Higher levels of neuroticism in older adults predict lower executive functioning across time: the mediating role of perceived stress

Abstract

Neuroticism has been associated with individual differences across multiple cognitive functions. Yet, the literature on its specific association with executive functions (EF) in older adults is scarce, especially using longitudinal designs. To disentangle the specific influence of neuroticism on EF and on coarse cognitive functioning in old adulthood, respectively, we examined the relationship between neuroticism, the Trail Making Test (TMT) and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) in a 6-year longitudinal study using Bayesian analyses. Data of 768 older adults (M age = 73.51 years at Wave 1) were included in a cross-lagged analysis. Results showed no cross-sectional link between neuroticism and TMT performance at Wave 1 and no longitudinal link between neuroticism at Wave 1 and MMSE at Wave 2. However, neuroticism at Wave 1 predicted TMT performance at Wave 2, indicating that the more neurotic participants were, the lower they performed on the TMT six years later. Additional analyses showed that this relation was fully mediated by participants' perceived stress. Our results suggest that the more neurotic older adults are the more stress they may perceive six years later, which in turn negatively relates to their EF. In sum, this study demonstrates that neuroticism may lead to lower EF in older age across six years. It further suggests older adults' perceived stress as mediator, thereby providing novel insights into the mechanisms underlying this relation. Possible intervention approaches to counter these effects are discussed.

Socioeconomic status impacts cognitive and socioemotional processes in healthy ageing

“…Our models were hypotheses-driven (as stated in the Introduction) and the conceptual split of the selected domains (e.g., cognitive—executive functions) is grounded on relevant evidence 1 – 3 , 17 – 23 . Moreover, the inclusion of global scores for cognitive state, executive functions, and social cognition is a common practice in path analysis models 85 – 87 . Nonetheless, exploratory results including ACE-III subdomains instead of the total score in the models were consistent with our main interpretations (Supplementary material 4 ).…”

Neuroticism and white matter hyperintensities

“…Thus, while vascular factors play an important role, the tendency to experience negative emotions might have other mechanisms or a direct role in WMH and cognitive function. For example, there is evidence that perceived stress (Da Silva Coelho et al, 2022;Montoliu et al, 2022) and physical fitness (Stephan et al, 2023a) are other promising pathways linking personality traits to brain health.…”

Distress and neuroticism as mediators of the effect of childhood and adulthood adversity on cognitive performance in the UK Biobank study

“…Furthermore, previous research showed a link between neuroticism and performance in cognitive tests: Older adults high in neuroticism perceived more stress which led to lower performance in executive function tasks across a study period of six years 15 . Further research showed that in older adults, neuroticism was associated with worse performance in working memory, executive function 16 and other cognitive performance tasks 17 .…”

“…Further research showed that in older adults, neuroticism was associated with worse performance in working memory, executive function 16 and other cognitive performance tasks 17 . Thus, neuroticism may be a candidate mediator of the negative effect of adversity on cognitive performance because of the known association between neuroticism and adversity 14 on one hand and the known association between neuroticism and cognition on the other hand 15 – 17 .…”