A holistic view of gender traits and personality traits predict human health.

Modern mainstream psychology predicts human health by breaking down its psychological components, but this ignores the fact that human psyche actually exists as a whole. Therefore, we devised a method based on holism combined with reductionism to calculate the parts-whole relationship, and used this method to predict various health outcomes. Three studies (N = 5,986 Chinese people) have consistently demonstrated that the parts-whole relationships actually serves as superior predictors of human health than psychological components isolated. In Study 1, masculinity and femininity were identified as risk and protective factors, respectively, for aggression. The ratio of masculinity within the whole gender role orientation framework predicted aggression more strongly than risk factors alone. In Study 2, both masculinity and femininity acted as protective factors against depression, with their additive effects being better predictors of depression than either trait alone. In Study 3, neuroticism and openness were seen as risk factors for loneliness, and conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness as protective factors. The ratio of these two risk factors in the whole Big Five personality traits framework yields better predictors of loneliness than each risk factors alone. This study provides a new perspective for combining reductionism and holism to predict human health outcomes.