The Big 5 Personality Test (OCEAN) is a widely recognized, research-backed assessment that breaks down personality into five key traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Unlike the popular Myers-Briggs test (MBTI), the Big 5 is rooted in scientific research and provides a more reliable measure of your personality and behavior.

Originally, I wanted to gather data from people with ADHD to see how their personalities align with the Big 5 traits. Along the way, I noticed a number of participants also reported other neurodivergence or mental health conditions like autism, anxiety, and depression. This opened up a whole new avenue of analysis—comparing how different mental health conditions might affect these traits. Let's take a closer look at what I found.

If you want to dive into the data and charts yourself, check out the more technical breakdown on the OCEAN Personality Survey Results page.

What Do the Big 5 Personality Traits Measure?

Before we dig into the data, it’s important to understand what each of the Big 5 personality traits actually measures. These five traits—Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism—cover a wide range of behaviors, preferences, and emotional responses.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what each trait means and what it could look like if you score high or low:

Openness

Your Openness score measures your creativity, curiosity, and openness to new experiences.

• High Openness: You’re open to different ideas or perspectives and you tend to enjoy trying new things. You love to learn for the sake of learning and you enjoy creative hobbies or intellectual discussions.

• Low Openness: You prefer routine and familiarity. Change may feel uncomfortable to you, and you're probably not exactly interested in abstract thinking or exploring new or foreign ideas.

Conscientiousness

Your Conscientiousness score can tell you about organization skills, self-discipline, and reliability.

• High Conscientiousness: You’re good at staying organized, meeting deadlines, and sticking to plans. You may come off as as responsible and dependable.

• Low Conscientiousness: You struggle with organization, procrastinate on tasks, and you don't always follow through on commitments. It’s not laziness—it's just hard for you to manage time and tasks.

Extraversion

Your Extraversion score reveals how outgoing, energetic, and sociable you are.

• High Extraversion: You enjoy being around others, feel energized by social interactions, and often seek out excitement or stimulation.

• Low Extraversion: You're more reserved or introverted, prefer quieter environments, and like time alone to recharge after social events.

Agreeableness

Your Agreeableness score reflects how cooperative, empathetic, and friendly you tend to be.

• High Agreeableness: You’re kind, considerate, and get along well with others. You tend to prioritize harmony and enjoy helping people.

• Low Agreeableness: You come off as skeptical, competitive, or blunt. You’re not necessarily mean; you're less interested in people-pleasing and more focused on your own needs or goals.

Neuroticism

Your Neuroticism score measures how neurotic you are. In other words - your emotional sensitivity and how prone you are to stress, worry, or overwhelm.

• High Neuroticism: You experience a lot of emotional ups and downs. Stress, anxiety, and negative emotions may feel overwhelming at times.

• Low Neuroticism: You’re more emotionally stable, calm under pressure, and don’t get easily rattled by stress or difficult situations.

How Neurodivergence and Mental Health Conditions Shape Personality Traits

As I gathered data from people with ADHD, Autism, and other mental health conditions, certain trends emerged across the Big 5 personality traits. However, there weren’t sweeping differences for all traits, and patterns varied between conditions.

Let’s break down what the survey data showed. There were 265 participants.

ADHD and The Big 5 Personality Traits

Low Conscientiousness

ADHDers scored much lower in Conscientiousness, with an average score of 29 (compared to 58 from neurotypicals and 60.3 from the autism-only group.) This make sense: many people with ADHD experience this on a daily basis—challenges with organization, self-discipline, and sticking to tasks.

Low Conscientiousness isn’t just about being messy or forgetful; it’s more about the daily struggles with executive functioning skills, a common challenge among ADHDers anyway. This doesn’t mean people with ADHD are doomed to be disorganized forever, but it does suggest why staying on top of things might feel like an uphill battle for them.

High Extraversion

With Extraversion, ADHDers scored somewhat higher compared to the neurotypical and autism groups, which lines up with the ADHD stereotypes that we're energetic or talkative. However, these results don't necessarily mean we’re all social butterflies all the time. Many of us actually identify as "extraverted introverts" or "introverted extroverts."

