@article {13823, title = {Purpose in Life and Risk of Falls: A Meta-Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Prospective Associations.}, journal = {Gerontology Geriatric Medicine}, volume = {10}, year = {2024}, pages = {23337214241236039}, abstract = {

Purpose in life is an aspect of well-being that is associated with better health outcomes in older adulthood. We examine the association between purpose in life and likelihood of a recent fall and risk of an incident fall over time. Purpose in life and falls were reported concurrently and falls were reported again up to 16 years later in four established longitudinal studies of older adults (total = 25,418). A random-effects meta-analysis of the four samples indicated that purpose was associated with a 14\% lower likelihood of having fallen recently at baseline (meta-analytic = 0.88, 95\% CI [0.84-0.92]). Among participants who reported no falls at baseline ( = 15,632), purpose was associated with a nearly 10\% lower risk of an incident fall over the up to 16-year follow-up (meta-analytic HR = 0.92, 95\% CI [0.90-0.94]). These associations were independent of age, sex, race, ethnicity, and education, were not moderated by these factors, and persisted controlling for physical activity and disease burden. Purpose in life is a meaningful aspect of well-being that may be useful to identify individuals at risk for falling, particularly among individuals without traditional risk factors, and be a target of intervention to reduce fall risk.

}, keywords = {Aging, Falls, meaning, meta-analysis, prospective, purpose}, issn = {2333-7214}, doi = {10.1177/23337214241236039}, author = {Sutin, Angelina R and Luchetti, Martina and Stephan, Yannick and Canada, Brice and Terracciano, Antonio} } @article {12474, title = {Personality and fatigue: meta-analysis of seven prospective studies.}, journal = {Scientific Reports}, volume = {12}, year = {2022}, pages = {9156}, abstract = {

The present study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between the five major personality traits and fatigue. Participants were adults aged 16-104~years old (N > 40,000 at baseline) from the Health and Retirement Study, the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study graduate and sibling samples, the National Health and Aging Trends Survey, the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Personality traits, fatigue, demographic factors, and other covariates were assessed at baseline, and fatigue was assessed again 5-20~years later. Across all samples, higher neuroticism was related to a higher risk of concurrent (meta-analytic OR = 1.73, 95\% CI 1.62-1.86) and incident (OR = 1.38, 95\% CI 1.29-1.48) fatigue. Higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were associated with a lower likelihood of concurrent (meta-analytic OR range 0.67-0.86) and incident (meta-analytic OR range 0.80-0.92) fatigue. Self-rated health and physical inactivity partially accounted for these associations. There was little evidence that age or gender moderated these associations. This study provides consistent evidence that personality is related to fatigue. Higher neuroticism and lower extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are risk factors for fatigue.

}, keywords = {Cross-Sectional Studies, ELSA, Fatigue, Personality, Prospective Studies}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/s41598-022-12707-2}, author = {Stephan, Yannick and Sutin, Angelina R and Luchetti, Martina and Canada, Brice and Terracciano, Antonio} } @article {12223, title = {Personality and subjective age: Evidence from six samples.}, journal = {Psychology and Aging}, volume = {37}, year = {2022}, pages = {401-412}, abstract = {

Subjective age is associated with health-related outcomes across adulthood. The present study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between personality traits and subjective age. Participants ( > 31,000) were from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS), the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the National Health and Aging Study (NHATS), the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study Graduate (WLSG) and Siblings (WLSS) samples, and the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA). Demographic factors, personality traits, and subjective age were assessed at baseline. Subjective age was assessed again in the MIDUS, the HRS, and the NHATS, 4 to almost 20 years later. Across the samples and a meta-analysis, higher neuroticism was related to an older subjective age, whereas higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were associated with a younger subjective age. Self-rated health, physical activity, chronic conditions, and depressive symptoms partially mediated these relationships. There was little evidence that chronological age moderated these associations. Multilevel longitudinal analyses found similar associations with the intercept and weak evidence for an association with the slope in the opposite of the expected direction: Lower neuroticism and higher extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were related to feeling relatively older over time. The present study provides replicable evidence that personality is related to subjective age. It extends existing conceptualization of subjective age as a biopsychosocial marker of aging by showing that how old or young individuals feel partly reflects personality traits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

}, keywords = {health-related outcomes, Personality Traits, Subjective age}, issn = {1939-1498}, doi = {10.1037/pag0000678}, author = {Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Kornadt, Anna and Canada, Brice and Antonio Terracciano} } @article {11498, title = {Personality and Headaches: Findings From Six Prospective Studies.}, journal = {Psychosomatic Medicine}, volume = {83}, year = {2021}, pages = {118-124}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined the association between personality traits and concurrent and incident headaches.

