors for SA among college students. The special role of Neuroticism and Extraversion towards SA have been widely reported by previous studies [20, 21, 51].
Noteworthy, our result suggested a gender difference in the bridging effect of Neuroticism on SA symptoms. Specifically, although Neuroticism is a prominent risk factor for SA in both genders, the vulnerability in female is tended to be much higher than male. The related results reported in the existing literature are mixed [35, 65]. For instance, Allan et al. [35] found no gender differences in their research about the hierarchical model of vulnerabilities (Neuroticism) to emotional distress disorders (SA). However, compared with male, a significantly higher lifetime prevalence rates of SA and elevated clinical severity for females has been reported in samples with different age groups and countries [65-68]. Our findings may offer an explanation through the self-construal theory, as female are generally higher interdependent and much easier affected by interpersonal interactions than male [69-72], hence the vulnerability of Neuroticism in SA is more prominent reflected in female group. Future study can additional test the critical role of Neuroticism in SA and clarify the reasons for gender differences.
These findings have certain directive significance for the implement of early evaluation and personalised interventions based on symptom presentation. First, the Neuroticism dimension in the CBF-PI-15 has only three items [44]. Neuroticism has also found to be a risk factor of problematic smartphone use [73], which means the early evaluation of Neuroticism might lead to better management and clinical outcomes of general mental health problems. Hence, colleges may consider incorporating CBF-PI-15 into the existing mental health assessment of annual college students and provide personalised interventions towards mental problems targeting different personality characteristics of individuals. In addition, Jones and his colleagues [42] have suggested that bridge nodes (with the highest BEI) might represent the most crucial intervention targets, as the improvement on those nodes may trigger the chain reactions in co-occurring symptom cluster and ease the burden from the source. Based on our findings, reducing Neuroticism and improving Extraversion can be prioritized as targets for early evaluation and prevention. Encouragingly, recent studies found that some intervention can effectively address Neuroticism [74-78]. For example, Stieger and his colleague [77] demonstrated that normal personality traits can be changed through intervention in nonclinical samples via a three-month digital personality change intervention with a mobile application named PEACH (PErsonality coACH), which offer supports (i.e., achieve personality change goal, modify behaviors and experiences, maintain the change process) through a digital coach. In addition, the Unified Protocol (UP), which is an emotion-focused, cognitive behavioral intervention targeting temperamental characteristics, has also been verified as a quite effective ways to reducing Neuroticism, as well as related emotion disorders [74, 76, 79]. Lastly, this study also emphasizes an increase focus on the interpersonal interaction problem of females, especially for those who with high Neuroticism, which may promote a more appropriate therapeutic intervention tailored to male and female.
There are several limitations warrant consideration for the current study. First, the present findings were obtained in a college student sample, which might limit the clinical implication to a certain extent. Future studies could extend our results in clinical samples. Second, our study was conducted through the cross-sectional design, which is hard to further explain the causality between personality trait and SA. Future studies could verify the feasibility via the longitudinal data. Finally, the networks constructed in the present study investigated the connections between traits and SA symptoms based on the population level, which means it might not be replicated in the same way within single individuals.