This Personality Trait Is Linked To A Healthier Heart And Longer Life (M)

People who are high on this personality trait have healthier hearts.

People who are high on this personality trait have healthier hearts.


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2 Personality Traits That Predict Happiness

Two personality traits that lead to a happier and more satisfying life.

Two personality traits that lead to a happier and more satisfying life.

Young adults who are more outgoing go on to lead happier lives, research finds.

Being more emotional stable also predicts happiness in later life, psychologists discovered.

The study looked at data from 2,529 people born in 1946.

They first answered a series of questions about their personalities at 16 and 26-years-of age.

Forty years later, in their early sixties, they were asked about their well-being and satisfaction with life.

Dr Catharine Gale, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“We found that extroversion in youth had direct, positive effects on wellbeing and life satisfaction in later life.

Neuroticism, in contrast, had a negative impact, largely because it tends to make people more susceptible to feelings of anxiety and depression and to physical health problems.”

High extroversion is linked to being more sociable, having more energy and preferring to stay active.

High neuroticism is linked to being distractible, moody and having low emotional stability.

Increased extroversion was directly linked to more happiness.

Greater neuroticism, meanwhile, was linked to less happiness via a susceptibility to psychological distress.

Dr Gale said:

“Understanding what determines how happy people feel in later life is of particular interest because there is good evidence that happier people tend to live longer.

In this study we found that levels of neuroticism and extroversion measured over 40 years earlier were strongly predictive of well-being and life satisfaction in older men and women.

Personality in youth appears to have an enduring influence on happiness decades later.”

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Gale et al., 2013).

The Personality Trait Linked To A Very Long Life

The trait can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

The trait can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

The personality trait of optimism is linked to a very longer life, research finds.

People who are optimistic are more likely to live an exceptionally long life.

Being optimistic — a trait that can be boosted — can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

Optimistic people tend to expect positive outcomes in the future.

Critically, optimists believe they can control their lives and make improvements.

Optimists tend to lead healthier lives and are also better at regulating their emotions.

They are less likely to smoke, have better body mass indexes and are more physically active.

Dr Lewina Lee, the study’s first author, said:

“While research has identified many risk factors for diseases and premature death, we know relatively less about positive psychosocial factors that can promote healthy aging.

This study has strong public health relevance because it suggests that optimism is one such psychosocial asset that has the potential to extend the human lifespan.

Interestingly, optimism may be modifiable using relatively simple techniques or therapies.”

The study included 71,173 people whose optimism and overall health was tracked.

The group were tracked for up to three decades.

The results showed that the most optimistic people lived up to 15 percent longer, with a 50-70 percent higher chance of reaching 85-years-old than the least optimistic people.

One of the reasons optimists live longer could be a healthier lifestyle, along with dealing with stress more effectively, said Dr Laura Kubzansky, study co-author:

“Other research suggests that more optimistic people may be able to regulate emotions and behavior as well as bounce back from stressors and difficulties more effectively.”

Increase your optimism

Exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism.

Visualising your best possible self may sound like an exercise in fantasy but, crucially, it does have to be realistic.

Carrying out this exercise typically involves imagining your life in the future, but a future where everything that could go well, has gone well.

You have reached those realistic goals that you have set for yourself.

Then, to help cement your visualisation, you commit your best possible self to paper.

The study was published in the journal PNAS (Lee et al., 2019).

3 Personality Traits Linked To Better Mental Health

Three personality traits are especially powerful in helping people deal with emotional distress.

Three personality traits are especially powerful in helping people deal with emotional distress.

Being optimistic, feeling positive emotions and controlling negative emotions are all linked to better mental health, psychologists have found.

The good news is that all three traits can be trained and improved.

Practicing these positive traits can actually change vital brain structures.

Indeed, new research reveals that people with these resilient personality factors have greater brain volume in critical areas of their prefrontal cortex.

Dr Sandra Dolcos, study co-author, said:

“People are not necessarily aware of how plastic the brain is.

We can change the volume of the brain through experience and training.

I teach brain and cognition, and students are so empowered at the end of the course because they realize that they are in charge.

It means that we can work on developing new skills, for instance, new emotion regulation strategies that have a more positive approach, and can actually impact the brain.”

The conclusions come from 85 people who were given both brain scans and personality tests.

The scans focused on the prefrontal area of the brain, the region above and behind the eyes.

Dr Dolcos explained:

“We knew from the clinical literature that there are relationships between brain volume and certain personality traits.

Lower brain volume in certain areas is associated with increased anxiety.”

Mr Matt Moore, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“…we found that if you have larger volume in this set of brain regions, you had higher levels of these protective personality traits.”

The scans revealed exactly where higher resilience can be seen in the brain’s structure, Mr Moore said:

“This study gives us the coordinates of the brain regions that are important as well as some traits that are important.

As the next step, we can then try and engage this plasticity at each of these levels and then train against a negative outcome.”

The study was published in the journal Personality Neuroscience (Moore et al., 2018).

The Personality Trait That Marks Out Selfless Heroes (M)

Kidney donors may incur considerable expense and undergo painful surgery even without knowing the organ’s recipient. Why do they do it?

Kidney donors may incur considerable expense and undergo painful surgery even without knowing the organ's recipient. Why do they do it?


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The Personality Trait That Could Extend Your Life

Survey of almost 30,000 people finds one personality trait consistently linked to longer life.

Survey of almost 30,000 people finds one personality trait consistently linked to longer life.

Being positive has been linked to living longer by research.

People lived longer if they were more:

  • optimistic about the future,
  • closer to other people,
  • decisive,
  • and felt more useful and relaxed.

Those who scored in the top sixth for being positive were 18% less likely to die over the next four years.

Other key factors linked to living longer included getting married and having a degree.

