Childhood Correlates of Genetic Propensity to Personality Traits

The Big 5 personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) are moderately heritable correlates of behavior, health, and life outcomes. Characterizing childhood expressions of genetic variation associated with adult personality may inform our understanding of personality development and how personality becomes associated with behaviors and environments. Our phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) of Big 5 polygenic indices (PGIs) among children (nEuropean-like ancestry=5,556; nAfrican-like ancestry=1,584) in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development StudySM (ABCD Study(R)) across ages 9-11 and 11-13 revealed stable associations between neuroticism PGI and measures of child mental health, openness PGI and cognition, agreeableness PGI and externalizing behaviors, conscientiousness PGI and perseverance, and extraversion PGI and impulsivity. Longitudinal analyses indicated stronger personality PGI associations with some phenotypes (e.g., prosocial behavior) at ages 11-13. Behavioral correspondence to genetic propensity to adult personality is evident in early adolescence while certain correlates of personality PGIs may only manifest later in development.