Grant W. Edmonds

Longitudinal correlated changes in conscientiousness, preventative health-related behaviors, and self-perceived physical health.

OBJECTIVE Previous research has found that conscientiousness has positive associations with preventative health-related behaviors and self-perceived health, but little is known about the links between changes in these variables over time. In the present study, we examined how levels and changes in conscientiousness were linked to levels and changes in both preventative health-related behaviors and self-perceived physical health. METHOD Personality and health questionnaires were administered to participants in two waves, with an interval of approximately three years. Participants ranged in age from 19 to 94. To elucidate the tripartite relations between conscientiousness, preventative health-related behaviors, and self-perceived physical health, we used latent change models to estimate levels and changes of these latent constructs over time. RESULTS Changes in conscientiousness were significantly and positively correlated with changes in preventative health behaviors and changes in self-perceived physical health. Changes in preventative health behaviors partially mediated the relation between changes in conscientiousness and changes in self-perceived physical health. CONCLUSIONS This longitudinal study extends previous research on conscientiousness and health by exploring the relations between latent variables over a 3-year period. It provides evidence that increases in conscientiousness and preventative health-related behaviors are associated with improvements in self-perceived health over the same time period.

Childhood conscientiousness relates to objectively measured adult physical health four decades later.

OBJECTIVE Many life span personality-and-health models assume that childhood personality traits result in life-course pathways leading through morbidity to mortality. Although childhood conscientiousness in particular predicts mortality, there are few prospective studies that have investigated the associations between childhood personality and objective health status in adulthood. The present study tested this crucial assumption of life span models of personality and health using a comprehensive assessment of the Big Five traits in childhood (M age = 10 years) and biomarkers of health over 40 years later (M age = 51 years). METHODS Members of the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort (N = 753; 368 men, 385 women) underwent a medical examination at mean age 51. Their global health status was evaluated by well-established clinical indicators that were objectively measured using standard protocols, including blood pressure, lipid profile, fasting blood glucose, and body mass index. These indicators were combined to evaluate overall physiological dysregulation and grouped into five more homogeneous subcomponents (glucose intolerance, blood pressure, lipids, obesity, and medications). RESULTS Lower levels of childhood conscientiousness predicted more physiological dysregulation (β = -.11, p < .05), greater obesity (β = -.10, p < .05), and worse lipid profiles (β = -.10, p < .05), after controlling for the other Big Five childhood personality traits, gender, ethnicity, parental home ownership, and adult conscientiousness. CONCLUSIONS These findings are consistent with a key assumption in life span models that childhood conscientiousness is associated with objective health status in older adults. They open the way for testing mechanisms by which childhood personality may influence mortality through morbidity; mechanisms that could then be targeted for intervention.

A life-span behavioral mechanism relating childhood conscientiousness to adult clinical health.

OBJECTIVE To investigate a life-span health-behavior mechanism relating childhood personality to adult clinical health. METHODS Childhood Big Five personality traits at mean age 10, adult Big Five personality traits, adult clinically assessed dysregulation at mean age 51 (a summary of dysregulated blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipids), and a retrospective, cumulative measure of life-span health-damaging behavior (lifetime smoking, physical inactivity, and body mass index from age 20) were assessed in the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort (N = 759). Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model with direct and indirect paths from a childhood Conscientiousness factor to an adult Conscientiousness factor, life-span health-damaging behaviors, educational attainment, adult cognitive ability, and adult clinical health. RESULTS For both men and women, childhood Conscientiousness influenced health-damaging behaviors through educational attainment, and life-span health-damaging behaviors predicted dysregulation. Childhood Conscientiousness predicted adult Conscientiousness, which did not predict any other variables in the model. For men, childhood Conscientiousness predicted dysregulation through educational attainment and health-damaging behaviors. For women, childhood Conscientiousness predicted dysregulation through educational attainment and adult cognitive ability. CONCLUSIONS Assessing cumulative life-span health behaviors is a novel approach to the study of health-behavior mechanisms. Childhood Conscientiousness appears to influence health assessed more than 40 years later through complex processes involving educational attainment, cognitive ability, and the accumulated effects of health behaviors, but not adult Conscientiousness.

