Persons with high scores on neuroticism scales are more likely to express medically unfounded somatic complaints (Chaturvedi, 1986; Costa & McCrae, 1987) and to have catastrophic thoughts about symptoms that lead to medical service use (Goubert, Crombez, & Van Damme, 2004). These correlates of neuroticism are very important because they involve considerable personal suffering and costly use of health services, but it appears that the link between neuroticism and physical health goes beyond unfounded medical complaints. There is both indirect and direct evidence linking neuroticism with many kinds of serious physical health problems (Brickman, Yount, Blaney, Rothberg, & De-Nour, 1996; Drossman et al., 2000; T. W. Smith & MacKenzie, 2006; Suls & Bunde, 2005).
