Personality factors in the elderly: The relationship between cognitive functioning and depressive symptoms

Avaliação Psicológica, 2017, 16(2), 117-195 ABSTRACT Personality factors have been highlighted as possible predictors for cognitive performance and depressive symptomatology in the elderly. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between the five principal personality factors, depressive symptomatology and cognitive performance of elderly during attention, memory and executive function tasks. Additionally, there was the attempt to investigate the predictor role played by depression symptoms and cognitive functioning in personality factors. The convenience sampling method was used and 72 elderly persons, aged between 60 and 85 years, were evaluated. They answered questions about sociodemographic conditions, personality factors (NEO-FFI-R), depressive symptomatology (GDS-15) and underwent an evaluation of their cognitive functions. Results showed a positive to moderate relationship between Neuroticism and depressive symptomatology, as well as a negative to moderate relationship between Openness to experience and depressive symptomatology. Depressive symptoms emerge as the strongest predictor correlated to the highest Neuroticism indices and the lowest of Extroversion, Openness to experience, and Conscientiousness. Non-perseverative errors on the WCST were strongly associated, with the higher scores on Neuroticism and lower in Extraversion in the sample. The investigation points towards the existence of a relationship among personality, depressive symptomatology, and cognitive functioning factors in the elderly, however, further studies are suggested.