Personality traits reinforce longevity

Longevity tends to run in families and is reinforced by specific personality traits among children of centenarians (persons who have attained the age of 100 years or more). Studies of such descendants showed their mortality to be 120 per cent lower than the average population. They also have much lower prevalence rates and delayed onsets of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes. Since personality traits have been shown to have substantial heritable components, researchers assumed that certain personality features might be important to the healthy ageing observed in the offspring of centenarians. Using the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) questionnaire, measures of the personality traits for neuroticism (tendency to experience negative emotions), extraversion (sociability), openness, agreeableness and meticulousness were obtained from 246 (125 women and 121 men) unrelated children of centenarians with an average age of 75 years. Both the male and female offspring of centenarians scored in the low range of published norms for neuroticism and in the high range for extraversion. The women also scored comparatively high in agreeableness. Otherwise, both sexes scored within normal range for conscientiousness and openness, and the men scored within normal range for agreeableness. Specific personality traits are important to the relative successful aging demonstrated by the children of centenarians. Measures of personality are an important determinant to assess genetic and environmental influences of longevity and successful aging.

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