Etiological pathways of depressive and anxiety symptoms linked to personality traits: A genetically-informative longitudinal study

•Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) was genetically positively correlated with both depression and anxiety.•Behavioral activation system (BAS) was genetically negatively correlated with only depression.•Genetically-mediated pathway of BAS etiologically distinguish depression from anxiety, although these two symptoms were phenotypically highly correlated.•Genetic variances of the two personality traits (i.e., BIS and BAS) explained all subsequent genetic variances of depression and anxiety.