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Social relationships accompany us throughout adulthood and are among the most important sources of meaning in a person's life. However, little is known about age differences in meaningfulness of social interactions across adulthood. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, as people age, they develop relatively stronger preferences for social relationships that are emotionally meaningful. Consequently, older adults may perceive social interactions in everyday life as more meaningful than younger adults. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined age-related differences in the perceived meaningfulness of daily social interactions using experience sampling data. Three-hundred six participants (56.9% women, 18-88 years) completed a total of 6,407 entries over 3 days. Results of the multilevel analyses showed that age was positively associated with perceived meaningfulness of daily social interactions, controlling for relationship closeness and situation valence. In addition, the perceived meaningfulness of daily social interactions was positively related to subjective well-being both between and within all participants, indicating that meaningful social interactions are beneficial for well-being regardless of age. Thus, perceiving social interactions as meaningful could be one way that older people maintain a high level of well-being in their daily lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Problems with memory, executive function, and language are a significant public health concern, especially when they begin during midlife. However, there is relatively little work on risk and protective factors for cognitive function in middle adulthood. Using data from 883 Mexican-origin adults assessed up to 6 times across 12 years ( M age at Time 1 = 38.2 years; range = 27-63 years), the present study examined whether developmental trajectories (levels and slopes) of Big Five personality domains and socioeconomic factors (per capita income, economic stress) were prospectively associated with cognitive function (memory, mental status, verbal fluency) at the final assessment. We found that individuals with higher levels of, and smaller decreases in, Neuroticism had worse cognitive function 12 years later. Further, individuals with higher initial Conscientiousness had better subsequent memory, mental status, and verbal fluency, and individuals with higher Openness and Extraversion had better subsequent verbal fluency (but not memory or mental status). The trajectories of per capita income and economic stress were robustly associated with cognitive function, such that higher initial levels and greater increases in socioeconomic resources had protective associations, whereas higher levels and greater increases in economic stress had deleterious associations with cognitive function. Higher education level was associated with better cognitive function 12 years later. These findings suggest that changes in personality and socioeconomic factors across adulthood are associated with cognitive function, which may be informative for interventions to support healthier cognitive aging starting at least as early as midlife. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The discrepancy between subjective memory rating and objective memory performance is the tendency to misestimate one's memory. For example, better self-rated memory compared to performance on memory tasks reflects an overestimation of one's memory. This discrepancy may shape how individuals cognitively age: Overestimating one's memory could mask incident cognitive decline and underestimation could act as a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. This study sought to examine the association between personality traits and depressive symptoms and memory discrepancy in five large samples of middle-aged and older adults ( N > 23,000). We preregistered three hypotheses: neuroticism would be related to underestimation, extraversion to overestimation, and conscientiousness to higher accuracy. Controlling for sociodemographic covariates (age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education), results from regression models were pooled using random-effect meta-analyses. Openness was associated with underestimation of memory performance. Contrary to our hypothesis, neuroticism was related to overestimation. Surprisingly, depressive symptoms were also associated with overestimation. Cognitive status (impaired vs. unimpaired) did not moderate the association between personality and memory discrepancy, but it did with depressive symptoms, with a null or opposite effect among individuals with impaired cognition. In conclusion, although previous studies demonstrate consistent associations between personality traits and subjective memory ratings and memory performance, the current findings suggest null or unexpected links between personality and memory discrepancy. The findings suggest that clinicians should not dismiss cognitive complaints in the presence of depressive symptoms or high neuroticism because objective memory performance could be even worse than self-rated memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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 ( N > 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).

