Personality, Socioeconomic Status, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States

Abstract

The authors assessed the extent to which socioeconomic status (SES) and the personality factors termed the "big 5" (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness) represented confounded or independent risks for all-cause mortality over a 10-year follow-up in the Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) cohort between 1995 and 2004. Adjusted for demographics, the 25th versus 75th percentile of SES was associated with an odds ratio of 1.43 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.11, 1.83). Demographic-adjusted odds ratios for the 75th versus 25th percentile of neuroticism were 1.38 (95% CI: 1.10, 1.73) and 0.63 (95% CI: 0.47, 0.84) for conscientiousness, the latter evaluated at high levels of agreeableness. Modest associations were observed between SES and the big 5. Adjusting each for the other revealed that personality explained roughly 20% of the SES gradient in mortality, while SES explained 8% of personality risk. Portions of SES and personality risk were explained by health behaviors, although some residual risk remained unexplained. Personality appears to explain some between-SES strata differences in mortality risk, as well as some individual risk heterogeneity within SES strata. Findings suggest that both sociostructural inequalities and individual disposition hold public health implications. Future research and prevention aimed at ameliorating SES health disparities may benefit from considering the risk clustering of social disadvantage and dispositional factors.

Personality and risk of adult asthma in a prospective cohort study

“…Trends across trait-specific tertiles were assessed by entering an ordinal variable in a separate statistical model. Studies have suggested that personality traits may be particularly predictive of health outcomes if analyzed in combination, for instance, conscientiousness × neuroticism [1], conscientiousness × agreeableness [36] or extraversion × agreeableness [37]. In line with earlier research [37,38], we therefore examined all paired combinations (potential two-way interactions) between personality traits in shaping asthma risk.…”

Intelligence and Personality as Predictors of Illness and Death

“…In short, a particular combination of traits or personality style marked by high neuroticism and low extraversion is a particularly potent risk factor for poorer prognosis in patients with coronary heart disease (Denollet, 2005;Denollet et al, 1995;Kupper & Denollet, 2007). Similarly, in studying mortality risk, Chapman et al (2010) found that high conscientiousness was only a protective factor at high levels of agreeableness. Finally, Weiss et al (2009) found an interaction between neuroticism and intelligence in their study of the Vietnam Experience Study cohort.…”

“…Also, Chapman, Fiscella, Kawachi, and Duberstein (2010) showed that smoking and physical inactivity partly mediated the effects of neuroticism on mortality. On the other hand, Weiss, Gale, Batty, and Deary (2009a) found no evidence that the relationship between neuroticism and mortality was directly mediated via health behaviors.…”

“…Using styles may reveal that, for example, whereas individuals high in neuroticism are generally more at risk for poor health outcomes, this effect may not be true among individuals who, for example, are high in intelligence, or in conscientiousness. This last possibility has strength, especially in light of evidence that intelligence and personality styles are related to mortality (Chapman et al, 2010), cigarette smoking (Terracciano & Costa, 2004), and health risk factors such as depression (Weiss et al, 2009b). As such, we would encourage researchers to look beyond the main effects of the traits and risk factors they examine in their studies.…”

Personality and Heart Rate Variability: Exploring Pathways from Personality to Cardiac Coherence and Health

“…The empirically derived big five factor (BF) personality traits of low Neuroticism and high Conscientiousness have been linked to adaptive health behavior (Lodi-Smith et al, 2011), cardiac health (Chapman & Goldberg, 2011), and longevity (Chapman, Fiscella, Kawachi, & Duberstein, 2010). The theoretically derived temperament and character bio-psychosocial model of personality, measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) has been associated with increased risk for psychiatric disorders (Cloninger, Zohar, Hirschmann, & Dahan, 2012), response to a wide range of psychiatric and other medical interventions, and cardiac risk factors (Hintsanen et al, 2009) (Rosenstrom et al, 2012).…”