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.

翻译：背景：技术债务（TD）在软件工程研究中已被广泛讨论，且新兴文献将其与开发者特征相关联。然而，开发者人格在这一背景下尚未得到研究。目标与方法：我们探索开发者多种人格特质（五因素模型、调节聚焦与自恋）与技术债务引入及消除之间的关系。为此，我们通过调查开发者收集新颖的自我报告人格数据，对现有技术债务数据集进行补充，并分析了来自19位开发者的2,145次提交。结果：研究发现责任心、情绪稳定性、开放性及防御聚焦与技术债务呈负相关。外向性、宜人性、促进聚焦或自恋未呈现显著结果。结论：我们视研究结果为开发者人格系统性影响技术债务引入与消除的初步证据。这不仅对未来研究（例如：可探索人格对缺陷等TD下游后果的影响）具有启示意义，也对软件工程实践者（例如：在人员配置决策中考虑开发者人格）具有参考价值。