Forty years on: Teachers' assessments of children's personality traits predict self-reported health behaviors and outcomes at midlife.

A life span health-behavior model was investigated in this longitudinal study of personality influences on health. Teachers assessed 963 elementary schoolchildren on traits that formed scales assessing the dimensions of the five-factor (Big Five) model of personality. Smoking, alcohol use, body mass index (BMI), and self-rated health were assessed 40 years later in midlife. Childhood personality traits were significantly associated with all 4 outcomes, and the effects were consistently larger for women than men. For men and women, childhood Conscientiousness was associated with less adult smoking and better adult self-rated health and, for women only, with lower adult BMI. Mediation analyses suggested that the effects of Conscientiousness on self-rated health were partially mediated by smoking and BMI. These findings add to the growing evidence that childhood personality traits predict adult health outcomes and are discussed in terms of future testing of the life span health-behavior model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality differences predict health-risk behaviors in young adulthood: evidence from a longitudinal study

In a longitudinal study of a birth cohort, the authors identified youth involved in each of 4 different health-risk behaviors at age 21: alcohol dependence, violent crime, unsafe sex, and dangerous driving habits. At age 18, the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) was used to assess 10 distinct personality traits. At age 3, observational measures were used to classify children into distinct temperament groups. Results showed that a similar constellation of adolescent personality traits, with developmental origins in childhood, is linked to different health-risk behaviors at 21. Associations between the same personality traits and different health-risk behaviors were not an artifact of the same people engaging in different health-risk behaviors; rather, these associations implicated the same personality type in different but related behaviors. In planning campaigns, health professionals may need to design programs that appeal to the unique psychological makeup of persons most at risk for health-risk behaviors.     

Early manifestations of personality and adult health: A life course perspective.

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate whether individual personality or temperamental qualities that emerge early and persist over the life course, predict adult midlife health. Specific childhood personality attributes considered include distress proneness, behavioral inhibition, and ability to stay focused on a task. Design: Prospective data are from 569 individuals followed from birth into adulthood. Main Outcome Measures: Outcomes include two different measures of adult health: self-rated general health, and number of illnesses in adulthood. Results: Childhood personality attributes related to attention and distress were significantly associated with adult health, with stronger effects evident among women. Children with high attention reported better self-rated health (b = 0.12, p     

Personality influences on change in smoking behavior.

Objective: To investigate associations between personality traits in early adulthood (and changes in them) and change in smoking status. Design: Prospective, longitudinal study of a general-population birth cohort. Main Outcome Measures: We measured smoking at ages 18, 26, and 32, and personality at ages 18 and 26 using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen & Waller, in press). We assessed personality’s ability to predict future smoking, and assessed how changes in personality traits relate to change in smoking status. Results: Higher aggression and alienation at age 18 predicted smoking at 26; higher self-control and traditionalism at age 18 predicted nonsmoking at 26; and higher alienation at age 26 predicted persistence of smoking to age 32. Personality change between 18 and 26 was associated with change in smoking behavior; those who stopped smoking decreased more than others in negative emotionality and increased more in constraint. Conclusion: These findings suggest that interventions fostering personality change may be effective in reducing smoking and indicate appropriate targets for such antismoking interventions in young people. In particular, high alienation predicted smoking persistence, perhaps due to resistance to existing antismoking messages; we discuss approaches that may overcome this. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contribution of psychosocial factors to socioeconomic differences in health

The National Survey of Mid-life Developments in the United States (MIDUS) is one of several studies that demonstrate socioeconomic gradients in mortality during midlife. When MIDUS findings on self-reported health, waist to hip ratio, and psychological well-being were analyzed for their possible roles in generating socioeconomic differences in health, they revealed clear educational gradients for women and men (i.e., higher education predicted better health). Certain potential mediating variables, like household income, parents' education, smoking behavior, and social relations contributed to an explanation of the socioeconomic gradient. In addition, two census-based measures, combined into an area poverty index, independently predicted ill health. The results suggest that a set of both early and current life circumstances cumulatively contribute toward explaining why people of lower socioeconomic status have worse health and lower psychological well-being.     

The role of task persistence in young adolescence for successful educational and occupational attainment in middle adulthood.

