Doctors are more agreeable and extroverted than their patients, but also more neurotic and less open, according to Australian research that suggests personality differences might impact on communication and treatment success.
The findings come from a study that compared two nationally representative surveys of self-reported personality traits; a study of the general public and a study of doctors.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey involved 25,358 members of the general public aged 20-85, which was further divided into 18,705 patients, 1261 highly educated people, and 5814 workers in caring professions.
The Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) survey involved 19,351 doctors, including 5844 GPs, 1776 “person-oriented” specialists (for example, obstetrics/gynaecology, paediatrics and psychiatry), and 3245 “technique-oriented” specialists (for example, endocrinologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, neurologists and oncologists).
Results, published in BMJ Open [link here], showed that doctors were more agreeable, extroverted, conscientious and neurotic than patients but less open.
The researchers said “unexpectedly” doctors also had a lower locus of control than the general population, meaning they were more likely to believe external forces, such as luck or powerful others, determined outcomes, rather than themselves.
Agreeable
Breaking down the results further, doctors were more agreeable than those who worked in “caring professions” such as education and support workers.
The highly educated appeared to be the most comparable group to doctors, except for neuroticism and a difference in agreeableness between the two groups which did not reach statistical significance, the researchers from the University of Queensland/Carleton University, Canada, and the University of Melbourne, said.
There were almost no statistically significant differences in personality between the different doctor specialities, with the exception of GPs who were more agreeable.
Compared with all doctors, technique-oriented specialists were more conscientious and less extroverted but the observed difference was not statistically significant.