Personality and Health - A Longitudinal Study

描述(由申请人提供)：随着年龄的增长，个人保持良好健康的可能性存在显著差异，这种差异很大程度上可以通过个性对健康的影响在一生中体现出来。我们这次竞争性更新的首要目标是在夏威夷人格与健康队列中研究人格与健康之间的联系，以及这些联系背后的机制。这一多民族队列为研究与健康有关的人格过程提供了难得的机会。这项研究始于50多年前，在参与者还是小学生的时候对他们进行了个性评估。自1998年以来，我们找到并招募了参与者进行人格和许多其他心理社会变量的问卷评估，并在平均年龄50岁时进行了广泛的基线医学和心理检查。我们已经证明了童年个性与中年的主观和客观健康结果之间的联系。在该项目的下一阶段，主要活动将是在平均年龄60岁时，即基线检查后大约10年，对所有符合条件的参与者(N=572)进行第一次后续医学和心理检查。儿童时期的个性和个性变化(从童年到成年，加上成年后的个性变化)将被用来预测平均年龄60岁时的身体健康和认知功能，以及平均年龄50到60岁的身体健康和认知功能的变化。此外，我们将研究从健康-心理学模型到解释人格-健康关联的主要机制，我们将在一项为期50年的纵向研究的背景下独特地这样做。这些机制是基于认知(抑制性控制)、生物学(HPA轴)和行为(饮食、锻炼、烟酒使用、阳光暴晒)过程，这些过程被假设为人格-健康关联的基础。我们将在夏威夷和特曼生命周期数据的综合分析中检查社会融合(社会支持)过程。该项目将产生证据来指导基于个性的干预措施，特别是通过建议哪些特征和特征机制在儿童和中年最相关(例如，小学的特征责任心，中年的健康-行为机制)。此外，该项目解决了亚裔美国人和夏威夷原住民或其他太平洋岛民祖先在与健康有关的科学研究中代表性严重不足的问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Individuals differ remarkably in the likelihood that they will maintain good health as they age, and much of this variation can be captured by the influence of personality on health over the lifespan. Our overarching aim for this competing renewal is to study associations between personality and health over the lifespan, and the mechanisms underlying these associations, in the Hawaii Personality and Health cohort. This multiethnic cohort provides a rare opportunity to investigate personality processes in relation to health. The study began over 50 years ago with personality assessments of the participants when they were elementary school children. Since 1998, we have located and recruited participants for questionnaire assessments of personality and many other psychosocial variables, and conducted an extensive baseline medical and psychological examination at mean age 50. We have demonstrated associations between childhood personality and subjective and objective health outcomes at midlife. In this next phase of the project the primary activity will b to conduct the first follow-up medical and psychological examination of our sample at mean age 60, approximately 10 years after the baseline examination, on all eligible participants (N = 572). Childhood personality and personality change (from childhood to adulthood, plus personality change in adulthood) will be used to predict physical health and cognitive function at mean age 60, and changes in physical health and cognitive functioning from mean age 50 to 60. Furthermore, we will examine the main mechanisms from health-psychology models to account for personality-health associations, and we shall do so uniquely in the context of a 5-decade longitudinal study. These mechanisms are based on cognitive (inhibitory control), biological (HPA axis), and behavioral (diet, exercise, tobacco and alcohol use, sun exposure) processes which have been hypothesized to underlie personality-health associations. We will examine social-integration (social support) processes in our integrative analyses of the Hawaii and Terman Life Cycle data. This project will generate evidence to guide personality based interventions, in particular by suggesting which traits and trait mechanisms are most relevant in childhood and at midlife (e.g., trait conscientiousness in elementary school, health-behavior mechanisms at midlife). In addition, this project addresses the gross under-representation of Asian-Americans and those of Native-Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander ancestry in health-related scientific research.