Personality differences between sex and sexual orientation group

It has been argued that because some biological underpinnings affecting personality occur in a continuum (e.g. hormonal exposure), personality scores in a given population should also occur in a continuum. Personality sex differences have been widely studied but these do not allow to study personality as a continuum. To tackle this limitation, Lippa (2001) suggested using sexual orientation. The Shift and the Inversion Hypotheses have been proposed to predict how the personality scores of homosexual participants would differ from their heterosexual counterparts. However, these efforts have been largely ignored. This study used a large UK sample to compare these hypotheses using personality scores at the facet and domain level. The results suggested that there was evidence for the Shift and the Inversion Hypotheses at the facet level, but these patterns were obscured at domain level where groups tended to cluster according to sexual orientation. Moreover, Neuroticism was often responsible for the largest differences across groups at facet and domain level.