Personality and Cognitive Decline in the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Follow-up Study

Abstract

Objective To determine the association between personality domains and 11-year cognitive decline in a sample from a population-based study. Method Data from Waves 3 (1993–1996) and 4 (2003–2004) of the Baltimore cohort of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study were used for analyses. The sample included 561 adults (mean age ±SD = 45.2 ±10.78 years) who completed the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) prior to Wave 4. Participants also completed the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and immediate and delayed word recall tests at Wave 3, and at Wave 4 10.9 ±0.6 years later. Results In models adjusted for baseline cognitive performance, demographic characteristics, medical conditions, depressive symptoms, and psychotropic medication use, each 10-point increase in Neuroticism T-scores was associated with a 0.15-point decrease in MMSE scores (B = −0.15 95% confidence interval (CI) −0.30, −0.01), whereas each 10-point increase in Conscientiousness T-scores was associated with a 0.18-point increase on the MMSE (B = 0.18, 95% CI 0.04, 0.32) and a 0.21-point increase in immediate recall (B = 0.21, 95% CI 0.003, 0.41) between baseline and follow-up. Conclusion Findings suggest that greater Neuroticism is associated with decline, and greater Conscientiousness is associated with improvement in performance on measures of general cognitive function, and memory in adults. Further studies are needed to determine the extent to which personality traits in midlife are associated with clinically significant cognitive outcomes in older adults, such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia, and to identify potential mediators of the association between personality and cognitive trajectories.

Associations between personality and whole‐brain functional connectivity at rest: Evidence across the adult lifespan

“…Although exploratory, our findings suggest that conscientiousness may be a protective resource for brain aging, being associated with higher within‐FPN connectivity, which is otherwise expected to decrease as a function of age (Campbell, Grady, Ng, & Hasher, ). Our result is in line with several observations that show conscientiousness as a predictor for academic or occupational success, healthy lifestyle, reduced cognitive decline, and longevity (Bogg & Roberts, ; Costa, Weiss, Duberstein, Friedman, & Siegler, ; Hock et al, ; Noftle & Robins, ; Ozer & Benet‐Martínez, ; Sutin & Terracciano, ).…”

“…Evidence indicates that personality traits, particularly conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness, are associated with general health, longevity, cognitive performance (Chapman, Roberts, & Duberstein, ; Curtis, Windsor, & Soubelet, ), and dementia risk (Chapman et al, ; Terracciano & Sutin, ). Conscientiousness has been associated with reduced cognitive decline, while neuroticism has been associated with greater decline (Caselli et al, ; Hock et al, ; Luchetti, Terracciano, Stephan, & Sutin, ). Similarly, individuals who scored lower on conscientiousness and higher on neuroticism shower greater risk for development of Alzheimer's Disease (AD; Terracciano et al, ).…”

Personality-Related Determinants of Subtle Cognitive Decline in Old Age: A Population-Based Study

“…In the same line, the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study indicated a small but still significant negative association between neuroticism and MMSE scores. Higher levels of Consciousness were associated with a slight improvement in general cognitive function measures in this cohort [44]. Our data do not confirm the negative effect of higher Neuroticism levels on cognitive fate in normal aging.…”

The impact of personality on memory function in older adults—results from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam

“…A high neuroticism score is associated with fear, sadness, embarrassment, guilt, and anger (McCrae and Costa, 2010). High neuroticism has been linked to a steeper cognitive decline (Chapman et al, 2012;Hock et al, 2014;Luchetti et al, 2015), poorer overall cognition (Boyle et al, 2010), and an increased risk of dementia (Duberstein et al, 2011). Yet, a link between neuroticism and cognitive decline was not confirmed by others (Wetherell et al, 2002;Jelicic et al, 2003).…”