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the importance of task persistence in young adolescence for successful educational and occupational attainment in middle adulthood. Data from age 13 (N = 1,092) and adult age (age 43 for women, N = 569 and age 47 for men, N = 393) were taken from the Swedish longitudinal research program entitled “Individual Development and Adaptation.” In line with previous research, task persistence was found to be related to changes in grades between age 13 and age 16, over and above other childhood factors. Task persistence at age 13 was also a significant predictor of both income and occupational level in middle adulthood for the men, controlling for a number of childhood factors (including intelligence), and even when educational attainment in adulthood was taken into account. Finally, task persistence was related to educational attainment in adulthood. The authors suggest that task persistence is a second fundamental factor besides general mental ability, influencing attainment within the area of working life and education. The influence of task persistence is discussed in form of personality–environment selection mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral immunogens and pathogens: Psychology's newest challenge.

Points out that the relative risk of premature death is twice the average for persons who engage in any one of the following pathogenic behaviors: smoking, overeating to 50% over normal weight, and working and living under a chronically stressed lifestyle called the Type A behavior pattern. However, Americans are beginning to understand and accept the accumulating scientific evidence that personal habits (e.g., moderation in eating and drinking, regular exercise, no smoking, and adequate sleep) are related to good health. It is concluded that psychologists will play an important role in research and public education on "behavioral immunology," patterns of behavior related to future personal health. (1 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and mortality risk across the life span: The importance of conscientiousness as a biopsychosocial attribute.

Objective: This study addressed whether personality in childhood and personality in adulthood are independent predictors of mortality risk and the extent to which behavioral and other psychosocial factors can explain observed relationships between personality and mortality risk. Design: This was a prospective longitudinal cohort study of 1,253 male and female Californians over 7 decades (1930-2000). Proportional hazards regressions were the principal analyses. Main Outcome Measures: Mortality risk (in the form of relative hazards) was the primary outcome. Additional tests of mediators and moderators ascertained whether associations between personality and mortality risk remained significant when psychosocial and behavioral variables were statistically controlled. Results: The findings, including a new 14-year additional follow-up in old age, revealed that conscientiousness, measured independently in childhood and adulthood, predicted mortality risk across the full life span. The link from childhood remained robust when adult conscientiousness and certain behavioral variables were controlled. Psychosocial and behavioral variables partly explained the adult conscientiousness-longevity association. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate the utility and complexity of modern personality concepts in understanding health and point to conscientiousness as a key underexplored area for future biopsychosocial studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent family experiences and educational attainment during early adulthood.

In this study, the authors investigated the degree to which a family investment model would help account for the association between family of origin socioeconomic characteristics and the later educational attainment of 451 young adults (age 26) from 2-parent families. Parents' educational level, occupational prestige, and family income in 1989 each had a statistically significant direct relationship with youths' educational attainment in 2002. Consistent with the theoretical model guiding the study, parents' educational level and family income also demonstrated statistically significant indirect effects on later educational attainment through their associations with growth trajectories for supportive parenting, sibling relations, and adolescent academic engagement. Supportive parenting and sibling relations were linked to later educational attainment through their association with adolescent academic engagement. Academic engagement during adolescence was associated with educational attainment in young adulthood. These basic processes operated similarly regardless of youths' gender, target youths' age relative to a near-age sibling, gender composition of the sibling dyad, or gender of parent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial development from college through midlife: A 34-year sequential study.

Two cohorts of alumni, leading-edge and trailing-edge baby boomers, first tested in their college years, were followed to ages 43 (N = 136) and 54 (N = 182) on a measure of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to model the trajectory of growth for each psychosocial issue across middle adulthood. As predicted, the early psychosocial issues (trust, autonomy, and initiative) showed patterns of slow and steady increases in favorable resolution, as did the midlife issue of generativity. Industry, found in earlier investigations on the samples to change to differing degrees by cohort, continued to show cohort differences through midlife. The quadratic terms indicated that growth was curvilinear for both cohorts on identity and intimacy, and ego integrity showed variations by cohort, with the older cohort showing steeper patterns of increases. Gender differences were observed on intimacy, with women receiving higher initial scores, but the curves showed deceleration through midlife. Tests of variations in growth curves by the life history variables of educational attainment, occupational prestige, commitment to a long-term relationship, and parenthood status showed variations by cohort, but a general pattern of catching up emerged in which those who entered early adulthood at a relative disadvantage in terms of psychosocial development were able to attain favorable outcomes by midlife. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of education and heart attack on smoking cessation among middle-aged adults

