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Personality and Health, Subjective Well‐Being, and Longevity
Author(s) -
Friedman Howard S.,
Kern Margaret L.,
Reynolds Chandra A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00613.x
Subject(s) - neuroticism , personality , psychology , conscientiousness , longevity , extraversion and introversion , big five personality traits , developmental psychology , gerontology , clinical psychology , social psychology , medicine
Personality traits can be employed to guide understanding of trajectories to health and longevity, but long‐term longitudinal study and multifaceted assessment of healthy aging are crucial. Following up on the life span study initiated by Lewis Terman, we assessed 4 validated factors of personality in young adulthood in 1940, constructed a multifactor measure of participants' healthy aging in 1986, and collected death certificates through 2007 (to determine longevity) on a sample of 1,312 Terman participants (732 men). Neuroticism predicted worse physical health and subjective well‐being in old age and, for women, higher mortality risk, but for men, neuroticism predicted decreased mortality risk. For both sexes, extraversion predicted old‐age social competence, whereas conscientiousness predicted men's old‐age productivity. Differential patterns of association between personality traits and healthy aging components are informative about individual personality characteristics and long‐term health outcomes.