Disease avoidance and personality: A meta-analysis

This study provides a meta-analysis of 21 published and unpublished studies using over 32,000 participants to evaluate how individual differences in disease avoidance (i.e., disgust sensitivity, germ aversion) are correlated with personality factors. Greater disease-avoidance traits were associated with greater neuroticism/emotionality (r = 0.19) and conscientiousness (r = 0.08), as well as lower openness to experience (r = −0.11) and extraversion (r = −0.04). Disease-avoidance traits were not significantly associated with agreeableness. Effect sizes were generally consistent across disease avoidance and personality measures and sample characteristics. Findings support behavioral immune system models of disease avoidance and underscore the importance of disease avoidance for behavioral tendencies.