The study had 129 people given tests of personality and intelligence.
This personality trait is linked to low levels of interleukin-6, which is often a marker that the immune system is functioning better.
This personality trait is linked to mental health problems.
This personality trait is linked to mental health problems.
Being impulsive can be a sign of poor mental health, research finds.
People who are impulsive tend to prefer a small immediate reward over a larger reward later on.
Impulsive people tend to act on their immediate thoughts and emotions without thinking about the consequences.
In other words, impulsive people want to have fun now, not later — even if waiting is more sensible.
People who are depressed, have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or some eating disorders are more likely to be impulsive.
Psychologists can measure this type of impulsivity with a test of ‘delay discounting’.
Delay discounting is the idea that people tend to discount a reward more, the longer the delay until they receive it.
So, psychologically, $5 right now is worth more than $10 in three weeks time.
Or, as the proverb has it: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
People who can delay their gratification find it easier to wait for their rewards.
However, people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder find it particularly hard to delay gratification.
The conclusions come from a review of 43 separate studies.
Dr Michael Amlung, the study’s first author, said:
“The revelation that delay discounting is one of these ‘trans-diagnostic’ processes will have a significant effect on the future of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.”
Among people with mental health problems, though, anorexia was the exception.
People with anorexia tend to make excessively self-controlling decisions.
This makes sense given that anorexia is a disorder characterised by a very high level of self-control over eating behaviours.
Professor Randi McCabe, study co-author, said:
“Examining factors that cut across psychiatric disorders, such as delay discounting, helps to illuminate commonalities and distinguishing characteristics amongst disorders that then guide further research on treatment and prevention.”
The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry (Amlung et al., 2019).
People with these three personality traits tend to have stronger immune systems.
People with these three personality traits tend to have stronger immune systems.
Personality traits and the immune system display some fascinating connections, research finds.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Whereas for men, the best traits are:
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.”
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Some people who have quite extensive damage to their brains from dementia can continue to function well, perhaps because of these personality traits.
Some people who have quite extensive damage to their brains from dementia can continue to function well, perhaps because of these personality traits.
People who score highly on the personality traits of extraversion and conscientiousness are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia, a study finds.
However, those who are neurotic are at an increased risk of a dementia diagnosis.
Experiencing more negative emotions was also linked by the research to a higher risk of dementia, while positive emotions lowered the risk.
The theory is that personality and the emotions make people more or less resilient against dementia by influencing behaviour.
The conclusions come from a review of 8 separate studies including over 44,000 people.
The study looked at markers of neurodegeneration in the brain, explained Dr Eileen Graham, study co-author:
“We’ve seen in previous research that if someone is higher in neuroticism, they have higher odds of being clinically diagnosed with dementia, whereas those higher in conscientiousness have lower odds of developing dementia.
However, those clinical diagnoses are typically based on assessments of cognition.
We wondered how personality traits might be related to clinically diagnosed dementia compared to dementia based on neuropathology markers assessed at autopsy.”
They found that while personality was linked to dementia risk, it was not explained by any signs of pathology in the brain.
Dr Emorie Beck, the study’s first author, said:
“This was the most surprising finding to us.
If personality is predictive of performance on cognitive tests but not pathology, what might be happening?”
A probable explanation is that some personality traits help people withstand the onset of dementia better than others.
For example, conscientious people are more likely to take care of their health, including eating well.
Perhaps the higher sociability of extraverted people also helps protect them against dementia.
Some people who have quite extensive damage to their brains from dementia may continue to function well because of these personality traits.
It may be possible to target personality traits to reduce dementia risk, said Dr Graham:
“Neuroticism is related to dementia decline, and people with neuroticism are more prone to anxiousness, moodiness and worry whereas conscientious people are more likely to exercise, make and go to preventive health appointments and drink less.
So maybe that’s where an intervention might be useful to improve someone’s health behaviors for better health outcomes.”
No other factors, including gender, age or education explained the link between dementia risk and personality, said Dr Beck:
“We found almost no evidence for effects, except that conscientiousness’s protective effect increased with age.”
The study was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia (Beck et al., 2023).
People high in one trait are less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia.
People high in one trait are less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia.
Self-disciplined and highly organised people are at a reduced risk of dementia.
These are both aspects of conscientiousness, one of the five major aspects of personality.
Conscientious people tend to be goal-directed and hard-working as well as responsible and organised.
People who are high in conscientiousness are less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, which can be a precursor to dementia, researchers have found.
In contrast, being emotionally unstable is linked to an increased risk of dementia.
Known as neuroticism, the personality trait is linked to anxiety and depression as well as a greater experience of negative emotions.
Dr Tomiko Yoneda, the study’s first author, said:
“Personality traits reflect relatively enduring patterns of thinking and behaving, which may cumulatively affect engagement in healthy and unhealthy behaviors and thought patterns across the lifespan.
