The Personality Traits Linked To Long Life

People who live to almost 100 have these personality traits.

People who live to almost 100 have these personality traits.

Being optimistic, outgoing and enjoying laughter are linked to longevity, research finds.

People who live to almost 100-years old are more likely to be emotionally expressive and positive.

Long-lived people tend to have stable emotions and to have high levels of conscientiousness.

People with stable emotions are non-neurotic and are at a lower risk of developing anxiety and depression.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

People who are conscientious are more careful, efficient and self-disciplined — and they aim for achievement.

Professor Nir Barzilai, study co-author, said:

“When I started working with centenarians, I thought we’d find that they survived so long in part because they were mean and ornery.

But when we assessed the personalities of these 243 centenarians, we found qualities that clearly reflect a positive attitude towards life.

Most were outgoing, optimistic and easygoing.

They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network.

They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up.”

The study included 243 people aged over 95-years-old who were given personality tests.

The results showed that centenarians had high scores on two scales:

  • Positive Attitude Towards Life: includes being outgoing and optimistic
  • Emotional Expression: not bottling up emotions but letting them out.

Professor Barzilai said:

“Some evidence indicates that personality can change between the ages of 70 and 100, so we don’t know whether our centenarians have maintained their personality traits across their entire lifespans.

Nevertheless, our findings suggest that centenarians share particular personality traits and that genetically-based aspects of personality may play an important role in achieving both good health and exceptional longevity.”

The study was published in the journal Aging (Kato et al., 2012).

The Personality Trait Linked To Heart Disease

The study looked at three different types of hostility: emotional, behavioural and cognitive.

The study looked at three different types of hostility: emotional, behavioural and cognitive.

Being hostile and cynical increases the risk of heart problems, research finds.

Cynical people tend to be distrustful of the nature and motives of others and believe they are motivated only by self-interest.

Cynicism is also linked to pessimism and being contemptuous.

While hostility has long been linked to heart problems, this is one of the first studies to link it to being cynical.

The study, which included 196 people, looked at three different types of hostility: emotional, behavioural and cognitive.

Ms Alexandra T. Tyra, the study’s first author, explained:

“Cynical hostility is more cognitive, consisting of negative beliefs, thoughts and attitudes about other people’s motives, intentions and trustworthiness.

It can be considered suspiciousness, lack of trust or cynical beliefs about others.

These findings reveal that a greater tendency to engage in cynical hostility—which appears to be extremely relevant in today’s political and health climate—can be harmful not only for our short-term stress responses but also our long-term health.”

Meanwhile, behavioural hostility manifests as verbal or physical aggression and emotional hostility as chronic anger.

Under healthy circumstances, people get used to stressors and adapt to them.

Ms Tyra explained:

“Essentially, when you’re exposed to the same thing multiple times, the novelty of that situation wears off, and you don’t have as big of a response as you did the first time.

This is a healthy response. But our study demonstrates that a higher tendency for cynical hostility may prevent or inhibit this decrease in response over time.

In other words, the cardiovascular system responds similarly to a second stressor as it did to the first.

This is unhealthy because it places increased strain on our cardiovascular system over time.”

The people in the study were given personality tests along with a test of their stress response.

The results showed that neither emotional nor behavioural hostility were linked to a higher stress response.

Ms Tyra said:

“This does not imply that emotional and behavioral hostility are not bad for you, just that they may affect your health or well-being in other ways.”

However, people with greater cynical hostility had a high and sustained stress response.

Ms Tyra said:

“I would hope that this research raises awareness about the potential health implications of cynicism.

Perhaps the next time someone thinks a negative thought about the motives, intentions or trustworthiness of their best friend, a co-worker or even a politician, they will think twice about actively engaging with that thought.”

The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology (Tyra et al., 2020).

This Personality Trait Is Strongly Related To Superior IQ

Higher intelligence drives ‘cognitive hunger’.

Higher intelligence drives ‘cognitive hunger’.

Openness to experience is the personality trait most strongly linked to higher intelligence, research finds.

People who are open to experience tend to be intellectually curious, imaginative, seekers of variety and sensitive to their feelings.

Naturally, people who are open to experience like trying out new activities and ideas.

Openness to experience is one of the five major aspects of personality, along with conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness and extraversion.

The study’s author, Dr Scott Barry Kaufman, explains:

“Openness to experience is the broadest personality domain of the Big Five, including a mix of traits relating to intellectual curiosity, intellectual interests, perceived intelligence, imagination, creativity, artistic and aesthetic interests, emotional and fantasy richness, and unconventionality.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 146 people who were asked questions about their personality and intelligence.

