Are open and neurotic behaviors related to cognitive behaviors in daily life of older adults?

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has shown a positive relationship between Openness and cognitive engagement as well as Neuroticism and cognitive complaints at the between-person level. However, less is known about these associations at the within-person level in daily life. Using daily assessments, the present study examined these associations both at the between-person and within-person level. Knowing the within-person associations is important to provide valuable information for simple preventive and interceptive intervention strategies. METHOD: This study sampled 136 healthy older participants (M = 70.45 years; 41.2% male). Open and neurotic behaviors as well as cognitive engagement and complaints were measured every evening over 11 days. RESULTS: The results of multilevel models showed a positive association between open behaviors and cognitive engagement at the between-person and within-person level. For neurotic behaviors and cognitive complaints, no association was found at either level of analysis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings extend previous research by providing the investigation of the associations between specific naturally occurring behaviors related to personality and cognition in the daily life of older adults at the within-person level. Furthermore, these results may offer some basis for future intervention studies that should test whether a simple intervention aimed at promoting Openness-related behaviors may increase cognitive engagement

Cognitive complaints mediate the effect of cognition on emotional stability across 12 years in old age

Previous research supports a positive relationship between cognition and emotional stability, although findings regarding healthy older adults are inconsistent. Additionally, little is known about the mechanisms that underlie this association. Thus, the present study investigated the mediating effect of cognitive complaints on the bidirectional longitudinal association between cognition and emotional stability in old age. The study sample consisted of 500 older individuals (M age = 62.97 years, SD = 0.91, range = 60-64 years; 52% male) from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on Adult Development. The results showed that cognitive complaints mediated the effect of cognition on emotional stability over 12 years even when taking baseline emotional stability, baseline cognitive complaints, depressive affect, gender, sensory functioning, and objective and subjective health into account. However, cognitive complaints did not mediate the effect of emotional stability on cognition. The results of the current study emphasize the importance of investigating cognition as a predictor of personality traits, and indicate that cognitive resources may serve as a protective factor for emotional stability in old age. (PsycINFO Database Record

Eye tracking in the wild: Piloting a real-life assessment paradigm for older adults

Previous research showed associations between personality traits and eye movements of young adults in the laboratory. However, less is known about these associations in real life and in older age. Primarily, there seems to be no paradigm to assess eye movements of older adults in real life. The present feasibility study thus aimed to test grocery shopping as a real-life assessment paradigm with older adults. Additionally, possible links between personality traits and eye movements were explored. The sample consisted of 38 older individuals (M = 72.85 years). Participants did their grocery shopping in a supermarket while wearing an eye tracker. Three key feasibility issues were examined, that is (1) wearability of the eye tracker during grocery shopping, (2) recording, and (3) evaluation of eye movements in a real-life context. Our real-life assessment paradigm showed to be feasible to implement and acceptable to older adults. This feasibility study provides specific practical recommendations which may be useful for fu-ture studies that plan to innovatively expand the traditional methods repertoire of personality science and aging research by using eye tracking in real life

Eye Tracking in the Wild: Piloting a Real-Life Assessment Paradigm for Older Adults

Previous research showed associations between personality traits and eye movements of young adults in the laboratory. However, less is known about these associations in real life and in older age. Primarily, there seems to be no paradigm to assess eye movements of older adults in real life. The present feasibility study thus aimed to test grocery shopping as a real-life assessment paradigm with older adults. Additionally, possible links between personality traits and eye movements were explored. The sample consisted of 38 older individuals (M = 72.85 years). Participants did their grocery shopping in a supermarket while wearing an eye tracker. Three key feasibility issues were examined, that is (1) wearability of the eye tracker during grocery shopping, (2) recording, and (3) evaluation of eye movements in a real-life context. Our real-life assessment paradigm showed to be feasible to implement and acceptable to older adults. This feasibility study provides specific practical recommendations which may be useful for future studies that plan to innovatively expand the traditional methods repertoire of personality science and aging research by using eye tracking in real life

Personality nuances and risk of dementia:Evidence from two longitudinal studies

Personality traits are broad constructs composed of nuances, operationalized by personality items, that can provide a more granular understanding of personality associations with health outcomes. This study examined the associations between personality nuances and incident dementia and evaluated whether nuances associations replicate across two samples. Health and Retirement Study (HRS, N = 11,400) participants were assessed in 2006/2008, and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA, N = 7453) participants were assessed in 2010/2011 on personality and covariates. Dementia incidence was tracked for 14 years in the HRS and 8 years in ELSA. In both HRS and ELSA, higher neuroticism domain and nuances (particularly nervous and worry) were related to a higher risk of incident dementia, whereas higher conscientiousness domain and nuances (particularly responsibility and organization) were associated with a lower risk of dementia. To a lesser extent, higher extraversion (active), openness (broad-minded, curious, and imaginative), and agreeableness (helpful, warm, caring, and sympathetic) nuances were associated with a lower risk of dementia, with replicable effects across the two samples. A poly-nuance score, aggregating the effects of personality items, was associated with an increased risk of incident dementia in the HRS and ELSA, with effect sizes slightly stronger than those of the personality domains. Clinical, behavioral, psychological, and genetic covariates partially accounted for these associations. The present study provides novel and replicable evidence for specific personality characteristics associated with the risk of incident dementia