A large body of research has documented how personality develops across adulthood, yet very little longitudinal work has examined whether these findings generalize beyond predominantly middle-class, highly educated White American or Western European individuals. This preregistered study uses longitudinal data from 1,110 Mexican-origin adults who completed a well-validated personality measure, the Big Five Inventory, up to six times across 12 years. Individuals generally maintained their rank ordering on the Big Five over time ( r s = .66-.80), and the relative ordering of the Big Five within persons was also highly stable ( r s = .58-.66). All of the Big Five traits showed small, linear mean-level decreases across adulthood. These trajectories showed few associations with sociodemographic factors (sex, education level, and IQ) and cultural factors (generational status, age at immigration, Spanish/English language preference, Mexican cultural values, American cultural values, and ethnic discrimination). The statistically significant findings we did observe mostly concerned associations between cultural values and Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Openness. Acquiescence bias was also positively associated with Big Five personality trait scores at every wave. There was no evidence of mean-level change in the Big Five when including time-varying acquiescence scores as covariates in the models. Divergences between the present findings and previous research highlight the need to study personality development with diverse aging samples. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study examined the prospective association between subjective age and epigenetic clock in 2,253 adults (Mean age = 67.40, SD = 8.17) from the Health and Retirement Study. Subjective age and demographic factors were assessed in 2008/2010 and epigenetic clock was assessed in 2016 using the DNA methylation (DNAm) PhenoAge. Regression analysis revealed that an older subjective age was associated with accelerated epigenetic aging; mediation analysis revealed that self-rated health and CRP accounted for this association. The findings indicate that individuals who feel older than their chronological age are biologically older, in part because of their perceived health and inflammatory profiles. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study examined whether subjective age is related to informant-rated cognition. Participants were adults ( N = 2,337, mean age = 69.84 years, SD = 7.45) from the Health and Retirement Study who provided subjective age and demographic factors in 2008/2010 and informant-rated cognition in 2016 as part of the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol. An older subjective age was associated with informant reports of steeper cognitive decline, worse cognitive function, lower ability, and loss of ability to do everyday activities. The present study indicates that subjective age predicts cognitive function in everyday life as observed by knowledgeable informants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior research has shown that personality traits are associated with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs (IADLs). To advance research on the psychological factors related to aging-related functional limitations, this study examined the relation between personality traits and both concurrent and incident functional limitations, tested whether these associations are similar across IADLs and ADLs, and tested potential mediators of these associations. Participants were drawn from eight longitudinal samples from the U.S., England, and Japan. Participants provided data on demographic variables, the five major personality traits, and on the Katz ADL-scale and Lawton IADL-scales. IADL/ADL limitations were assessed again 3-18 years later. A consistent pattern of associations was found between personality traits and functional limitations, with associations slightly stronger for IADLs than ADLs, and robust across samples that used different measures and from different cultural contexts. The meta-analysis indicated that higher neuroticism was related to a higher likelihood of concurrent and incident IADL/ADL limitations, and higher conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness were associated with lower risk. Higher agreeableness was associated with lower risk of concurrent IADL/ADL, but unrelated to incident limitations. Physical activity, disease burden, depressive symptoms, self-rated health, handgrip strength, falls, and smoking status mediated the relation between personality traits and incident IADL/ADL limitations. The present study indicates that personality traits are risk factors for both IADL and ADL limitations across multiple national cohorts, identifies potential mediators, and informs conceptual models on psychological risk factors for functional decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Social distancing and "stay-at-home" orders are essential to contain the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), but there is concern that these measures will increase feelings of loneliness, particularly in vulnerable groups. The present study examined change in loneliness in response to the social restriction measures taken to control the coronavirus spread. A nationwide sample of American adults ( N = 1,545; 45% women; ages 18 to 98, M = 53.68, SD = 15.63) was assessed on three occasions: in late January/early February 2020 (before the outbreak), in late March (during the President's initial "15 Days to Slow the Spread" campaign), and in late April (during the "stay-at-home" policies of most states). Contrary to expectations, there were no significant mean-level changes in loneliness across the three assessments ( d = .04, p > .05). In fact, respondents perceived increased support from others over the follow-up period ( d = .19, p < .01). Older adults reported less