Personality Facets and All-Cause Mortality Among Medicare Patients Aged 66 to 102 Years:A Follow-on Study of Weiss and Costa (2005)

OBJECTIVES: To investigate associations between the personality factors and survival during 8 years follow-up. METHODS: Domains of personality and selected facet scores were assessed in 597 Medicare recipients (aged 66 to 102 years) who were followed up for approximately 8 years. Personality domains and factors were assessed using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Using proportional hazards regression, the present study builds on a previous analysis of the NEO-PI-R domains and selected facet scores, which revealed that the Neuroticism facet Impulsiveness, Agreeableness facet Straightforwardness, and Conscientiousness facet Self-Discipline were related to longer life during 4 years of follow-up. In the present study, we extended the follow-up period by an additional 4 years, examining all 30 facets, and using accelerated failure time (AFT) modeling as an additional analytic approach. Unlike proportional hazards regression, AFT permits inferences about the median survival length conferred by predictors. Each facet was tested in a model that included health-related covariates and NEO-PI-R factor scores for dimensions that did not include that facet. RESULTS: Over the 8-year mortality surveillance period, Impulsiveness was not significant, but Straightforwardness and Self-Discipline remained significant predictors of longevity. When dichotomized, being high versus average or low on Self-Discipline was associated with an approximately 34% increase in median lifespan. Longer mortality surveillance also revealed that each standard deviation of Altruism, Compliance, Tender-Mindedness, and Openness to Fantasy was associated with an estimated 9–11% increase in median survival time. CONCLUSIONS: After extending the follow-up period from 4 to 8 years, Self-Discipline remained a powerful predictor of survival. Facets associated with imagination, generosity, and higher quality interpersonal interactions become increasingly important when the follow-up period was extended to 8 years

Five-factor model personality traits in opioid dependence

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Personality traits may form a part of the aetiology of opioid dependence. For instance, opioid dependence may result from self-medication in emotionally unstable individuals, or from experimenting with drugs in sensation seekers. The five factor model (FFM) has obtained a central position in contemporary personality trait theory. The five factors are: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Few studies have examined whether there is a distinct personality pattern associated with opioid dependence.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We compared FFM personality traits in 65 opioid dependent persons (mean age 27 years, 34% females) in outpatient counselling after a minimum of 5 weeks in buprenorphine replacement therapy, with those in a non-clinical, age- and sex-matched sample selected from a national database. Personality traits were assessed by a Norwegian version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), a 240-item self-report questionnaire. Cohen's d effect sizes were calculated for the differences in personality trait scores.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The opioid-dependent sample scored higher on Neuroticism, lower on Extraversion and lower on Conscientiousness (d = -1.7, 1.2 and 1.7, respectively) than the controls. Effects sizes were small for the difference between the groups in Openness to experience scores and Agreeableness scores.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found differences of medium and large effect sizes between the opioid dependent group and the matched comparison group, suggesting that the personality traits of people with opioid dependence are in fact different from those of non-clinical peers.</p

Personality profiles of cultures: aggregate personality traits

Personality profiles of cultures can be operationalized as the mean trait levels of culture members. College students from 51 cultures rated an individual from their country whom they knew well (N = 12, 156). Aggregate scores on Revised NEO Personality Inventory scales generalized across age and gender groups, approximated the individual-level Five-Factor Model, and correlated with aggregate self-report personality scores and other culture-level variables. Results were not attributable to national differences in economic development or to acquiescence. Geographical differences in scale variances and mean levels were replicated, with Europeans and Americans generally scoring higher in Extraversion than Asians and Africans. Findings support the rough scalar equivalence of NEO-PI-R factors and facets across cultures, and suggest that aggregate personality profiles provide insight into cultural differences

Determinants of support provision : interaction of provider and recipient factors

Little research has examined the determinants of support provision. This study assessed the importance of provider empathy, provider gender, recipient gender, and recipient expressed distress in influencing supportiveness. The study made use of a 2 X 2 (gender of coper by distress of coper) between subjects design, with level of empathy and gender of subject as internal factors. Eighty-one male and 84 female undergraduates completed a measure of dispositional empathy and watched a videotape of a high or low emotion, male or female coper. Respondents then indicated via questionnaire responses, their reactions to the coper and the amounts and kinds of support they would be willing to provide. Subjects were then asked to volunteer to act as a peer counselor to the coper. As predicted, results indicated a positive association between supportiveness and empathy. Also consistent with predictions, greater supportiveness was evidenced among women than among men, and a significant portion of this tendency was attributable to gender differences in empathy. In general, no differences were found in supportiveness as a function of the gender of the coper. Last, high distress copers were liked more, and were perceived as needing more support than low distress copers. In turn, participants indicated a greater willingness to provide support to high emotion copers.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat

An interpersonal conceptualization and quantification of social support transactions

The guiding assumption of the present research was that social support behavior, like all interpersonal transactions, could be characterized as the exchange of love and status between participants in a dyadic interaction. Returning to Cobb's (1976) original definition of social support, and applying an explicit social exchange theory (Foa & Foa, 1974) within the framework of an interpersonal circumplex model, statements were generated that reflected different support styles thought to characterize different allocations of love and status between self and other. In a series of three studies, 1040 undergraduate students were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire indicating their likelihood of performing each support behavior. A circumplex structure was obtained that was both substantively and structurally auspicious, and that provided a taxonomic framework within which 12 extant social support subscales and 15 related personality characteristics were clarified, while also providing information regarding the construct validity of the circumplex framework itself. The Support Actions Scale Circumplex (SAS-C) appears to have the potential for clarifying the relations among existing social support scales and thereby integrating many of the diverse findings within the social support literature as well as for assessing a much broader range of social support behavior than has previously been measured, including both the potentially protective and deleterious effects of interpersonal transactions. Potential applications of this framework to a variety of related areas of research are also discussed.Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofGraduat

Evaluating the Interpersonal Content of the MMPI-2-RF Interpersonal Scales

Convergence between the MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Ben-Porath & Tellegen, 2008) interpersonal scales and 2 interpersonal circumplex (IPC) measures was examined. University students (N = 405) completed the MMPI-2 and 2 IPC measures, the Interpersonal Adjectives Scales Revised Big Five Version (IASR-B5; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems Circumplex (IIP-C; Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000). Internal consistency was adequate for 3 of the 6 scales investigated. The majority of scales were located in their hypothesized locations, although magnitude of correlations was somewhat weaker than anticipated, partly owing to restricted range from using a healthy sample. The expected pattern of correlations that defines a circular matrix was demonstrated, lending support for the convergent and discriminant validity of the MMPI-2-RF interpersonal scales with respect to the assessment of interpersonal traits and problems