Personality and Mortality Risk in Adulthood: Behavioral and Physiological Mechanisms

现在有充分的证据表明，个性特征的个体差异与寿命健康有关 结果和长寿。人们的兴趣已经从这些基本的人格-健康检查转移到了 与确定解释为什么心理特征预测健康和 长寿。探索健康行为和生理功能是如何通过不同的人格发挥作用的 影响健康是未来研究的合乎逻辑的下一步。具体地说，个人在神经质方面得分更高 责任心越低的人更有可能使用烟草、非法药物和更多的酒精， 而且也更有可能久坐不动，饮食习惯不佳。这些行为是 导致老年人健康状况不佳和死亡风险增加的主要行为因素。此外，这些 特征水平还与心血管恶化加剧、免疫功能受损以及 不健康的代谢水平。尽管直觉上看，具有某些人格特征的人 从事某些行为，随着时间的推移，这些行为会恶化生理健康，缩短寿命 缺乏支持这些解释途径的经验证据。如果不能更清楚地了解 这些过程在人的一生中展开，防治过早衰老的干预措施的开发将是 有限的。因此，该提案的短期目标与NIA确定机制的战略方向相一致 心理因素通过这些因素在衰老过程中发挥作用，但这也与NIA长期存在的 开发基础知识的学期目标议程，用于创建干预措施 保持健康，延长健康寿命。当前提案的中心假设是，某些人 个性特征会导致参与健康行为(例如，大量饮酒、吸烟、吸毒 使用、缺乏体力活动、较低的医疗保健利用率和不良的睡眠习惯)，这将导致关键的 生理系统，这最终将导致死亡风险增加。为了实现这些目标， 提案将利用一个协调的分析框架来分析12个档案数据源，其中包括 44000名参与者。这一建议的关键因素包括：1)人口多样化，其普适性 研究结果可以通过复制和元分析技术进行检验；2)对重复测量的分析 个性、健康行为和客观的生理测量，以确定变化如何展开 时间和建立路径的时间顺序；以及3)使用复杂的中介分析 在结构方程建模框架中进行，以提供直接/间接的统计证据 效果。总体而言，这项拟议的研究具有重要意义，因为它探索了可改变的心理 随着时间的推移，构建会对行为、生理和寿命产生影响。了解这些流程如何在 使用不同测量方法的大样本将提供支持发展所需的统计证据 旨在改善老龄化结果的干预措施。

Sufficient evidence now exists that individual differences in personality traits are associated with lifespan health outcomes and longevity. Interests have shifted from these basic examinations of personality-health associations to identifying the precise mechanisms explaining why psychological traits predict health and longevity. Exploring how health behaviors and physiological function act as conduits by which personality impacts health is the logical next step of future research. Specifically, individuals scoring higher in neuroticism and lower in conscientiousness are more likely to use tobacco, illicit drugs, and greater quantities of alcohol, and are also more likely to be sedentary and have poor dietary habits. These behaviors are some of the leading behavioral contributors to poor health and increased mortality risk among older adults. Moreover, these trait levels are also associated with increased cardiovascular deterioration, impaired immune function, and unhealthy metabolic levels. Although it seems intuitive that individuals with certain personality characteristics engage in certain behaviors which over time will deteriorate physiological health and shorten the lifespan, the empirical evidence to support these explanatory pathways is lacking. Without a clearer understanding of how these processes unfold over the lifespan, the development of interventions to combat premature aging will be limited. Thus, the short-term goal of this proposal parallels NIA strategic directions to identify mechanisms through which psychological factors exert their effects on the aging process, but it also parallels the NIA long- term goal agenda of developing foundational knowledge to be used in the creation of interventions that maintain health and increase a healthy lifespan. The central hypothesis of the current proposal is that certain personality characteristics will lead to engagement in health behaviors (e.g., greater alcohol, tobacco, drug use, physical inactivity, lower health care utilization, and poor sleep habits) that will lead to dysregulation of key physiological systems, that ultimately will result in an increased mortality risk. To accomplish these goals, the proposal will utilize a coordinated analysis framework to analyze 12 archival data sources that include over 44,000 participants. Key factors to this proposal include: 1) a diverse population where generalizability of findings can be tested via replication and meta-analytic techniques; 2) analysis of repeated measures of personality, health behaviors, and objective measures of physiology to determine how change unfolds over time and establish temporal ordering of pathways; and 3) the use of sophisticated mediation analyses conducted in a structural equation modeling framework to provide the statistical evidence of direct/indirect effects. Overall, the proposed research is significant because it explores how modifiable psychological constructs impact behavior, physiology, and longevity over time. Understanding how these processes unfold in a large sample using diverse measures will provide the statistical evidence needed to support the development of interventions aimed at improving aging outcomes.