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Stubbornness, perfectionism and indecision will probably not make you very popular, and a study says they may also raise your risk of developing an anxiety disorder.

Excessive devotion to work and a reduction in the ability to express emotions also appear to contribute.

A recent study also found that, at least in urban areas, nearly 12 percent of people show “severe” stubbornness and about 8 percent show a high level of perfectionism.

The research was recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association Orleans by an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

He noted that the study cannot prove that the personality traits cause the anxiety problems, but can only show an association between them. But it is certainly plausible that the traits, which probably came first, contribute to the development of anxiety disorders.

“It looks like in this case clinical judgment is being proven correct,” said an expert on personality disorders at the University Of Iowa College Of Medicine.

Results are based on interviews lasting 90 minutes to three hours with 759 residents of east Baltimore. They were drawn from 3,481 subjects interviewed in a random sampling. Some had shown a psychiatric problem in the first screening, while others were chosen randomly.

Researchers assessed each person on a 0-3 scale for severity for each of five traits: perfectionism, stubbornness, excessive work devotion, indecision and what psychiatrists call emotional constriction, which is reduced ability to express emotions.

The greater the total number of points accumulated, the higher the person’s risk of having any of a number of anxiety disorders, analysis showed.

The disorders included obsessive compulsive disorder, to which a person has persistent intrusive thoughts or impulses, or does a thing like repetitive hand-washing in response to his obsessions or to some stereotyped way.

Another was generalized anxiety disorder, which is unrealistic or excessive anxiety about two or more life circumstances for six months or more.

Also linked were agoraphobia - the fear of being alone to a public place from which the person thinks escape would be difficult or help unavailable if he were incapacitated; or so-called “simple” phobia, to which a person persistently fears other specific things.

Researchers found that a person with 8 points on their scale ran 15 times the risk for generalized anxiety disorder than a person with a score of 0. The degree of risk for the other anxiety disorders was similar.

These personality traits might promote anxiety disorders by causing conflict with peers and family members. Another possibility is that some biologic vulnerability produces both the traits and the anxiety problems.

Some 27.8 percent of the population has some degree of stubbornness and 11.7 percent shows a severe level, researchers estimated. Severe stubbornness is a general tendency to hold views so strongly that a person gets into frequent arguments.

Perfectionism was estimated to appear to 30.8 percent of the general population.

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