METHODS: Participants (n = 34,989), aged 16 to 107 years were from the Midlife in the United States study, the Midlife in Japan study, the Health and Retirement Study, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study Graduate and Siblings samples, and the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences. Demographic factors, personality traits, and headaches were assessed at baseline. Headaches were assessed again 4 to almost 20 years later.

RESULTS: Across the samples, higher neuroticism was related to a higher likelihood of concurrent (combined odd ratio = 1.41, 95\% confidence interval [CI] = 1.28-1.55, p < .001) and incident (combined odd ratio = 1.28, 95\% CI = 1.12-1.46, p < .001) headaches, whereas higher extraversion was associated with a lower likelihood of concurrent (combined odd ratio = 0.87, 95\% CI = 0.84-0.89, p < .001) and incident (combined odd ratio = 0.90, 95\% CI = 0.85-0.96, p = .001) headaches. Higher conscientiousness (combined odd ratio = 0.90, 95\% CI = 0.86-0.94, p < .001) and openness (combined odd ratio = 0.95, 95\% CI = 0.90-0.99, p = .025) were associated with a lower probability of reporting concurrent headaches. Agreeableness was unrelated to headaches. Sex was not a consistent moderator.

CONCLUSIONS: The present study provides robust evidence that neuroticism and introversion are risk factors for headaches in concurrent and prospective analyses across multiple cohorts.

}, keywords = {headaches, Personality}, issn = {1534-7796}, doi = {10.1097/PSY.0000000000000902}, author = {Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Martina Luchetti and Canada, Brice and Antonio Terracciano} } @article {10056, title = {Personality and falls among older adults: Evidence from a longitudinal cohort.}, journal = {The Journals of Gerontology, Series B}, volume = {75}, year = {2020}, pages = {1905-1910}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVES: Falls can have catastrophic consequences, especially for older adults. The present study examined whether personality traits predict the incidence of falls in older age.

METHOD: Participants were older adults aged from 65 to 99 years (N = 4,759) drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. Personality traits and demographic factors were assessed at baseline. Falls were tracked for up to 11 years.

RESULTS: Over the follow-up period, 2,811 individuals reported falls. Cox regression analyses that included demographic covariates indicated that lower conscientiousness and higher neuroticism increased the risk of falling. Disease burden, depressive symptoms, and physical inactivity mediated the associations between both traits and falls incidence, whereas smoking status and handgrip strength mediated the neuroticism-falls incidence association.

DISCUSSION: This study provides new prospective evidence that personality predicts the incidence of falls in older adults and suggest that personality assessment may help identifying individuals at higher risk of falling.

