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Five Factor Model Personality Traits and All-Cause Mortality in the Edinburgh Artery Study Cohort

From the Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland (M.D.T., M.C.W., I.J.D.); Wolfson Unit for Prevention of Peripheral Vascular Diseases, Public Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland (G.R.F.); Department of General Practice and Primary Care, Foresterhill Health Centre, Aberdeen, Scotland (A.J.L.); Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland (I.J.D., M.A.).

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Martha C. Whiteman, Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, Scotland, UK. E-mail: m.whiteman{at}ed.ac.uk

Objective: To examine whether personality traits are related to all-cause mortality in a general adult population in Scotland.

Methods: The Edinburgh Artery Study began in 1987 to 1988 by recruiting 1592 men and women aged 55 to 74 years to be followed-up for atherosclerotic diseases. The NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was completed by 1035 surviving participants in 1995 to 1996. Deaths from all causes were examined in relation to personality traits and social and physical risk factors for mortality.

Results: During follow-up, 242 (37.1%) men and 165 (24.6%) women died. For the whole sample, there was a 28% lower rate of all-cause mortality for each 1 SD increase in NEO-FFI openness (95% CI, 0.61–0.84) and a 18% lower rate of all-cause mortality for each 1 SD increase in NEO-FFI conscientiousness (95% CI, 0.70–0.97). In men, the risk of all-cause mortality was 0.63 (95% CI, 0.5–10.78) for a 1 SD increase in openness and 0.75 (95% CI, 0.61–0.91) for a 1 SD increase in conscientiousness. In women, none of the personality domains were significantly associated with all-cause mortality. Well fitting structural equation models in men (n = 652) showed that the relationships between conscientiousness and openness and all-cause mortality were not substantially explained by smoking, or other variables in the models.

Conclusion: High conscientiousness and openness may be protective against all-cause mortality in men. Further investigations are needed on the mechanisms of these associations, and the influence of personality traits on specific causes of death.

Key Words: personality • Five-Factor Model • all-cause mortality • cohort

Abbreviations: BMI = body mass index; SBP = systolic blood pressure; NEO-FFI = NEO Five-Factor Inventory.