Is Within–Individual Variation in Personality Traits Associated with Changes in Health Behaviours? Analysis of Seven Longitudinal Cohort Studies

Abstract

Personality traits are related to health behaviours, but it is unknown whether changes in personality would lead to changes in health behaviours. We examined whether naturally occurring, within‐individual variation in personality traits over time is associated with corresponding changes in smoking, physical activity, alcohol consumption, and body mass index. Data were from seven longitudinal cohort studies with a total sample of 56 786 participants with two or three repeated measurements of the Five Factor Model personality traits assessed over 4 to 19 years. Repeated measurements were used to tease apart between‐individual and within‐individual associations. In the within‐individual analysis, all the personality traits were associated with physical activity, and extraversion was associated with risky alcohol consumption. There were no other within‐individual associations. In the between‐individual analysis, lower conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, and openness to experience, and higher extraversion, were associated with many risky health behaviours. Our findings suggest that health behaviours are related mostly to stable, between‐individual differences in personality traits, but changes in adult personality may have only limited association with changes in health behaviours. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology

Personality, disability‐free life years, and life expectancy: Individual participant meta‐analysis of 131,195 individuals from 10 cohort studies

“…It is yet unclear whether personality traits are causal health risk factors or whether they are only non‐causal risk markers for mortality and morbidity (Jokela, Airaksinen, Kivimäki, & Hakulinen, ). There might be common genetic or environmental factors that contribute to personality and health (Kim, ), in which case the associations might not be causal.…”

Does Parental Investment Shape Adult Children’s Fertility Intentions? Findings From a German Family Panel

“…However, sensitivity analyses conducted with logistic regressions provided similar results as with linear regressions. We ran within-person (or fixed-effect) regression models, which show the individual's variation over time (Jokela et al, 2018). This study primarily aimed to investigate whether changes in parental investment frequencies are associated with subsequent changes in adult children's fertility intentions.…”

“…Here, we study first time whether changes in parental investment frequencies are associated with subsequent changes in adult children's fertility intentions over time. We utilize within-person regression models, which concentrate on an individual's variation over time (Jokela et al, 2018). Using the within-person approach, we test whether it is possible to provide evidence for the prediction that an increase in parental investment causally increases fertility intentions of adult children using eight waves from a longitudinal cohort study including younger and middle-aged adults from Germany.…”

Parental Warmth and Hostility and the Development of Psychopathic Behaviors: A Longitudinal Study of Young Offenders

“…One way to address this is to examine within-individual variations in parenting characteristics and psychopathic traits: if parental warmth is causally related to psychopathic traits, one would expect changes in parental warmth to become reflected in changes in psychopathic traits (cf. Jokela et al, 2018). Accordingly, we first hypothesized that parental warmth (i.e., a supportive and nurturing parental relationship) would be associated with lower psychopathic traits and less self-reported offending.…”