}, keywords = {Falls, Longitudinal data, Personality}, issn = {1758-5368}, doi = {10.1093/geronb/gbz040}, author = {Canada, Brice and Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Antonio Terracciano} } @article {10865, title = {Personality and HbA1c: Findings from Six Samples}, journal = {Psychoneuroendocrinology}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Personality traits are associated with risk of diabetes, but most research to date has relied on participants reported diagnosis rather than objective markers of glycaemia. The present study examined the association between the five major domains of personality (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Participants (N > 26,000) were individuals aged from 16 to 104 years from six large community samples from the US, Europe, and Japan who had data on personality, demographic factors, body mass index (BMI), physical activity, and HbA1c. Of the five factors, only higher conscientiousness was related consistently to lower HbA1c level across most samples and in the meta-analysis. Conscientiousness was also related to lower risk of HbA1c >=6.5\% (OR = .85, 95\%CI = 0.80-0.90). BMI and physical activity partially mediated the link between conscientiousness and HbA1c. There were not consistent associations for the other four traits across the six samples and no consistent associations between personality and likelihood of undiagnosed diabetes. The present study found replicable associations between conscientiousness and HbA1c in adulthood. Assessment of conscientiousness may improve the identification of individuals at risk of diabetes and guide personalized interventions for regulation of HbA1c level.}, keywords = {Diabetes, ELSA, HbA1c, Personality}, isbn = {0306-4530}, doi = {10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.104782}, author = {Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Martina Luchetti and Canada, Brice and Antonio Terracciano} } @article {10950, title = {Personality And Self-Rated Health Across Eight Cohort Studies}, journal = {Social Science \& Medicine}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Rationale There is substantial evidence for the predictive value of single-item selfrated health measures for a range of health outcomes. Past research has found an association between personality traits and self-rated health. However, there has not been a multi-cohort large-scale study that has examined this link, and few studies have examined the association between personality and change in self-rated health. Objective To examine the concurrent and longitudinal association between personality and self-rated health.MethodParticipants were individuals aged from 16 to 107 years (N> 46,000) drawn from eight large longitudinal samples from the US, Europe, and Japan. Brief measures of the five-factor model of personality, a single item measure of self-rated health, and covariates (age, sex, and education, and race) were assessed at baseline and self-rated health was measured again 3 to 20 years later. Results In cross-sectional analyses, higher neuroticism was related to lower self-rated health whereas higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with better self-rated health across most samples. A meta-analysis revealed that a one standard deviation higher neuroticism was related to more than 50\% higher risk of fair to poor health, whereas a one standard deviation higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness was associated with at least 15\% lower risk of fair or poor health. A similar pattern was found in longitudinal analyses: personality was associated with risk of self-rated excellent/very good/good health at baseline becoming fair/poor at follow-up. In multilevel analyses, however, personality was weakly related to trajectories of self-rated health and in the opposite of the expected direction. Conclusions The present study shows replicable cross-sectional and small longitudinal associations between personality and self-rated health. This study suggests that lower neuroticism, higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness are related to more favorable self-evaluations of health.}, keywords = {Adulthood, ELSA, longitudinal, Personality, Self-rated health}, isbn = {0277-9536}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113245}, author = {Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Martina Luchetti and Hognon, Louis and Canada, Brice and Antonio Terracciano} } @article { ISI:000504501200001, title = {Personality and Motoric Cognitive Risk Syndrome}, journal = {JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY}, year = {2019}, type = {Article; Early Access}, abstract = {OBJECTIVES To examine whether five major personality traits are related to the motoric cognitive risk (MCR) syndrome, a pre-dementia syndrome characterized by cognitive complaints and slow gait speed. DESIGN Cross-sectional. SETTING Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the National Health and Aging Trends Survey (NHATS). PARTICIPANTS Dementia-free older adults aged 65 to 107 years (N > 8000). MEASUREMENTS In both samples, participants provided data on personality, cognitive complaints, and measures of gait speed, as well as on demographic factors, physical activity, depressive symptoms, and body mass index (BMI). RESULTS Across the two samples and a meta-analysis, higher neuroticism was related to higher risk of MCR (combined odds ratio [OR] = 1.32; 95\% confidence interval [CI] = 1.21-1.45; P < .001), whereas higher extraversion (combined OR = .71; 95\% CI = .65-.79; P < .001) and conscientiousness (combined OR = .70; 95\% CI = .62-.78; P < .001) were associated with a lower likelihood of MCR. Higher openness was also related to a lower risk of MCR in the HRS and the meta-analysis (combined OR = .77; 95\% CI = .70-.85; P < .001), whereas agreeableness was protective only in the HRS (OR = .83; 95\% CI = .74-.92; P < .001). Additional analyses indicated that physical activity, depressive symptoms, and BMI partially accounted for these associations. CONCLUSION This study adds to existing research on the factors related to the risk of MCR by showing an association with personality traits. Personality assessment may help to identify individuals who may be targeted by interventions focused on reducing the risk of MCR and ultimately of dementia.}, keywords = {cognitive complaint, motoric cognitive risk, Personality, walking speed}, issn = {0002-8614}, doi = {10.1111/jgs.16282, Early Access Date = {DEC 2019}, author = {Yannick Stephan and Angelina R Sutin and Canada, Brice and Antonio Terracciano} }