Category: Personality

These two personality traits are linked to having a stronger immune system.

People with a positive and uninhibited personality tend to have a stronger immune system.

People with stable emotions who are extraverted and outgoing also tend to show lower immune system activation, suggesting better overall health.

Extraverted people tend to focus on the world around them and are happiest when socially engaged and active.

Two signs that a person has a positive and outgoing personality are strongly disagreeing with both the following statements:

• “I often find myself worrying about something.”
• “I would rather keep people at a distance.”

The conclusions come partly from a study which found that people who are extraverted and have stable emotions are at lower risk of dying from peripheral artery disease.

By contrast, a negative and inhibited personality is linked to a weaker immune system.

This type of negative personality is sometimes known as ‘type D’, where D stands for distressed.

The study’s authors explain:

“Preliminary evidence suggests that personality traits such as hostility may also be associated with the severity and progression of atherosclerosis [plaque buildup] in patients with PAD.

Another potential individual risk factor in this context is the distressed personality type (type D).

Type D refers to the joint tendency to experience negative emotions and to inhibit self-expression in social interaction.”

The researchers tracked 184 patients with peripheral artery disease.

The results showed that people with a type D personality were at higher risk of dying.

A type D personality is characterised by neuroticism and introversion.

One of the reasons for the link may be, the authors write:

“…inadequate self-management of chronic disease is a potential behavioral mechanism that may explain the relation between type D personality and poor prognosis in cardiovascular disease.”

The study was published in the journal The Archives of Surgery (Aquarius et al., 2009).

These two personality types choose high-status cars.

Two different personality types are attracted to driving a high-status cars, like an Audi, Mercedes or BMW.

The first group fits a familiar stereotype: argumentative, disagreeable, and unempathetic men.

The second type, though, is a conscientious man or woman: someone who wants others to know they are respectable, reliable and well-organised.

Those are the results of a study inspired by the common observation that drivers of high-status cars are more likely to break traffic regulations.

Professor Jan-Erik Lönnqvist, the study’s lead author, was inspired by his own observations on the road:

“I had noticed that the ones most likely to run a red light, not give way to pedestrians and generally drive recklessly and too fast were often the ones driving fast German cars.”

The fast and the reckless

Indeed, studies have shown that people driving more expensive cars are more likely to break the rules.

Wealth, psychologists have argued, has a corrupting effect on people, making them less law-abiding.

That may be so, but Professor Lönnqvist and colleagues thought the link could be partly explained by personality.

To test this, the researchers surveyed 1,892 car owners in Finland, asking about their cars, wealth and consumption habits.

The results revealed that men who are disagreeable, argumentative and stubborn are more likely to own a high-status car.

Professor Lönnqvist said:

“These personality traits explain the desire to own high-status products, and the same traits also explain why such people break traffic regulations more frequently than others.”

While disagreeable men showed the strongest link to luxury vehicles, Professor Lönnqvist noted a broader trend:

“But we also found that those whose personality was deemed more disagreeable were more drawn to high-status cars.

These are people who often see themselves as superior and are keen to display this to others.”

A second, less obvious group that was attracted to high-status cars was men and women high in conscientiousness.

Conscientious people tend to be well-organised, reliable, ambitious and respectable.

Professor Lönnqvist said:

“The link is presumably explained by the importance they attach to high quality.

All makes of car have a specific image, and by driving a reliable car they are sending out the message that they themselves are reliable.”

One puzzle was why high-status cars do not particularly appeal to self-centred women.

Professor Lönnqvist thinks one possibility is that women do not see cars as significant status symbols as do men.

Related

• 10 Powerful Ways Conscientiousness Shapes Your Mind, Body & Behaviour (P)

The study was published in the International Journal of Psychology (Lönnqvist et al., 2019).

Outgoing or introverted? Which personality types are best at fighting off infection?

Outgoing, sociable people tend to have the strongest immune systems.

Extraverts typically seek out new experiences, prefer to take charge and are outgoing and talkative.

Extraverts tend to have better social skills and feel more positive emotions and they are more motivated.

Those who are the most conscientious and careful, though, are more likely to have a weaker immune system response.

Conscientious people are systematic and dutiful and more likely to follow through on their plans than their less conscientious peers.

The research found no evidence, though, that a tendency towards negative emotions was associated with poor health.

The researcher gave personality tests to 121 healthy adults.

Along with assessing the five major personality factors — extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness — participants had blood samples taken to measure genetic factors known to be important in immune function.

Professor Kavita Vedhara, who led the study, explained the results:

“Our results indicated that ‘extraversion’ was significantly associated with an increased expression of pro-inflammatory genes and that ‘conscientiousness’ was linked to a reduced expression of pro-inflammatory genes.

In other words, individuals who we would expect to be exposed to more infections as a result of their socially orientated nature (i.e., extraverts) appear to have immune systems that we would expect can deal effectively with infection.

While individuals who may be less exposed to infections because of their cautious/conscientious dispositions have immune systems that may respond less well.

We can’t, however, say which came first.

Is this our biology determining our psychology or our psychology determining our biology?”

Related

• 9 Surprising Ways Sleep Shapes Your Personality, IQ, Brain & Mental Health (P)

The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendochrinology (Vedhara et al., 2014).