Personality Change at Mid-Life is Associated with Changes in Self-Rated Health: Evidence from the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort.

Personality traits change across the lifespan, and trait change, in addition to trait level, may be related to health. Longitudinal data from the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort were used to investigate associations between changes in traits and self-rated health (SRH). Participants (N = 733, Mage = 44.4) completed measures of the Big Five personality traits and SRH twice approximately 3 years apart. Personality trait changes were associated with SRH change. Additionally, increases on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness, and decreases on Neuroticism, predicted increases in SRH, even when controlling for gender and education. Relating correlated trait change at mid-life, when traits reach peak stability, to a consequential health outcome such as SRH change, demonstrates the value of treating both traits and health indicators as dynamic variables.

A Big Five approach to self-regulation: personality traits and health trajectories in the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health

Self-regulatory processes influencing health outcomes may have their origins in childhood personality traits. The Big Five approach to personality was used here to investigate the associations between childhood traits, trait-related regulatory processes and changes in health across middle age. Participants (N = 1176) were members of the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health. Teacher assessments of the participants’ traits when they were in elementary school were related to trajectories of self-rated health measured on 6 occasions over 14 years in middle age. Five trajectories of self-rated health were identified by latent class growth analysis: Stable Excellent, Stable Very Good, Good, Decreasing and Poor. Childhood Conscientiousness was the only childhood trait to predict membership in the Decreasing class vs. the combined healthy classes (Stable Excellent, Stable Very Good and Good), even after controlling for adult Conscientiousness and the other adult Big Five traits. The Decreasing class had poorer objectively assessed clinical health measured on one occasion in middle age, was less well-educated, and had a history of more lifespan health-damaging behaviors compared to the combined healthy classes. These findings suggest that higher levels of childhood Conscientiousness (i.e. greater self-discipline and goal-directedness) may prevent subsequent health decline decades later through self-regulatory processes involving the acquisition of lifelong healthful behavior patterns and higher educational attainment.

Childhood Conscientiousness and Leukocyte Telomere Length 40 Years Later in Adult Women--Preliminary Findings of a Prospective Association.

Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) shortens with age, and is a prospective marker of mortality related to cardiovascular disease. Many health behaviors and social environmental factors have been found to be associated with LTL. Several of these are also associated with conscientiousness, a dispositional personality trait. Conscientiousness is a propensity to be planful, adhere to social norms, and inhibit pre-potent responses. Like LTL, conscientiousness is prospectively related to mortality, possibly through cumulative effects on health over the life course via multiple pathways. As a result, we hypothesized that childhood levels of conscientiousness would predict LTL prospectively in adulthood. We selected a sample of 60 women in the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort; 30 described by their teachers as high on conscientiousness in childhood and 30 described as low on the trait. Dried blood spot samples collected in adulthood 40 years later were used as sources of DNA for the LTL assay. Conscientiousness was associated with longer LTL (p = .02). Controlling for age did not account for this association. Controlling for education and physiological dysregulation partially attenuated the association, and the effect remained significant when accounting for differences in LTL across cultural groups. These results represent the first evidence that childhood personality prospectively predicts LTL 40 years later in adulthood. Our findings would be consistent with a mediation hypothesis whereby conscientiousness predicts life paths and trajectories of health that are reflected in rates of LTL erosion across the lifespan.

