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Openness to experience has been found to be a correlate of successful aging outcomes yet also has been found to decline from middle age onward. We hypothesized that decline in openness would be associated with death. Using longitudinal data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA), the analytic sample encompassed 1954 individuals, approximately two-thirds of whom were deceased. We tested whether openness declines across late adulthood and, central to our hypothesis, whether the decline correlated with age at death. Multivariate modeling adjusted for age at study entry, sex, education, as well as the time-varying effects of physical illness, depressive symptoms, and cognitive ability. Correlations between change in neuroticism and extraversion and death were modeled for comparison. A follow-up cotwin control analysis adjusted for genetic and environmental familial confounders. Significant mean-level change was identified in all personality traits, but only for openness was change correlated with age at death, in support of our hypothesis. The findings were not explained by health factors or cognition. Cotwin control analyses indicated that the twin who died earlier showed a greater drop in openness prior to death, compared with their cotwin measured at the same time points. There was no cotwin finding for neuroticism or extraversion. We suggest that declines in openness may reflect a change in goal orientation due to the experience of a shortened time horizon, leading to an optimized selection of experiences as people approach the end of life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine whether openness to experience is related to longitudinal change in cognitive performance across advancing age. Participants were 857 individuals from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA). Factors for 5 cognitive domains were created, including verbal ability, spatial ability, memory, processing speed, and a global score, g. Latent growth curve models were used to assess level and longitudinal trajectories of cognitive performance. It was hypothesized that individuals who endorsed higher levels of openness would have higher cognitive test scores and lesser rates of cognitive decline. As predicted, higher openness to experience was associated with significantly higher performance across all cognitive tests for both men and women even after adjusting for education, cardiovascular disease, and activities of daily living. Openness, however, was not predictive of differences in the trajectories of cognitive performance over age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]