Elucidating the relationship between noise sensitivity and personality

Abstract

Sensitivity to unwanted sounds is common in general and clinical populations. Noise sensitivity refers to physiological and psychological internal states of an individual that increase the degree of reactivity to noise in general. The current study investigated the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and noise sensitivity using the 240-item NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) and 35-item The Noise-Sensitivity-Questionnaire (NoiSeQ) scales, respectively. Overall, the Big Five accounted for 33% of the variance in noise sensitivity, with the Introversion-Extroversion dimension explaining the most variability. Furthermore, the Big Five personality dimensions (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) had an independent effect on noise sensitivity, which were linear. However, additional analyses indicated that the influence of gender and age must be considered when examining the relationship between personality and noise sensitivity. The findings caution against pooling data across genders, not controlling for age, and using personality dimensions in isolation.

Personality Traits Bias the Perceived Quality of Sonic Environments

“…Our present results corroborate the findings by Shepherd et al [15], producing robust evidence that noise sensitivity can be predicted from extraversion and conscientiousness. Note that emotional stability was not a significant predictor in both of these studies.…”

“…Noise sensitivity correlated negatively with ratings of Pleasantness, which replicates previous findings [15] and is in line with the definition of the construct. Noise-tolerant participants were biased to rate the restaurant soundscapes as more pleasant.…”

“…Finally, we report results from our data following the investigation by Shepherd and collaborators [15], who hypothesised that noise sensitivity might be an expression of underlying and broader personality dimensions. They reported that a linear regression model with the Big Five dimensions as predictors explained 33% of the variance in noise sensitivity among their participants.…”

“…At the level of the individual, psychological differences can be charted in terms of broadly defined personality dimensions [7][8][9][10] or narrowly defined traits, such as noise sensitivity [11][12][13][14]. A trait of the latter kind can be described as a "lower order personality construct" ( [15], p. 166). A question of interest is the extent to which personality traits, both narrow and broad, influence the soundscape.…”

Noise sensitivity: A neurophenomenological perspective

“…Authors are starting to acknowledge the limited view on NS that we currently have (see 8). Recently Shepherd et al concluded that delve into the nature and origins of NS is necessary in order to construct a gold standard NS questionnaire and overcome some of the discrepancies in the literature (21). We can only presume that NS has been misspecified in some way as a construct either because it has not been articulated comprehensibly, or because of the non-adequacy of the instruments used to measure it.…”