The results come from a survey of 28,662 people.

Both people’s mental health and their medical records were examined by the survey.

The people analysed in the survey had similar levels of physical health, income and other demographic characteristics.

Income, perhaps surprisingly, did not have an effect on the chance of dying.

Dr Christopher Jacobi, the study’s author, said:

“The results indicate that better positive mental health seems to have a somewhat protective effect against mortality.

In research literature the most frequently stated ways in which positive mental health is likely to affect mortality are via direct physiological responses such as lowered blood pressure, capacity to cope with stress, less drinking and smoking, an active lifestyle, and better sleep quality.

Likewise, people with high positive mental health might not be affected as severely by potentially negative symptomatic and physiological effects of life events like divorce or unemployment.”

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

As I wrote previously:

“Optimists have healthier hearts than pessimists, a study of over 51,000 adults finds.

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 presented at the British Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology conference in Birmingham on 8 Sept 2016.

This Personality Trait Is A Strong Sign Of High Empathy

One personality trait is linked to understanding other people’s feelings.

One personality trait is linked to understanding other people’s feelings.

Being agreeable is linked to high levels of empathy, research finds.

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

Agreeable people tend to be tactful, trusting, friendly and warm.

They are generally mindful of other people’s feelings, which also makes them more compliant.

People who are agreeable are more likely to be helpful to others, because of their propensity for empathy.

The conclusions come from a series of studies in which people read scenarios describing a person getting into difficulties.

Subsequently, they rated how much empathy they felt and whether they would offer assistance.

The results showed that the more agreeable people are, they more they felt empathy for the victim of the story.

Agreeable people were more likely to offer their assistance.

Along with agreeable people, those who were more neurotic were more likely to empathise.

Dr Meara Habashi, the study’s first author, said:

“It is common for persons to experience distress on seeing a victim in need of help.

That distress can lead some people to escape, and to run away from the victim.

But distress does not need to block helping because it may be one first-appearing aspect of empathy.

Distress can actually contribute to helping, but the way it contributes depends on personality.”

Less agreeable people seem to need more reminders that they should help out, said Dr Habashi:

“Personality matters.

It matters in how we structure our request for help, and it matters in how we respond to that request.

Helping is a result of several different processes running in sequence.

Each process contributes something different.

The way we ask for help -perspective taking — can influence our chances for getting it.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Habashi et al., 2016).

The Surprising Personality Trait Linked To Depression

The type of people who are more sensitive to negative emotions.

The type of people who are more sensitive to negative emotions.

People who are more open to experience are at higher risk of depression.

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

In particular, people who are into art and in touch with their emotions are more likely to experience depression.

It may be because artistic people are more sensitive.

The conclusion comes from a study of 143 people who were given tests of personality, focusing on the personality trait of openness to experience:

“Open individuals exhibit an increased awareness of, and receptiveness to, their feelings, thoughts, and impulses, as well as a need for variety, or a recurrent need to enlarge and examine experience.”

Some people in the study had never been depressed, some were depressed in the past and the remainder were currently experiencing depression.

The authors explained the results:

“Depressed participants (both current and past) scored significantly higher than nondepressed participants on the broad factor of Openness, as well as on both Openness to Aesthetics and Openness to Feelings.”

Sensitivity to the arts is probably linked to sensitivity to negative emotions, the authors write:

“It seems more likely that individuals who are attuned to beauty and the arts might be more sensitive, in general, and might therefore be more sensitive to, and affected by, negative events and stimuli.”

An appreciation of art and the experience of depression may be strongly linked:

“…the experience of depression may lead to an existential ”reexamination of the purpose of living,” and consequently bring the depressed individual “in touch with the mystery that lies at the heart of ‘tragic and timeless’ art”

[…]

Similarly, Ludwig (1994) suggested that the experience of depression (as well as other emotional problems) serves to fuel the writers “motivation for expression, . . . providing them with the basic ingredients for their art’.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality Assessment (Wolfenstein & Trull, 1997).

1 Personality Trait Predicts Happy Marriage Over 40+ Years

One personality trait emerged as the most important for satisfaction across 40+ years of marriage.

One personality trait emerged as the most important for satisfaction across 40+ years of marriage.

People with very stable emotions tend to have the best marriages, research finds.

Stable emotions reflect low levels of the personality trait of neuroticism.

Emotionally stable people (those low in neuroticism) tend not to criticise their partners, behave defensively or be contemptuous of them.

In married couples, having an extraverted, outgoing partner is also linked to higher satisfaction.

In addition, both high agreeableness and high conscientiousness are linked to relationship satisfaction in dating couples.

But it is having a partner that is co-operative and responsible that is the key, not necessarily being that way yourself.

Neuroticism, though, has the greatest effect of all personality traits on how satisfied couples are with their relationship.

People with high levels of neuroticism are more likely to get divorced.

To see how beneficial these traits are imagine for a moment the reverse of someone who is stable, agreeable and responsible.

Being neurotic, along with dis-agreeable and irresponsible is known as the ‘lack-of-self-control’ cluster of personality traits.

It is not hard to see why this set of three personality traits — that are linked to psychopathology and substance abuse — might not make for the best marriage.

The conclusions come from a study that surveyed 136 dating couples and 74 married couples.

They were asked about both their own and their partner’s personality as well as their satisfaction with their marriage.

The personality trait of neuroticism — one of the five major aspects of personality — emerged as most important, just as it has over decades of research.

The study’s authors describe one early piece of research that…

“…studied 278 couples from the mid-1930s through the early 1980s.

[…]

Analyses indicated that respondents who initially were high on neuroticism were more likely to become divorced over the course of the study.

[…]

Neuroticism scores showed significant predictive power across time spans of more than 40 years.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Watson et al., 2001).