Are Changes in Somatic Health Reflected Differently in Updated Self-Ratings by Big-Five Personality Traits?

OBJECTIVES: This longitudinal study tests whether the Big-Five personality traits influence the changes individuals make in self-rated health (SRH) as they adjust their initial level to account for information on concurrent changes in disease burden, activities of daily living (ADLs), and pain.

METHODS: A bi-variate Latent Growth Curve model was fitted to data to estimate longitudinal associations between SRH and each health measure across up-to-five repeated observations, collected from the year 2006 to 2018 from 13,096 participants in the Health and Retirement Study.

RESULTS: Negative longitudinal associations between SRH and all three health reports were significantly stronger for those who are more conscientious. No significant moderation was found for the other four personality traits.

DISCUSSION: Compared to the less conscientious, highly conscientious people may assign greater importance to specific health reports when rating and revising their assessments of SRH. This moderating effect was previously tested but not supported.