BMI, Weight Discrimination, and Psychological, Behavioral, and Interpersonal Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine whether BMI and weight discrimination are associated with psychological, behavioral, and interpersonal responses to the coronavirus pandemic.MethodsUsing a prospective design, participants (N = 2,094) were first assessed in early February 2020 before the coronavirus crisis in the United States and again in mid-March 2020 during the President's "15 Days to Slow the Spread" guidelines. Weight, height, and weight discrimination were assessed in the February survey. Psychological, behavioral, and interpersonal responses to the coronavirus were assessed in the March survey.ResultsPrepandemic experiences with weight discrimination were associated with greater concerns about the virus, engaging in more preventive behaviors, less trust in people and institutions to manage the outbreak, and greater perceived declines in connection to one's community. BMI tended to be unrelated to these responses.ConclusionsDespite the risks of complications of coronavirus disease associated with obesity, individuals with higher BMI were neither more concerned about the virus nor taking more behavioral precautions than individuals in other weight categories. Weight discrimination, in contrast, may heighten vigilance to threat, which may have contributed to both positive (greater concern, more precautionary behavior) and negative (less trust, declines community connection) responses to the pandemic

Is healthy neuroticism associated with health behaviors? A coordinated integrative data analysis

Current literature suggests that neuroticism is positively associated with maladaptive life choices, likelihood of disease, and mortality. However, recent research has identified circumstances under which neuroticism is associated with positive outcomes. The current project examined whether “healthy neuroticism”, defined as the interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, was associated with the following health behaviors: smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Using a pre-registered multi-study coordinated integrative data analysis (IDA) approach, we investigated whether “healthy neuroticism” predicted the odds of engaging in each of the aforementioned activities. Each study estimated identical models, using the same covariates and data transformations, enabling optimal comparability of results. These results were then meta-analyzed in order to estimate an average (N-weighted) effect and to ascertain the extent of heterogeneity in the effects. Overall, these results suggest that neuroticism alone was not related to health behaviors, while individuals higher in conscientiousness were less likely to be smokers or drinkers, and more likely to engage in physical activity. In terms of the healthy neuroticism interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, significant interactions for smoking and physical activity suggest that the association between neuroticism and health behaviors was smaller among those high in conscientiousness. These findings lend credence to the idea that healthy neuroticism may be linked to certain health behaviors and that these effects are generalizable across several heterogeneous samples

Is healthy neuroticism associated with longevity? A coordinated integrative data analysis

Early investigations of the neuroticism by conscientiousness interaction with regards to health have been promising, but to date, there have been no systematic investigations of this interaction that account for the various personality measurement instruments, varying populations, or aspects of health. The current study - the second of three - uses a coordinated analysis approach to test the impact of the neuroticism by conscientiousness interaction on the prevalence and incidence of chronic conditions. Using 15 pre-existing longitudinal studies (N > 49,375), we found that conscientiousness did not moderate the relationship between neuroticism and having hypertension (OR = 1.00,95%CI[0.98,1.02]), diabetes (OR = 1.02[0.99,1.04]), or heart disease (OR = 0.99[0.97,1.01]). Similarly, we found that conscientiousness did not moderate the prospective relationship between neuroticism and onset of hypertension (OR = 0.98,[0.95,1.01]), diabetes (OR = 0.99[0.94,1.05]), or heart disease (OR = 0.98[0.94,1.03]). Heterogeneity of effect sizes was largely nonsignificant, with one exception, indicating that the effects are consistent between datasets. Overall, we conclude that there is no evidence that healthy neuroticism, operationalized as the conscientiousness by neuroticism interaction, buffers against chronic conditions

Promoting Cognitive, Physical, and Social Activities for Healthy Aging by Targeting Personality

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework that aims to explain how and why engaging in cognitive, physical, and social activities is related to short-term healthy aging outcomes. The Activities in Motion and in Action (AMA) framework consists of five components (engagement, outcomes, mechanisms, moderators and intervention) and five paths through which the components may influence each other. The framework depicts an overview of the mechanisms that underlie cognitive, physical, and social activities’ successful short-term effects and the features that render these activities optimally effective. The centerpiece of the framework are personality-informed interventions, which are suggested to promote the engagement in cognitive, physical and social activities of older adults (i.e., “be in motion and take action”). The AMA framework proposes three intervention factors (action/practice, learning/insight, and self-regulation) as potential heuristic principles leading to positive healthy aging outcomes. In sum, this framework has great potential to inform theory development of healthy aging, as it is essential to a better understanding of predictors, mechanisms, and moderators that potentially shape short-term dynamic processes of healthy aging