Considerable evidence supports the premise that higher levels of education lead to enhanced health, including protective health behaviors. This paper focuses on how education affects one health behavior known to lead to enhanced health: the cessation of smoking. In particular, the authors examine the extent to which education influences the decision by middle-aged adults to quit smoking following a heart attack, a potentially life-threatening health event. We first hypothesize that middle-aged adults with more formal education will stop smoking more readily than people with less formal education following the experience of a heart attack. Second, we ask what other factors might underlie and explain that hypothesized effect. Using longitudinal data, the authors track changes in individual smoking behaviors after a heart attack among preretirement-age Americans. We control for documented correlates of smoking and heart attack plus other factors associated with education, heart attack, and smoking that may also influence whether a person quits smoking. In addition to confirming evidence on the education-health association as well as the documented connection between heart attack and smoking cessation, this study provides a surprising twist on those links: Our results show that the move to quit smoking following the experience of a heart attack among middle-aged adults is significantly and dramatically moderated by their level of educational attainment.     

Socioeconomic position, health behaviors, and C-reactive protein: A moderated-mediation analysis.

Objective: We sought to understand the link between low socioeconomic position (SEP) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) by examining the association between SEP, health-related coping behaviors, and C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory marker and independent risk factor for CVD, in a U.S. sample of adults. Design: We used a multiple mediation model to evaluate how these behaviors work in concert to influence CRP levels and whether these relationships were moderated by gender and race/ethnicity. Main outcome measures: CRP levels were divided into two categories: elevated CRP (3.1–10.0 mg/L) and normal CRP (≤3.0 mg/L). Results: Both poverty and low educational attainment were associated with elevated CRP, and these associations were primarily explained through higher levels of smoking and lower levels of exercise. In the education model, poor diet also emerged as a significant mediator. These behaviors accounted for 87.9% of the total effect of education on CRP and 55.8% the total effect of poverty on CRP. We also found significant moderation of these mediated effects by gender and race/ethnicity. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the influence of socioeconomically patterned environmental constraints on individual-level health behaviors. Specifically, reducing socioeconomic inequalities may have positive effects on CVD disparities through reducing cigarette smoking and increasing vigorous exercise. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Middle childhood and adolescent contextual and personal predictors of adult educational and occupational outcomes: A mediational model in two countries.

The authors examined the prediction of occupational attainment by age 40 from contextual and personal variables assessed during childhood and adolescence in 2 participant samples: (a) the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, a study of 856 third graders in a semirural county in New York State that began in 1960, and (b) the Jyv?skyl? Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, a study of 369 eight-year-olds in Jyv?skyl?, Finland, that began in 1968. Both samples were followed up during adolescence and early and middle adulthood. Structural modeling analyses revealed that in both countries, for both genders, children's age 8 cognitive-academic functioning and their parents' occupational status had independent positive long-term effects on the children's adult occupational attainment, even after other childhood and adolescent personal variables were controlled for. Further, childhood and adolescent aggressive behavior negatively affected educational status in early adulthood, which in turn predicted lower occupational status in middle adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Replicability and 40-year predictive power of childhood ARC types.

We examined 3 questions surrounding the undercontrolled, overcontrolled, and resilient—or Asendorpf–Robins–Caspi (ARC)—personality types originally identified by Block (1971). In analyses of the teacher personality assessments of over 2,000 children in 1st through 6th grade in 1959–1967 and follow-up data on general and cardiovascular health outcomes in over 1,100 adults recontacted 40 years later, we found bootstrapped internal replication clustering suggesting that Big Five scores were best characterized by a tripartite cluster structure corresponding to the ARC types. This cluster structure was fuzzy rather than discrete, indicating that ARC constructs are best represented as gradients of similarity to 3 prototype Big Five profiles; ARC types and degrees of ARC prototypicality showed associations with multiple health outcomes 40 years later. ARC constructs were more parsimonious but, depending on the outcome, comparable or slightly worse classifiers than the dimensional Big Five traits. Forty-year incident cases of heart disease could be correctly identified with 67% accuracy by childhood personality information alone and stroke incidence with over 70% accuracy. Findings support the theoretical validity of ARC constructs, their treatment as continua of prototypicality rather than discrete categories, and the need for further understanding the robust predictive power of childhood personality for midlife health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A first large cohort study of personality trait stability over the 40 years between elementary school and midlife.

