Higher Resident Neuroticism Is Specifically Associated With Elevated State Cancer and Heart Disease Mortality Rates in the United States

Abstract

Relations between state-aggregated responses of 619,397 residents to the neuroticism items of the Big Five Inventory and 2005-2007 age-adjusted state cancer, heart disease, total all-cause, other-disease, and non-disease mortality rates for the 50 states were examined. Partial correlations controlling for four state demographic variables and three risk variables showed neuroticism correlated significantly only with cancer mortality (.34) and heart disease mortality (.31). Hierarchical regression with demographic variables entered first, neuroticism second, and risk variables last showed neuroticism accounted for another significant 7.6% of cancer mortality variance and an additional significant 4.6% of heart disease mortality variance. Significant βs of .28 and .30, respectively, showed higher neuroticism was associated with higher cancer and heart disease mortality when all seven demographic and risk variables were controlled. Overall, the results show resident neuroticism is related to state cancer and heart disease mortality rates but not to total all-cause, other-disease, or non-disease mortality rates.

Big Five Personality and Residential Mobility: A State-Level Analysis of the USA

“…For example, those high on openness exhibit greater curiosity and willingness to experiment, those high on conscientiousness manifest higher organization and self-discipline, those high on extraversion demonstrate more sociability and talkativeness, those high on agreeableness display higher trust and generosity, and those high on neuroticism show an inability to handle stress well and a tendency to worry a great deal (Costa & McCrae, 1995;Goldberg, 1990;John & Srivastava, 1999). The state Big Five scores of Rentfrow and colleagues have been related to various state indicators such as those reflecting crime, obesity, religiosity, liberal values, suicide, smoking, emotional health, social capital, social involvement, well-being, mortality, political ideology, political partisanship, asthma, health-promoting behavior, cancer and heart disease mortality rates, creativity, patent production, entrepreneurship, and social, enterprising, artistic, and investigative occupations (e.g., McCann, 2010aMcCann, , 2010bMcCann, , 2011aMcCann, , 2011bMcCann, , 2011cMcCann, , 2011dMcCann, , 2011e, 2014aMcCann, , 2014bMcCann, , 2014cMcCann, , 2014dObschonka, Schmitt-Rodermund, Silbereisen, Gosling, & Potter, 2013;Rentfrow, 2010;2014a;Rentfrow et al, 2008;Rentfrow, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2009;Rentfrow, Mellander, & Florida, 2009;Voracek, 2009).…”

Childhood heart problems, adulthood emotional stability, and sex associated with self-report heart conditions in adulthood

“…Second, emotionally more stable individuals have better strategy coping with stress whereas emotionally less stable individuals, with the features of negative affect and pessimism, tend to have greater prevalence of mental and physical health problems (Chapman, Roberts, & Duberstein, 2011), and various heart diseases (McCann, 2014;Jokela, et al, 2014;Almas, et al, 2017;Čukić & Bates, 2015). Although heart problems in adulthood may not be caused by adulthood emotional instability, higher scores on this trait may make those who have such conditions suffer more and delay the recovering process.…”

“…Although cardiovascular disease (heart and circulatory) mortality in the UK is declining, the disease causes more than a quarter (26 per cent) of all deaths in the UK (Bhatnagar, Wickramasinghe, Wilkins, Townsend, 2016). Heart conditions, such as heart attack (myocardial infarction), coronary heart disease, angina, congestive heart failure, have been found to be associated with depression (Carney, Freedland, Sheline, & Weiss, 1997;Dawood, Lambert, Barton, & Lambert, 2008;Summers, Martin, & Watson, 2010), mental stress (Esler, Lambert, & Alvarenga, 2008a;Esler, Schwarz, & Alvarenga, 2008b;Goble & Le Grande, 2008), pessimism (Pänkäläinen, Kerola, & Hintikka, 2015;Pänkäläinen, Kerola, Kampman, Kauppi, & Hintikka, 2016) as well as personality traits (McCann, 2014;Jokela, Pulkki-Råback, Elovainio, & Kivimäki, 2014;Almas, Moller, Iqbal, & Forsell, 2017;Čukić & Bates, 2015).…”

“…Personality traits, especially traits neuroticism (adversely) and conscientiousness (protectively) have been found to be associated with various health outcomes (Martin, Friedman, & Schwartz, 2007;Bogg & Roberts, 2004;Roberts,Walton, & Bogg, 2005;Koelsch, Enge, & Jentschke, 2012). Trait neuroticism has also been found to be associated with cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease and mortality (McCann, 2014;Jokela, et al, 2014;Almas, et al, 2017;Čukić & Bates, 2015).…”

Formy zdrowia emocjonalnego a cechy osobowości u osób dotkniętych chorobą nowotworową (kobiet po mastektomii)

“…Rezultaty wielu badań potwierdzają istnienie zależności między osobowością typu A, C i D a rozwojem chorób: nowotworowych, układu krążenia, układu pokarmowego i dermatoz (Ogińska-Bulik 2006;Wojciechowska, Pawłowski 2017). Są też badania wskazujące na związek neurotyzmu z zachorowalnością na raka (McCann 2017) i większą śmiertelnością w chorobach nowotworowych i chorobach serca (McCann 2014). Należy przy tym uwzględniać dwustronne związki między osobowością a chorobami somatycznymi: psychosomatyczne i somatopsychiczne.…”