An analysis of nearly six million person-years of observation revealed an association between personality traits and life expectancy, as well as the risk of death.

The study found that personality likely influences the risk of death by influencing a range of health behaviors and biological processes that determine the body’s long-term health.

The work synthesized a huge amount of data from numerous long-term studies conducted on four continents. Review published inJournal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Five personality traits were analyzed. The study included data from 569,859 people, resulting in a total of 5,997,667 person-years of observation and 43,851 deaths.

The researchers examined the association with mortality risk for traits such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

In adults, higher levels of neuroticism, which is characterized by anxiety, worry and emotional instability, are associated with an increased risk of premature death. Higher levels of conscientiousness—the tendency to be organized and self-disciplined—are associated with a reduced risk of death. Extraversion, reflected in the desire for social activity and communication, was also associated with a reduced risk of death. Age was found to be an important factor in the relationship between neuroticism and risk of death, with the effect being stronger in younger people.

The association between extraversion and risk of death was particularly strong in the US and Australia compared to other countries. The researchers offer several possible explanations for these differences, including that extraversion may have beneficial health consequences in some cultural contexts than in others. The relationship between openness to experience and agreeableness and health outcomes was not found or was weak in most studies.

“This review brings together the results of many years of longitudinal research and provides compelling evidence of the important role personality plays in longevity. We have shown that the way we think, feel and act affects not only life satisfaction and social connections, but also life expectancy. Personality is one of the key factors determining health and longevity. Importantly, the magnitude of this effect is comparable to that of well-established determinants of public health, such as socioeconomic status,” explained Mary McGeehan, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick, who led the study.

“This is truly groundbreaking work that will inspire much future research into how our tendencies to think, act and feel relate to our lifespan. This study builds on other work from our group showing that personality is critically important to health across the lifespan,” added psychologist Pauric O’Sullivan, senior author and principal investigator on the project.

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Published on:2025-12-16 15:57:00
Source:naukatv.ru