The contributions of personality and social relationships to late-life health: A twin study approach

与年龄相关的身体健康下降是我国面临的最紧迫的问题之一。在…的背景下 这一重要的社会挑战，健康心理学的主要贡献之一就是证明 身体健康的这种差异与人的各个方面(即，个体差异 个性特征)以及个人所处的关键社会背景(即素质和性质 成年人的人际关系经验)。例如，在预测死亡率时，人格特征的影响大小 尽职尽责和神经质的比例等于，如果不大于低SES或低IQ1的话。同样，它也一直是 指出“Social Relationship…”构成健康的主要风险因素--与公认的 健康指标，如吸烟、血压、血脂、肥胖和体力活动“2(第1页)。在……里面 简而言之，关键的内部和人际资源与健康状况密切相关，这一点现在已不存在争议。 然而，这些关联从环境中介过程中出现的程度 易于干预在很大程度上仍是未知的，因为现有的研究不能排除 这些关联中的一些可能反映了混淆的影响，特别是唤起基因 过程，在个性/人际经历和身体健康之间产生关联3，4.我们 建议使用创新的双胞胎对照设计，以排除潜在的遗传和家庭背景 混淆，从而确定连接个性和人际关系的环境中介联系 在年龄增长和身体健康结果方面的经验。回避相关的问题 对于测量误差，我们将使用多层次分析方法进行评估，包括：(A)自我和 浪漫伴侣--关于个性、社会支持和关系满意度的报告，(B)对婚姻的观察 持续监测参与者自主神经系统反应时的相互作用，以及(C) 衡量与健康有关的行为以及健康状况的标准和早期生物标记物。 此外，我们打算在基因知情的研究设计的背景下完成所有这些工作。尽管这件事已经 这是以前从未做过的，在适当定位干预措施以改善老年人健康方面至关重要。 更具体地说，我们将研究个人/人际差异与身体健康之间的关系 健康是通过与明尼苏达州双胞胎登记处(MTR)的参与者合作进行环境调解的，目前在 晚年生活(800对双胞胎和他们的浪漫伴侣，如果适用)，一组完成了 个性(约28年前，当时他们~38岁)。这些新措施的获得 将使我们能够解决我们的具体目标：(目标1)确定之间的联系 晚年的人格和关系经历以及身体健康都受到环境因素的影响。 2)确定连接人格和健康的环境途径中的机制，并(目标3)测试 个性和人际关系品质的影响是否延伸到健康风险的生物学指标。

Age-related decline in physical health is one of the most pressing concerns our country faces. In the context of this important societal challenge, one of the major contributions of health psychology has been to demonstrate that variation in physical health is reliably associated with aspects of the person (i.e., individual differences in personality traits) as well as the key social contexts in which the person is embedded (i.e., the quality and nature of adults’ interpersonal experiences). For example, in predicting mortality, the effect size for the personality traits of conscientiousness and neuroticism are equal to, if not greater than low SES or low IQ1. Similarly, it has been noted that “social relationships…constitute a major risk factor for health—rivaling the effect of well established health markers such as cigarette smoking, blood pressure, blood lipids, obesity and physical activity”2 (p. 1). In short, that key intra- and interpersonal resources are reliably associated with health status is now not in dispute. Nevertheless, the degree to which these associations emerge from environmentally mediated processes amenable to intervention remains largely unknown because existing research cannot rule out the possibility that some of these associations might reflect the impact of confounds, including especially evocative genetic processes, that produce correlations between personality/interpersonal experiences and physical health3, 4. We propose to use an innovative co-twin control design to rule out potential genetic and family background confounds and thereby identify environmentally mediated connections linking both personality and interpersonal experiences in advancing age with physical health outcomes. To sidestep problems with correlated measurement error, we will use a multiple-levels-of-analysis approach to assessment, including: (a) self- and romantic partner-reports of personality, social support, and relationship satisfaction, (b) observations of marital interactions while participants’ autonomic nervous system responses are monitored continuously, and (c) measurement of health-related behaviors and both standard and early biological markers of health status. Moreover, we intend to do all of this in the context of a genetically informed research design. Though this has never before been done, it is critical in properly targeting interventions to improve health among older adults. More specifically, we will study whether the relation between individual/interpersonal differences and physical health is environmentally mediated by working with participants in the Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR) now in late life (800 twin pairs with their romantic partners, as applicable), a group that completed an assessment of personality previously (~28 years ago, when they were ~38 years old). The acquisition of these new measures from the MTR will allow us to address our specific aims: (Aim 1) to determine whether associations between both personality and relationship experiences in late life and physical health are environmentally mediated, (Aim 2) to identify mechanisms in the environmental pathways connecting personality and health, and (Aim 3) to test whether the effects of personality and relationship qualities extend to biological indicators of health risk.