The results showed the strongest links between openness to experience and higher IQ.

Being open to experience is so powerful that it is linked to intelligence when measured almost 40 years later.

In particular, two aspects of openness to experience were most strongly related to intelligence.

Firstly, intellectual engagement, which comprises:

  • finding abstract thinking pleasurable,
  • enjoying coming up with new solutions to problems,
  • and liking reading.

Secondly, aesthetic engagement, which can involve activities like:

  • going to the cinema,
  • drawing or painting,
  • dancing,
  • and playing a musical instrument.

More intelligent people are particularly appreciative of beauty: they have a strong aesthetic sense.

Curious

Along with these factors, insatiable curiosity is also strongly linked to higher intelligence.

The link is probably down to higher intelligence driving ‘cognitive hunger’.

Cognitive hunger makes people seek out new experiences to satiate this hunger.

The study was published in The Journal of Creative Behavior (Kaufman, 2013).

What Loving Sweet Foods Says About Your Personality

Love cake? It tells people something about your personality.

Love cake? It tells people something about your personality.

People who like sweet foods literally have a sweeter personality, a psychology study finds.

Helpful people who volunteer to do good deeds prefer sweet foods, plus they are higher on the personality trait of agreeableness, the researchers found.

Professor Michael D. Robinson, study co-author, said:

“Our results suggest there is a real link between sweet tastes and pro-social behavior.

Such findings reveal that metaphors can lead to unique and provocative predictions about people’s behaviors and personality traits.”

For the research, participants tasted sweet or non-sweet foods and were asked about their views on food and personality.

Dr. Brian Meier, the study’s first author, said:

“Taste is something we experience every day.

Our research examined whether metaphors that link taste preferences with pro-social experiences (e.g., “she’s a sweetheart”) can be used to shed light on actual personality traits and behavior.”

The results revealed that people intuitively believe that those who like sweet food also have sweet personalities.

Dr Meier said:

“It is striking that helpful and friendly people are considered ‘sweet’ because taste would seem to have little in common with personality or behavior.

Yet, recent psychological theories of embodied metaphor led us to hypothesize that seemingly innocuous metaphors can be used to derive novel insights about personality and behavior.

Importantly, our taste studies controlled for positive mood so the effects we found are not due to the happy or rewarding feeling one may have after eating a sweet food.”

The results may not be the same in different cultures, Dr Meier said:

“Although we suggest our results are likely to be found in other cultures, that may not always be the case across all cultures.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Meier et al., 2011).

The Personality Trait Linked To Good Mental Health

Personality, though, changes how people interpret and deal with the things that happen to them.

Personality, though, changes how people interpret and deal with the things that happen to them.

People who are extraverted are less likely to suffer mental health problems, personality research finds.

Extraverts are typically outgoing, talkative and energetic and they tend to have more positive emotions.

However, people who are aggressive and neurotic — a tendency to worry and be emotionally unstable — are at higher risk of mental health problems.

Neuroticism is characterised by negative thinking in a range of areas.

Neurotic people are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, as well as drink and drug problems.

Neuroticism, like other aspects of personality, is highly heritable — in other words, it is in a person’s genes.

However, neuroticism can be reduced by psychotherapy.

Neurotic people can learn to think differently, use their neuroticism creatively and perhaps reduce their neuroticism by falling in love.

The conclusions come from almost 600 participants in Switzerland.

They were regularly interviewed from the age of around 19 in 1979, until they were in their fifties in 2008.

The researchers asked them about their families, mental health, personality, any problems with drugs and major life events like relationship break-ups, job losses and so on.

People who are aggressive, neurotic and introverted are particularly at risk, the study’s authors write:

“…persons scoring high on aggressiveness and neuroticism and low on extraversion had an approximately 6 times increased risk for internalising disorder [like depression and anxiety] compared to persons scoring low on aggressiveness and neuroticism and high on extraversion.”

Of course, personality is only one factor that affects whether a person might experience a mental health problem.

Some people’s lives are much more difficult than others.

The researchers found that people who experienced job losses and relationship break-ups were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.

Personality, though, changes how people interpret and deal with the things that happen to them.

The study’s authors conclude:

“Our findings stress the fundamental role of personality, mainly neuroticism, for the occurrence, persistence and severity of psychopathology.”

The study was published in the journal European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience (Hengartner et al., 2017).

Is Your Partner A Cheater? These 3 Personality Traits Might Explain It

Infidelity often has a highly corrosive effect on relationships.