Not to mention, I didn't ask participants about their ADHD subtype, and studies have shown that inattentive ADHDers have different OCEAN results than those diagnosed with the hyperactive-impulsive ADHD subtype. (See sources)

High Neuroticism

Neuroticism was another area where ADHDers scored high. Unsurprisingly, adding anxiety, depression, and/or autism only increased their neurotic tendencies. Higher Neuroticism reflects the emotional intensity many people with ADHD feel—whether it’s shame, frustration due to impatience, or impulsive emotional reactions. This may be related to rejection sensitivity, and the ADHDer's tendency to worry about criticism and rejection from others.

Autism and The Big 5 Personality Traits

Low Extraversion

Autistic survey participants scored much lower in Extraversion than other groups. This explains why many autistic people feel more comfortable in quieter, less stimulating environments and often prefer to keep social interactions to a minimum. The difference between ADHD and autism could point to why autistic folks might come off as more introverted or reserved in social settings.

High(er) Conscientiousness

Autistics scored higher in Conscientiousness than ADHDers, averaging 60.3 (versus the 29 average for ADHDers.) This might seem surprising given the executive function challenges that come with both ADHD and autism.

However, it suggests that while ADHD primarily affects organization and self-discipline, autism might involve more rigid thinking patterns that could actually make routines and structure a bit more manageable. It’s a reminder that “executive dysfunction” doesn’t look the same across neurodivergent conditions.

High Neuroticism

Neuroticism also had an overlap with autism and ADHD, though it’s worth noting that the combination of the two conditions (AuDHD) resulted in the highest scores. This could mean that AuDHDers might experience more intense emotional dysregulation due to the combined effects of both conditions.

Anxiety’s Impact on OCEAN Scores

Higher Neuroticism

Across the board, participants with anxiety—whether they had ADHD or not—scored higher in Neuroticism. Neuroticism has to do with emotional sensitivity and how strongly we react to stress, so it’s no surprise that anxiety would push this score up.

In my survey, anxious people scored an average of 77 for Neuroticism and non-anxious people scored 62.5, showing how anxiety ramps up emotional reactivity and stress sensitivity, regardless of whether someone is neurodivergent.

Lower Extraversion

Extraversion, on the other hand, remained relatively stable, but leaned somewhat lower in those diagnosed with anxiety. This aligns with the idea that anxious people might shy away from social interactions or feel drained by them, even if they generally like being around others.

Lower Conscientiousness

When combined with ADHD, anxiety seems to make things like task management and organization even more difficult, contributing to lower Conscientiousness scores (29 for ADHDers with anxiety compared to 35 for ADHDers without anxiety).

It’s a perfect example of how co-occurring conditions can amplify certain struggles.

Depression's Impact on OCEAN Scores

Higher Neuroticism

Much like anxiety, depression drove up Neuroticism scores, with depressed participants averaging 77 (compared to 65 in those without depression.) Depression often comes with emotional symptoms, which makes sense given the increase in Neuroticism.

(Somewhat) Lower Agreeableness

Agreeableness scores dipped slightly with depression, averaging around 67 compared to non-depressed groups, who scored closer to 71-73. While the drop isn’t huge, it highlights how the emotional toll of depression may make it harder to engage in positive social interactions.

Depression can lead to irritability, frustration, and a general sense of detachment, which may explain why participants experiencing depression scored lower on this trait.

Let's Wrap This Up

The results from my informal research survey highlight how neurodivergence and mental health conditions can shape different aspects of personality. Whether it's ADHD’s lower Conscientiousness or depression’s impact on Agreeableness, understanding these patterns can help us grasp why certain behaviors or struggles may arise.

But, of course, my survey didn't look at everything! Many factors can determine someone's score on The Big 5 Personality Test that weren't mentioned here, including your age, gender, living situation, whether or not you've just experienced trauma, pregnancy and childbirth, being a parent, going to school, etc. Even still, the results from this survey were certainly interesting!

It’s not about boxing people into rigid categories, but recognizing the nuances of how mental health intersects with personality. The more we understand these connections, the better we can address the challenges that come with them. (And we can all afford to be more aware and understanding of brains that are different from our own.)

Please keep in mind that this informal research survey was not scientifically peer-reviewed. Although the results are in line with many related (official) studies, the results from my survey are not to be perceived as fact.