This report provides some initial findings from an investigation of the relations between childhood Big Five personality traits assessed by elementary school teachers and similar traits assessed 40 years later by self-reports at midlife (N = 799). Short-term (1-3 years) test-retest reliabilities were lower (.22-.53) in childhood when personality was developing than they were in adulthood (.70-.79) when personality stability should be at its peak. Stability coefficients across the 40-year interval between the childhood assessment and the 2 measures of adulthood personality were higher for Extraversion (e.g., .29) and Conscientiousness (e.g., .25) than for Openness (e.g., .16), Agreeableness (e.g., .08), and Neuroticism (e.g., .00). Construct continuity between childhood and adulthood was evaluated by canonical analysis and by structural equation modeling and indicated continuity at both a broad, two-dimensional level and at the level of the Big Five. The findings are discussed in relation to A. Caspi, B. W. Roberts, and R. L. Shiner's (2005) principles of rank-order personality stability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prevention and Health Promotion: Decades of Progress, New Challenges, and an Emerging Agenda.

Daily habits (e.g., smoking, diet, and exercise) and their immediate consequences (e.g., obesity) confer risk for most of the major health problems in industrialized nations. Hence, determinants of these behaviors and their modifications have been central topics in health psychology. Considerable scientific and applied progress has been made, but the field faces important challenges and opportunities in the future. These challenges and opportunities include changes in demographics and patterns of health, the need for a more comprehensive model of the domain of health behavior and prevention, the need to integrate behavioral and psychosocial risk and resilience, the incorporation of new technologies, and addressing a variety of professional and economic barriers to the implementation of prevention in health care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive symptoms, social support, and personal health behaviors in young men and women.

This study investigated the relationship of depressive symptoms, social support, and a range of personal health behaviors in 2,091 male and 3,438 female university students from 16 countries. Depressive symptoms and social support were measured using the short Beck Depression Inventory and the Social Support Questionnaire; 9 personal health behaviors were also assessed. After the authors took age, social support, and clustering by country into account, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with lack of physical activity, not eating breakfast, irregular sleep hours, and not using a seat belt in both men and women, and additionally with smoking, not eating fruit, and not using sunscreen among women. Low social support was independently associated with low alcohol consumption, lack of physical activity, irregular sleep hours, and not using a seat belt in men and women. Bidirectional causal pathways are likely to link health behaviors with depressed mood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes and health behavior in diverse populations: Drunk driving, alcohol use, binge eating, marijuana use, and cigarette use.

Five different health behaviors (cigarette use, alcohol use, binge eating, illicit drug use, and drunk driving) were studied prospectively in 5 different groups of subjects. Associations between attitudes toward these behaviors and the behaviors themselves were investigated over at least 2 waves of measurement. Findings revealed that attitudes predicted behavior nonspuriously in 2 instances: alcohol use and marijuana use. Attitudes did not predict drunk driving, binge eating, or smoking behaviors. Past behavior predicted attitude in the domains of binge eating and smoking, but not in the domains of alcohol use, drunk driving, or marijuana use. The results are discussed in terms of several alternative approaches that have implications for interventions that attempt to influence health behavior through attitude change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Person-environment transactions in youth drinking and driving.

Drinking and driving is a significant health risk behavior for adolescents. This study tested mechanisms by which disinhibited personality traits (impulsivity and sensation seeking) and aspects of the adolescent home/social environment (parental monitoring and alcohol accessibility) can influence changes in drinking and driving behavior over time. Two hundred two high school age youths were assessed at 2 time points, approximately 8 months apart. Zero-inflated Poisson regression analyses were used to test (a) an additive model, where personality and environmental variables uniquely predict drinking and driving engagement and frequency; (b) a mediation model, where Time 2 environmental variables mediate the influence of disinhibited personality; and (c) an interaction model, where environmental factors either facilitate or constrain the influence of disinhibited personality on drinking and driving. Results supported both the additive and interaction model but not the mediation model. Differences emerged between results for personal drinking and driving and riding with a drinking driver. Improving our understanding of how malleable environmental variables can affect the influence of disinhibited personality traits on drinking and driving behaviors can help target and improve prevention/intervention efforts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pathways to adversity in young adulthood among early childbearers.

Women who give birth as teens differ from those who delay childbearing before and after a birth. These preexisting differences may account for the adverse outcomes faced by early childbearers in young adulthood. This study tested whether a history of conduct disorder, low IQ and educational attainment, and low childhood socioeconomic status accounted for poor psychosocial adjustment at age 26 among early childbearers. Study members were 482 women in a birth cohort, 26% of whom had given birth by age 26 in 1999. Findings supported the hypothesis that individual and family background factors partially accounted for the adverse socioeconomic, mental health, and interpersonal outcomes faced by young mothers. However, early childbearing exacerbated the difficulties associated with these risk factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)