Infidelity often has a highly corrosive effect on relationships.

Narcissism is one of the strongest predictors that someone will cheat in their relationship, research finds.

Narcissists are likely to be vain, egocentric and over-confident — they like to show off their bodies, talk about themselves and put other people down.

Two other personality factors that predict people’s infidelity are unstable emotions and psychopathy.

People who are unstable are unreliable, careless, badly organised and find it hard to resist temptation.

Psychopaths, meanwhile, are irresponsible, spontaneous and manipulative.

The authors write:

“One of the strongest predictors is Narcissism.

Women high on Narcissism predict that they will flirt with, kiss, and date other men, as well as have one night stands, brief affairs, and serious affairs with other men.”

The results come from a study of 107 married couples who reported on their relationships and any infidelity.

Naturally, people who were dissatisfied with their relationship were more likely to have affairs.

Similarly, couples who had many complaints about their partners were also more likely to have an affair.

Complaints that predicted adultery included alcohol abuse, eyeing up other people, jealousy, condescension and being too possessive.

After narcissism, the authors explain that…

“…two equally strong predictors of mild and serious infidelity are low Conscientiousness and high Psychoticism.

These variables are correlated, and share the common component of impulsivity and inability to delay gratification.

And like Narcissism, Conscientiousness and Psychoticism are stronger predictors of women’s anticipated infidelities than men’s anticipated infidelities.

These findings suggest that a personality style marked by impulsivity, low dependability, and low reliability in general carries over…”

Infidelity often has a highly corrosive effect on relationships, the authors write:

“Infidelity may be the most destructive source of conflict inflicted on a marriage.

Despite its destructive impact, infidelities are estimated conservatively to occur in about half of all marriages.”

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Buss & Shackleford, 1997).

2 Personality Traits That Indicate High IQ

The personality traits that suggest you have higher intelligence.

The personality traits that suggest you have higher intelligence.

The personality traits of being open to experience and having stable emotions both indicate a higher IQ, research finds.

People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.

Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

Both stable emotions and being open to experience are linked to better general knowledge, which are two aspect of intelligence.

Psychologists call general knowledge ‘crystallised intelligence’ is one of the two main types of intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence becomes more important as people get older as acquired information and skills predict their success in life.

The other type is called ‘fluid intelligence’, and refers to abstract reasoning and the speed at which the brain works.

The study included 201 university students in the UK who were given tests of personality and general knowledge questions, including:

  • Who wrote Anna Karenina?
  • Who discovered penicillin?
  • Which Beatle was shot in New York?

(See the end of the article for the answers.)

The results showed that people got more answers correct if their personalities were more emotionally stable and they were more open to experience.

Openness to experience is particularly important for general knowledge because it makes people more curious and motivates them to learn new things.

Another personality trait the researchers found was linked to greater general knowledge was introversion.

Signs of introversion include preferring to be in a quiet, relaxing environment and having a rich mental life.

Having a rich mental life likely encourages people with this personality trait to pick up more information about the world.

(The answers are: Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Fleming and John Lennon, respectively.)

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2006).

The Personality Trait Linked To Poor Mental Health

Around one-in-five people is thought to have this personality type.

Around one-in-five people is thought to have this personality type.

People with a type D personality have three times the risk of developing psychological problems, research finds.

A type D personality refers to a person who is distressed and experiences more negative emotions, social inhibition and pessimism.

The personality type is linked to anxiety, depression and general poor mental health.

People with type D personalities tend to agree with statements like:

  • “I am a closed kind of person.”
  • “I often feel unhappy.”
  • “I am often down in the dumps.”

Type D people are fearful of rejection if they express their negative emotions.

Around one-in-five people is thought to have a type D personality.

Ms Viola Spek, the study’s first author, said:

“Type D patients tend to experience increased levels of anxiety, irritation and depressed mood across situations and time, while not sharing these emotions with others because of fear of disapproval.

We found that Type D personality predicts mortality and morbidity in these patients, independent of traditional medical risk factors.”

The conclusions come from a study of 6,121 patients with heart problems.

The results showed that those with type D personalities were at three times the risk of cardiovascular problems like heart attacks and heart failure.

A further analysis of 49 separate studies found that type D personalities are at higher risk of psychological problems.

Dr Johan Denollet, study co-author, said:

“Type D personality and depression are distinct manifestations of psychological distress, with independent cardiovascular effects.

Our findings support the simultaneous use of depression and Type D measures to flag high-risk patients.”

Personality types

It was two cardiologists who originally came up with the idea of type A and type B personalities.