Purpose in life in emerging adulthood: Development and validation of a new brief measure

Accruing evidence points to the value of studying purpose in life across adolescence and emerging adulthood. Research though is needed to understand the unique role of purpose in life in predicting well-being and developmentally relevant outcomes during emerging adulthood. The current studies (total n = 669) found support for the development of a new brief measure of purpose in life using data from American and Canadian samples, while demonstrating evidence for two important findings. First, purpose in life predicted well-being during emerging adulthood, even when controlling for the Big Five personality traits. Second, purpose in life was positively associated with self-image and negatively associated with delinquency, again controlling for personality traits. Findings are discussed with respect to how studying purpose in life can help understand which individuals are more likely to experience positive transitions into adulthood.

Lifetime trauma, personality traits, and health: A pathway to midlife health status.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated whether lifetime experience of trauma is related to personality through instrumental and reactive trait processes, and whether lifetime trauma is a mechanism underlying the association between childhood conscientiousness and objectively assessed adult physical health. METHOD Participants (N = 831) were 442 women and 389 men from the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health. Teacher assessments of personality were obtained when the participants were in elementary school. Self-reported adult personality assessments, lifetime histories of trauma experience, and objectively assessed physiological dysregulation were obtained between ages 45-55. RESULTS Women tended to report more high-betrayal trauma than men, whereas men reported more low-betrayal trauma than women. Women who were judged by their teachers to be less agreeable and less conscientious in childhood reported more lifetime trauma, suggesting instrumental trait processes. For both genders, neuroticism and openness/intellect/imagination in adulthood, but not in childhood, were associated with lifetime trauma, suggesting reactive trait processes. For both genders, trauma experience was correlated with dysregulation and with Body Mass Index (BMI). The indirect paths from childhood conscientiousness to adult dysregulation and BMI through total teen and adult trauma were significant for women, but not for men (indirect effect for womens dysregulation = -.025, p = .040, 95% confidence interval [CI] = -.048, -.001; indirect effect for womens BMI = -.037, p = .009, 95% CI = -.067, -.008). CONCLUSION Teen and adult trauma experience appears to be a hitherto unidentified mechanism in women underlying the association between conscientiousness and health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Childhood Personality, Betrayal Trauma, and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Adulthood: A Lifespan Perspective on Conscientiousness and Betrayal Traumas as Predictors of a Biomarker of Cellular Ageing

Conscientiousness is associated with longevity. As such, identifying the biological pathways linking personality to mortality is important. This study employs longitudinal data spanning >40 years to test prospective associations with leukocyte telomere length (LTL), a potential marker of cellular ageing. Because telomeres shorten over time, and are sensitive to oxidative stress, shorter LTL may reflect cumulative damage associated with negative health behaviours and past stressful events. We investigated childhood conscientiousness as a protective factor, expecting an association with longer LTL in adulthood, possibly reflecting slower LTL shortening. Potential lifespan pathways involving childhood trauma, smoking behaviours, and body mass index (BMI) were explored. Childhood conscientiousness showed a small raw association with LTL (r = .08, p = .04), although this effect did not persist when controlling for age and sex. Despite this lack of a direct effect on LTL, we detected an indirect effect operating jointly through BMI and smoking. Higher rates of childhood betrayal trauma were associated with shorter LTL. Contrary to our hypothesis that conscientiousness would buffer this effect, we found evidence for an interaction with childhood betrayal traumas where the association between childhood betrayal traumas and LTL was larger for those higher on conscientiousness in childhood. Copyright

Personality development in adolescence

Abstract This chapter discusses personality development during the adolescent years. First, we discuss typologies and taxonomies commonly employed to describe adolescent personality, focusing on the relative utility of the Big Five personality classification scheme for adolescents. Second, we discuss personality trait change during the adolescent years, describing both the lack of clear normative age trends, as well as the capacity for variability in individual-level trajectories of change. Third, we consider two primary frameworks that may inform our predictions of individual-level fluctuations in personality change, namely the identity development and maturation processes ongoing in adolescence. Fourth, we touch upon the recent investigations into the development of narcissistic ideation and traits, as well as the evidence for normative or cross-cohort trends in adolescent narcissism. Finally, we consider future directions for research on adolescent personality development.