  Background: Technical debt (TD) has been widely discussed in software
engineering research, and there is an emerging literature linking it to
developer characteristics. However, developer personality has not yet been
studied in this context. Aims and Method: We explore the relationship between
various personality traits (Five Factor Model, regulatory focus, and
narcissism) of developers and the introduction and removal of TD. To this end,
we complement an existing TD dataset with novel self-report personality data
gathered by surveying developers, and analyze 2,145 commits from 19 developers.
Results: We find that conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to
experience, and prevention focus are negatively associated with TD. There were
no significant results for extraversion, agreeableness, promotion focus, or
narcissism. Conclusions: We take our results as first evidence that developer
personality has a systematic influence on the introduction and removal of TD.
This has implications not only for future research, which could, for example,
study the effects of personality on downstream consequences of TD like defects,
but also for software engineering practitioners who may, for example, consider
developer personality in staffing decisions.