They found that type A personalities, who are competitive, hostile and aggressive, are at a higher risk of heart problems than people with a type B personality.

Type Bs are typically easy-going, relaxed and patient.

Studies have been equivocal on whether this dichotomy is useful.

This categorisation of personality types has now been superceded by the Five Factor Model, which classifies personality on five dimensions:

  • openness to experience,
  • conscientiousness,
  • agreeableness,
  • neuroticism,
  • and extraversion.

However, type D personalities may provide a useful categorisation beyond the Five Factor Model.

A previous study found that heart failure patients who also had a type D personality were six times more likely to be in a worse state of health.

The study was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes (Denollet et al., 2010).

The Personality Trait Linked To Living Longer

Certain personality traits predict how long you will live.

Certain personality traits predict how long you will live.

People who are persistent and careful live the longest lives, research finds.

Surprisingly, to live a long life you don’t need to be particularly happy.

In fact, the people you might expect to live longest — cheerful, happy-go-lucky types — actually have the shortest lives.

The reason is that cheerful, laid-back people tend to be more careless about their health.

Persistent and conscientious people, though, get that check-up and are more committed to their work.

The conclusions come from a study that originally included 1,500 smart children.

They were followed from when they were 10-years-old in 1921.

Professor Howard S. Friedman, the study’s first author, said:

“Probably our most amazing finding was that personality characteristics and social relations from childhood can predict one’s risk of dying decades later.”

Namely, being conscientious predicted a long life, explained Professor Leslie R. Martin, study co-author:

“…participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking.

It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest.”

The study also found that people who were the most committed to their jobs lived the longest.

Productive people lived longer than their more laid-back peers.

Professor Friedman said:

“…we found that as a general life-orientation, too much of a sense that ‘everything will be just fine’ can be dangerous because it can lead one to be careless about things that are important to health and long life.

Prudence and persistence, however, led to a lot of important benefits for many years.

It turns out that happiness is not a root cause of good health.

Instead, happiness and health go together because they have common roots.”

Some other pointers for a long life from the study included:

  • Help others: it can lengthen your life.
  • Avoid getting divorced if you are a man. Women, though, do just as well without their husbands.
  • Don’t start formal schooling too soon — early play is important.
  • Do work hard and stay committed to what you do.

It’s never too late to make a change, said Professor Martin:

“Thinking of making changes as taking ‘steps’ is a great strategy.

You can’t change major things about yourself overnight.

But making small changes, and repeating those steps, can eventually create that path to longer life.”

The research was published in The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight Decade Study (Friedman & Martin, 2011).

2 Personality Traits That Reduce Dementia Risk

People with these two personality traits lost less brain volume with age.

People with these two personality traits lost less brain volume with age.

People who are low in agreeableness are better protected against neuro-degeneration with age, research finds.

Similarly, people who are non-conformists and those who are more curious have less chance of developing dementia.

The study is not the first to show a link between personality and brain aging.

Previous research has also shown that being neurotic can double the risk of dementia.

For the current study, the researchers tracked 65 elderly people for over four years.

All were given tests including brain imaging and assessments of their thinking skills.

Professor Panteleimon Giannakopoulos, the study’s first author, said:

“In order to get as complete a picture as possible, we decided to look at the non-lesional determinants of brain damage, i.e. the environment, lifestyle and psychology.

So we conducted cognitive and personality assessments.”

The results showed that two personality traits were linked to a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.

People with the two personality traits lost less brain volume with age, whether or not they developed dementia.

Being low in agreeableness is, essentially, the reverse of being ‘nice’, explained Professor Giannakopoulos:

“A high level of agreeableness characterizes highly adaptive personalities, who want above all to be in line with the wishes of others, to avoid conflict, and to seek cooperation.

This differs from extraversion.

You can be very extroverted and not very pleasant, as are narcissistic personalities, for example.

The important determinant is the relationship to the other: do we adapt to others at our own expenses?”

The second personality trait linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s was being open to experience.

People who are open to experience tend to be curious about the world and seek out knowledge.

Professor Giannakopoulos:

“This is less surprising, as we already knew that the desire to learn and interest in the world around us protects against cerebral ageing.”

Personality change tends to be hard, said Professor Giannakopoulos:

“If it seems difficult to profoundly change one’s personality, especially at an advanced age, taking this into account in a personalized medicine perspective is essential in order to weigh up all the protective and risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease. It is an important part of a complex puzzle.”

The study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging (Giannakopoulos et al., 2020).