Conceptual and empirical work has long suggested that personality and health are closely intertwined later in life. Little is known, however, about the nature and direction of time-ordered associations between the 2 domains within-persons. We applied continuous time auto- and cross-effects models to up to 6 waves of 13-year longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study (N = 516, M = 84.92, SD = 8.66, age range 70 to 103) and examined time-ordered relations between personality traits (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism) and performance-based indicators of functional health (i.e., physical and sensory functioning) in late life. Consistent with proposals to distinguish the young-old (age 70 to 84) from the oldest-old (aged 85+) in later life, results suggest that predictive effects of neuroticism on functional health are stronger in younger as compared with older individuals. In contrast, health decrements precede and predict change in neuroticism in the oldest-old more strongly as compared with the young-old. In addition, we found that decreases in extraversion predict subsequent decreases in functional health and vice versa, with effects being equally pronounced among younger and older participants. Furthermore, by employing continuous time models we could demonstrate that the magnitude of these effects varies depending upon the time interval under consideration. These findings suggest that personality and functional health are closely intertwined in old and very old age, and that the nature of time-ordered associations differs between traits and age period. We discuss conceptual and practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record

We examine how late-life personality development relates to overall morbidity as well as specific performance-based indicators of physical and cognitive functioning in 1,232 older adults in the Berlin Aging Study II (aged 65-88 years). Latent growth models indicated that, on average, neuroticism and conscientiousness decline over time, whereas extraversion and openness increase and agreeableness remains stable. Higher morbidity and worse grip strength were associated with higher neuroticism. Lower grip strength was further associated with lower openness, attenuated increases in extraversion, decreases in agreeableness and accelerated decline in conscientiousness. Moreover, those with poor perceptual speed reported higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness. We also found age-and gender-differential associations between physical health and cognitive performance with levels of and changes in personality. Words: 120

Growing research on personality-relationship dynamics demonstrates that people's personality and their (enjoyment of) social relationships are closely intertwined. Using experience sampling data from 136 adults (aged 18-89 years) who reported on more than 50 000 social interactions, we zoom into everyday real-world social interactions to examine how Big Five personality traits and social context characteristics shape people's happiness in social encounters across the adult lifespan. Results revealed that interactions that were social (vs. task-oriented) and with close (vs. less close) others were associated with higher momentary happiness as were higher levels of the target person's extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism. Of the 10 personality × situation interactions tested, only one reached significance (with p = .041): Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism benefitted more from interactions with friends than did individuals low in neuroticism. The role of social context characteristics for momentary happiness changed with age, but the role of personality or personality × social context did not, suggesting that personality effects on happiness in social context manifest in similar ways across the adult lifespan. We discuss implications for personality-situation research and the understanding of affective dynamics in everyday social interactions.