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

与肥胖相关的身体健康下降是我国面临的最紧迫问题之一。背景下 这一重要的社会挑战，健康心理学的主要贡献之一是证明， 身体健康的变化可靠地与人的各方面相关联（即，的个体差异 人格特质）以及该人所处的关键社会环境（即，质量和性质 成年人的人际交往经验）。例如，在预测死亡率时， 如果不大于低SES或低IQ 1，则与低SES或低IQ 1相当。同样， 注意到"社会关系.构成健康的一个主要危险因素-其影响可与已建立的 健康指标，如吸烟、血压、血脂、肥胖和体力活动"2（第1页）。在 简而言之，关键的内部和人际资源与健康状况可靠地相关，这一点现在没有争议。 然而，这些协会从环境介导的过程中出现的程度 是否适合干预在很大程度上仍然是未知的，因为现有的研究不能排除这种可能性， 其中一些关联可能反映了混淆的影响，特别是引起共鸣的遗传 过程，产生个性/人际经验和身体健康之间的相关性3，4。我们 我建议使用一种创新的双胞胎对照设计来排除潜在的遗传和家庭背景 混淆，从而确定环境介导的联系，连接人格和人际 随着年龄的增长，身体健康的结果。为了回避相关的问题， 测量误差，我们将使用多层次的分析方法进行评估，包括：（一）自我和 浪漫的合作伙伴的个性，社会支持和关系满意度的报告，（B）婚姻的观察 在持续监测参与者的自主神经系统反应的同时进行交互，以及（c） 测量与健康有关的行为以及健康状况的标准和早期生物标志物。 此外，我们打算在基因知情的研究设计的背景下做这一切。尽管这 这是以前从未做过的，关键是要有针对性地采取干预措施，改善老年人的健康。 更具体地说，我们将研究个体/人际差异与身体状况之间的关系， 通过与明尼苏达州双胞胎登记处（MTR）的参与者合作， 晚年（800对双胞胎与他们的浪漫伴侣，如适用），一组完成了评估， 性格以前（~28年前，当他们38岁）。这些新措施的实施 将使我们能够实现我们的具体目标：（目标1）确定 晚年的人格和关系经历以及身体健康都是环境介导的（Aim 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 人格和人际关系质量的影响是否延伸到健康风险的生物指标。

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.