Category: Personality

Better mental and physical functioning among people high in this personality trait.

Optimists report higher levels of mental and physical functioning than pessimists.

Not only that, but optimists also live longer.

Dr Toshihiko Maruta, the study’s first author, said:

“The wellness of being is not just physical, but attitudinal.

How you perceive what goes on around you and how you interpret it may have an impact on your longevity, and it could affect the quality of your later years.”

Researchers studied 447 people who were followed over 30 years.

Their personality was assessed, along with their physical and mental functioning.

It turned out that pessimists had a lower quality of life, on average.

Dr Maruta said:

“Our study provides documentation for beliefs commonly held by patients and health care practitioners about the importance of optimistic and pessimistic attitudes.

However, questions remain about the practical significance of these findings for health care practitioners.”

Naturally, though, the study cannot tell us if optimism causes these benefits or is a result of it.

Dr Maruta said:

“Explanatory style may have implications for prevention, intervention, health care utilization and compliance with treatment regimens.

Well formulated studies are essential to warrant the extra time, effort and costs associated with efforts to intervene in a patient’s explanatory style or to personalize the care specific to explanatory style.”

Previous research has also revealed that both extroverts and optimists are more likely to live longer than introverts and pessimists.

As I have written elsewhere:

“Optimists have healthier hearts than pessimists.

Optimists also had healthier body mass indexes, were more physically active and less likely to smoke.

Researchers found that the more optimistic people were, the greater their overall physical health.

The most optimistic people were 76% more likely to have health scores that were in the ideal range.”

The study was published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Maruta et al., 2012).

…and this is the personality trait that keeps you thin…

People with impulsive personalities have the highest chance of being overweight, research carried out over 50 years finds.

Those who score in the top 10 percent for impulsivity are, on average, 22 lbs. heavier than those in the bottom 10 percent.

People who are high in neuroticism and low in conscientiousness are more likely to go through cycles of gaining and losing weight.

The researchers write:

“Individuals with this constellation of traits tend to give in to temptation and lack the discipline to stay on track amid difficulties or frustration.

To maintain a healthy weight, it is typically necessary to have a healthy diet and a sustained program of physical activity, both of which require commitment and restraint.

Such control may be difficult for highly impulsive individuals.”

The conclusions come from data on 1,988 people followed for 50 years.

The results showed that people generally got heavier with age, but those who gained the most were impulsive, enjoyed taking risks and were competitive and aggressive.

Dr Angelina R. Sutin, who led the study, said:

“Previous research has found that impulsive individuals are prone to binge eating and alcohol consumption.

These behavioral patterns may contribute to weight gain over time.”

People who stayed the thinnest were likely to be high on conscientiousness, a personality trait linked to being careful and precise.

Dr Sutin said:

“The pathway from personality traits to weight gain is complex and probably includes physiological mechanisms, in addition to behavioral ones.

We hope that by more clearly identifying the association between personality and obesity, more tailored treatments will be developed.

For example, lifestyle and exercise interventions that are done in a group setting may be more effective for extroverts than for introverts.”

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

These are the healthiest personality traits, as rated by psychologists.

The healthiest personality traits include stable emotions, openness to feelings, the experience of positive emotions and being agreeable.

People with these traits tend to have higher self-esteem, be more optimistic and find it easier to regulate their emotions.

The conclusions come from a survey of both professional psychologists and college students, totalling in the thousands.

Both gave surprisingly similar answers to what constitutes a healthy personality, said Dr Wiebke Bleidorn, the study’s first author:

“People in general, no matter whether they are experts or not, seem to have quite a clear idea of what a healthy personality looks like.”

The study revealed that people with the healthiest personalities have the following traits:

1. Straightforwardness
2. Competence
3. Openness to feelings
4. Warmth
5. Positive emotions
6. Low depression
7. Low anxiety
8. Low impulsivity
9. Low stress vulnerability
10. Low anger hostility

Naturally, those with healthy personalities also scored lower in narcissism and exploitativeness.

However, they scored higher in more healthy aspects of narcissism, such as self-sufficiency and grandiosity.

Similarly, on tests of psychopathy, healthy people scored lower on negative traits like disinhibition, but higher on positive traits like boldness.

The study’s authors concluded:

“Individuals with high scores on the healthy personality index were psychologically well-adjusted, had high self-esteem, good self-regulatory skills, an optimistic outlook on the world, and a clear and stable self-view.

These individuals were low in aggression and meanness, unlikely to exploit others, and were relatively immune to stress and self-sufficient.”

The study was published in PsyArXiv (Bleidorn et al., 2018).

People with these three personality traits tend to have stronger immune systems.

Personality traits and the immune system display some fascinating connections.

For example, contrary to conventional beliefs, outgoing and sociable individuals are found to exhibit the strongest immune responses.

This challenges the assumption that carefulness is synonymous with robust health.

Here are three ways research has found connections between personality and the immune system.

1. Introverts versus extroverts

Outgoing, sociable people have the strongest immune systems, a study finds.

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

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

2. Optimists versus pessimists

Optimists have healthier hearts than pessimists, a study of over 51,000 adults has found.

Optimists tend to have stronger immune systems, which may be part of the reason.

Professor Rosalba Hernandez, who led the study, said:

“Individuals with the highest levels of optimism have twice the odds of being in ideal cardiovascular health compared to their more pessimistic counterparts.

This association remains significant, even after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics and poor mental health.”

Optimists also had healthier body mass indexes, were more physically active and less likely to smoke.

Researchers found that the more optimistic people were, the greater their overall physical health.

The most optimistic people were 76% more likely to have health scores that were in the ideal range.

3. Conscientiousness

Men with conscientious personality traits and those who are open to experience live longer, a study has found.

Consciousness has repeatedly been linked to a stronger immune system.

For women, those who are more agreeable and emotionally stable enjoy a longer life.

This means that for women the best personality traits for a long life are:

1. Extroversion
2. Optimism
3. Agreeableness
4. Emotional stability

Whereas for men, the best traits are:

1. Extroversion
2. Optimism
3. Conscientiousness
4. Openness to experience

Ask your friends

The kicker is that it’s your friends — not you — who are better at judging these personality traits from the outside and consequently predicting how long you will live and even how strong your immune system might be.

Dr Joshua Jackson, the author of a study on the subject, said:

“You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave.

Our study shows that people are able to observe and rate a friend’s personality accurately enough to predict early mortality decades down the road.

It suggests that people are able to see important characteristics related to health even when their friends were, for the most part, healthy and many years from death.”

The personality trait linked to ‘getting lucky’ more often.

People who are extraverted have more ‘mating success’.

The more extraverted men and women are, the more often they ‘get lucky’ with the opposite sex.

For men, those with certain combinations fare even better.

Men who are both extraverted and agreeable or extraverted and conscientious are especially fortunate.

Introverted men should not despair — they still do well if they are high on both agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Both extraverted men and women have more offspring.

Dr Stephen Whyte, the study’s first author, said:

“Throughout history, competitive advantages have helped men and women achieve increased success in their occupation, sport, artistic endeavours, their ability to acquire and secure resources, and ultimately, their survival.”

The conclusions come from a study of almost 4,500 heterosexual people.

They were given personality tests and asked about their private lives and any children they had.

Dr Whyte explained:

“The results showed certain trait combinations appear to result in higher mating frequency and more offspring for select males.

The combinations producing higher frequency for select males being high extraversion and high agreeableness, high extraversion and high conscientiousness, and high agreeableness with high conscientiousness.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Whyte et al., 2019).