loneliness overall compared to younger age groups but had an increase in loneliness during the acute phase of the outbreak ( d = .14, p < .05). Their loneliness, however, leveled off after the issuance of stay-at-home orders. Individuals living alone and those with at least one chronic condition reported feeling lonelier at baseline but did not increase in loneliness during the implementation of social distancing measures. Despite some detrimental impact on vulnerable individuals, in the present sample, there was no large increase in loneliness but remarkable resilience in response to COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality traits, such as Neuroticism and Conscientiousness, are associated with cognitive outcomes across the life span, including cognitive function in young adulthood and risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in old age. Research on personality and age-related cognition has focused primarily on memory-related tasks and outcomes. The purpose of this research is to address the relation between Five Factor Model personality traits and another critical marker of cognitive function that has received less attention-verbal fluency. We examine this relation across adulthood in 10 cohorts (11 samples) that totaled more than 90,000 participants (age range 16-101). Participants in all samples reported on their personality traits and completed at least one fluency task (semantic and/or letter). A meta-analysis of semantic fluency (N = 86,044) indicated that participants who scored lower in Neuroticism, and higher in Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness, retrieved more words, independent of age, gender, and education. These associations generally replicated for the letter fluency task (3 samples; N = 11,551). Moderation analysis indicated that the associations between personality and semantic fluency were stronger in older samples (except for Openness) and among individuals with lower education. This pattern suggests that these associations are stronger in groups vulnerable to severe cognitive impairment. Personality traits have pervasive associations with fluency tasks that are replicable across samples and age groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study aimed to identify whether polygenic scores (PGSs) for education, health and psychological factors are related to subjective age in a large sample of older adults. Participants were 7,763 individuals of European ancestry (57% women, Mean age = 69.15, SD = 10.18) from the Health and Retirement Study who were genotyped and provided subjective age data. Higher PGSs for educational achievement and well-being were related to a younger subjective age, whereas higher PGSs for neuroticism, body mass index, waist circumference, and depressive symptoms were associated with an older subjective age. This study provides new evidence on the potential genetic underpinnings of subjective age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Why do some individuals have more self-control or are more vulnerable to stress than others? Where do these basic personality traits come from? Although a fundamental question in personality, more is known about how traits are related to important life outcomes than their developmental origins. The present research took an intergenerational life span approach to address whether a significant aspect of the childhood environment-parental educational attainment-was associated with offspring personality traits in adulthood. We tested the association between parents' educational levels and adult offspring personality traits in 7 samples (overall age range 14-95) and meta-analytically combined the results (total N > 60,000). Parents with more years of education had children who were more open, extraverted, and emotionally stable as adults. These associations were small but consistent, of similar modest magnitude to the association between life events and change in personality in adulthood, and were also supported by longitudinal analyses. Contrary to expectations, parental educational attainment was unrelated to offspring Conscientiousness, except for a surprisingly negative association in the younger cohorts. The results were similar in a subsample of participants who were adopted, which suggested that environmental mechanisms were as relevant as shared genetic variants. Participant levels of education were associated with greater conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and openness and partially mediated the relation between parent education and personality. Child IQ and family income were also partial mediators. The results of this research suggest that parental educational attainment is 1 intergenerational factor associated with offspring personality development in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Deficits in sensory functioning, such as poor vision and hearing, take a significant toll on quality of life. Little is known, however, about their relation with personality development across adulthood. This study examined whether baseline and change in vision and hearing were associated with personality change over a 4-year period. Participants (N = 7,471; Mage = 66.89; 59% women) were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. They provided data on vision, hearing, and personality both at baseline and 4 years later. Poor vision and hearing at baseline and declines in vision and hearing over time were independently related to steeper declines in extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness, and less decline in neuroticism, controlling for demographic factors, disease burden, and depressive symptoms. Sensory functioning was generally a stronger predictor of personality change than disease burden or depressive symptoms. Consistent with evidence that poor and worsening sensory functions compromise individuals' interactions with the social and physical environment, this study found deficits in hearing and vision were also associated with maladaptive personality trajectories in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Most studies on personality and physical activity have relied on self-report measures. This study examined the relation between Five Factor Model personality traits and objective physical activity in older adults. Sixty-nine participants (Mage = 80.2 years; SD = 7.1) wore the ActiGraph monitor for 7 days and completed the NEO Personality Inventory-3 First Half. Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were associated with more moderate physical activity and more steps per day whereas Neuroticism was inversely related to these physical activity measures (βs > .20). The associations for Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were attenuated by approximately 20-40% when accounting for disease burden and body mass index but were essentially unchanged for Extraversion and Agreeableness. These findings confirm self-report evidence that personality traits are associated with physical activity levels in older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Individuals who perceive weight discrimination tend to be less healthy. The correlates of weight discrimination, however, may vary by source of the discrimination (e.g., from a healthcare provider, stranger, family member, etc.). The present research used a large national sample ( N =4,990) to examine the prevalence and demographic predictors of sources of weight discrimination and whether subjective health and depressive symptoms associated with discrimination varied by source. Approximately 13% of the respondents reported experiencing discrimination based on their body weight. Of these participants, the prevalence across sources ranged from 4% from educators to 52% from strangers. Women and younger participants were more likely to experience bias from their families; participants with higher BMIs were more likely to experience discrimination from a service industry professional or a stranger. Participants had lower subjective health when the source of weight discrimination came from either a stranger or a family member, whereas depressive symptoms were higher across all sources of discrimination except for from a service professional or a stranger. These results support previous research that indicates weight discrimination is common and comes from many sources and further suggests that the health correlates may differ depending on who is the source of the unfair treatment.

Perceived discrimination is common and a significant source of stress that may have implications for personality development across adulthood. In this study, we examined whether experiences with discrimination were associated with maladaptive changes in the 5 major dimensions of personality using 2 longitudinal samples that differed in age and follow-up interval. In the Health and Retirement Study, participants who perceived discrimination increased in their tendency to experience negative emotions (neuroticism), decreased in their tendency to be trusting (agreeableness), and decreased in their tendency to be organized and disciplined (conscientiousness). These associations replicated using participants from the Midlife in the United States study. The findings indicate that social pathways, in addition to biological and developmental tasks, are important for adult personality development. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

In the present research, the authors examined the data quality and replicability of the revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) factor structure in a sample that varied in ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and literacy. Participants (N = 546), drawn from the Healthy aging in neighborhoods of diversity across the life span study, were African American (58%) and white (42%) urban dwellers living above (49%) and below (51%) 125% of the federal poverty line. The NEO-PI-R, administered via telephone, was evaluated for data quality (percent valid, acquiescence, internal consistency), congruence with the normative factor structure, and readability. All indices of data quality and factor congruence were excellent in the full sample. Literacy was the most consistent predictor of data quality. A slightly worse structure was found for the Openness to Experience and Extraversion factors among lower socioeconomic status African American and white participants. The overall index of factor congruence, however, supports replication of the normative structure well beyond chance levels even among those with lower literacy. Despite the challenges of low literacy, the present findings indicate that personality traits can be assessed reliably in socioeconomically diverse populations that include those living in poverty.

Age trajectories for personality traits are known to be similar across cultures. To address whether stereotypes of age groups reflect these age-related changes in personality, we asked participants in 26 countries (N = 3,323) to rate typical adolescents, adults, and old persons in their own country. Raters across nations tended to share similar beliefs about different age groups; adolescents were seen as impulsive, rebellious, undisciplined, preferring excitement and novelty, whereas old people were consistently considered lower on impulsivity, activity, antagonism, and Openness. These consensual age group stereotypes correlated strongly with published age differences on the five major dimensions of personality and most of 30 specific traits, using as criteria of accuracy both self-reports and observer ratings, different survey methodologies, and data from up to 50 nations. However, personal stereotypes were considerably less accurate, and consensual stereotypes tended to exaggerate differences across age groups., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).)