The accumulation of lifelong experiences may then contribute to susceptibility of particular diseases or disorders, such as mild cognitive impairment, or contribute to individual differences in the ability to withstand age-related neurological changes.”
The study involved almost 2,000 people enrolled in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a long-term study tracking older adults in Illinois.
The results showed that higher conscientiousness was linked to a lower risk of dementia and higher neuroticism was linked to an increased risk of dementia.
Dr Yoneda explained:
“Scoring approximately six more points on a conscientiousness scale ranging 0 to 48 was associated with a 22% decreased risk of transitioning from normal cognitive functioning to mild cognitive impairment.
Additionally, scoring approximately seven more points on a neuroticism scale of 0 to 48 was associated with a 12% increased risk of transition.”
Eighty-year-olds high in conscientiousness were likely to live around two years longer without cognitive impairment.
They were also more likely to recover to normal cognition after receiving a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.
High neuroticism, though, was linked to a year less living without cognitive impairment.
The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Yoneda et al., 2022).
Human beings are mostly primed by evolution to be optimistic, but it is not always the best policy.
Fluid intelligence refers to the raw speed at which the brain works.
Fluid intelligence refers to the raw speed at which the brain works.
A hunger for new, unconventional ideas is one of the strongest indicators of high IQ, research finds.
People with high IQs are intellectually curious and enjoy things like unusual activities, philosophical arguments and brain teasers.
This desire for new ideas is linked to an aspect of IQ called fluid intelligence.
Fluid intelligence refers to the speed at which the brain works.
It is like the raw power of an engine or the speed at which a computer can process information.
Fluid intelligence is contrasted with crystallised intelligence.
Crystallised intelligence is something like general knowledge: the information that people have learnt about the world over the years.
The conclusions come from a study of 2,658 employees working at 10 different companies in the UK.
They were all given tests of personality and intelligence.
The results showed that high fluid intelligence was linked to hunger for new ideas.
Like an interest in ideas, being willing to try new activities was also linked to intelligence, the authors write:
“Actions refers to willingness to try different activities, and to a preference for novelty and variety over familiarity and routine.
Fluid intelligence involves things like reaction times, quick thinking, reasoning, seeing relationships and approaching new problems.
This means that individuals high on [fluid intelligence] have an innate ability to cope more efficiently with novel experiences, and to deal with intellectually stimulating tasks such as brain teasers, which would thus make it rewarding for them to pursuit such activities.
Similarly, individuals low on [fluid intelligence] may in time grow to avoid such activities, due to their low ability to handle them, which would thus make them less rewarding.”
The study was published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences (Moutafi et al., 2006).
Exploring the personality traits of criminals, psychopaths, alexithymics, the anxious and the heroic.
These 8 psychology studies explore the traits of criminals, psychopaths, alexithymics, the anxious and the heroic.
Our own personalities are so familiar that we often do not notice how they influence what we think and do.
It is when interacting with someone whose traits are quite different that our own are thrown into contrast.
What makes criminals, psychopaths and the aggressive the way they are?
What about the successful, the worried, the heroically selfless and even people who feel nothing at all?
All these personality traits and more are explored in these 8 studies from 2023 on the psychology of personality.
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Why some violent criminals are more likely than others to offend again.
One-in-four children worldwide is maltreated.
Women’s natural assertiveness is revealed online.
There is little evidence that children ‘turn into’ their parents, but parental personalities are central.
One way to deal with less attractive personality traits.
Like most psychological concepts this personality trait exists on a continuum.
These antagonistic personality traits are linked to prejudiced view against gay and trans people.
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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These personality traits are linked to a genetic variation that can be detected from a saliva sample.
These personality traits are linked to a genetic variation that can be detected from a saliva sample.
People who are emotionally stable, empathetic and sociable have the happiest marriages, research finds.
Low levels of anxious attachment are also important to relationship satisfaction.
In contrast, people high in anxious attachment are ‘needy’ and worry that their partners do not care for them.
High levels of attachment anxiety are also linked to a fear of abandonment.
So, low levels of anxious attachment are preferable in a partner.
All these personality traits are linked to a genetic variation that can be detected from a saliva sample, new research has found.
The genetic variation affects a neurotransmitter called oxytocin.
Oxytocin — sometimes known as the ‘love hormone’ — is important in social bonding.
Researchers found that when one partner in a marriage had this genetic variation linked to oxytocin, both reported greater marital satisfaction and feelings of security.
The conclusions come from a study of 178 married couples aged 37 to 90.
All were asked about their marital satisfaction and had their genotype analysed from a saliva sample.
The results revealed that those with a genetic variation known as the ‘GG genotype’ had higher marital satisfaction.
Dr Joan Monin, the study’s first author, said:
“This study shows that how we feel in our close relationships is influenced by more than just our shared experiences with our partners over time.
In marriage, people are also influenced by their own and their partner’s genetic predispositions.”
The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Monin et al., 2019).
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