In a community-dwelling sample (N = 4,790; age range 14-94), we examined whether personality traits prospectively predicted performance on a verbal fluency task. Open, extraverted, and emotionally stable participants had better verbal fluency. At the facet level, dispositionally happy and self-disciplined participants retrieved more words; those prone to anxiety and depression and those who were deliberative retrieved fewer words. Education moderated the association between conscientiousness and fluency such that participants with lower education performed better on the fluency task if they were also conscientious. Age was not a moderator at the domain level, indicating that the personality-fluency associations were consistent across the life span. A disposition toward emotional vulnerability and being less open, less happy, and undisciplined may be detrimental to cognitive performance.

Personality traits contribute to health outcomes, in part through their association with major controllable risk factors, such as obesity. Body weight, in turn, reflects our behaviors and lifestyle and contributes to the way we perceive ourselves and others. In this study, the authors use data from a large (N = 1,988) longitudinal study that spanned more than 50 years to examine how personality traits are associated with multiple measures of adiposity and with fluctuations in body mass index (BMI). Using 14,531 anthropometric assessments, the authors modeled the trajectory of BMI across adulthood and tested whether personality predicted its rate of change. Measured concurrently, participants higher on Neuroticism or Extraversion or lower on Conscientiousness had higher BMI; these associations replicated across body fat, waist, and hip circumference. The strongest association was found for the impulsivity facet: Participants who scored in the top 10% of impulsivity weighed, on average, 11Kg more than those in the bottom 10%. Longitudinally, high Neuroticism and low Conscientiousness, and the facets of these traits related to difficulty with impulse control, were associated with weight fluctuations, measured as the variability in weight over time. Finally, low Agreeableness and impulsivity-related traits predicted a greater increase in BMI across the adult life span. BMI was mostly unrelated to change in personality traits. Personality traits are defined by cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns that likely contribute to unhealthy weight and difficulties with weight management. Such associations may elucidate the role of personality traits in disease progression and may help to design more effective interventions., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.)

The present research examined stressful life events and personality development across middle adulthood. Participants (N = 533) related the most stressful event they had experienced within the last 10 years, indicated whether they considered the event to be a turning point and/or lesson learned, and twice completed a comprehensive measure of traits defined by the five-factor model of personality; the stressful event occurred between these two assessments. Descriptions were coded to classify events into broad content domains based on the nature of the event. Prospectively, individuals high in Neuroticism perceived the event as a turning point; extraverts learned a lesson from it. Longitudinally, perceiving the event as a negative turning point was associated with increases in Neuroticism, whereas learning a lesson from the event was associated with increases in Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Characteristics of the events themselves were primarily unrelated to trait change. Across middle adulthood, personality trait change may be more strongly related to how individuals understand the stressful events in their lives rather than simply the occurrence of such events., ((c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.)

In two studies, the present research tested the phenomenology and content of autobiographical memory as distinct mediators between attachment avoidance and anxiety and depressive symptoms. In Study 1, participants (N = 454) completed measures of attachment and depressive symptoms in one session, and retrieved and rated two self-defining memories of romantic relationships in a separate session. In Study 2, participants (N = 534) were primed with attachment security, attachment insecurity, or a control prime and then retrieved and rated a self-defining relationship memory. Memory phenomenology, specifically memory coherence and emotional intensity, mediated the association between attachment avoidance and depressive symptoms, whereas the negative affective content of the memory mediated the association between attachment anxiety and depressive symptoms. Priming attachment security led to retrieval of a more coherent relationship memory, whereas insecurity led to the retrieval of a more incoherent relationship memory. Discussion focuses on the construction and recollection of memories as underlying mechanisms of adult attachment and psychological distress, the importance of memory coherence, and the implications for counseling research and practice.