CONSCIENTIOUS PEOPLE = BETTER HEALTH

Here is press release describing some research on conscientiousness and health. As it turns out, conscientious people have better health. Well, how can that be a surprise? They do take more care, are going to be more careful about health, eating, and exercise.

The real question is whether this press release actually teaches us anything valuable.
The back story here is that conscientiousness is one of the Big Five personality factors, the most popular model of personality, at least in personality and social psychology circles. Those five are explained here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

You can memorize the Big Five (if you are conscientious!) with the acronym OCEAN:
O = Openness to Experience
C = Conscientiousness (our topic for today)
E = Extraversion, outgoingness
A = Agreeableness
N = Neuroticism or reactivity to outside stimuli and events

So this report found below is about the advantages of conscientiousness. There are other advantages, such as success in finishing school and showing grit or determination.

Our question should be, “So what?” Does this help? After all, the theory would be that these factors are fairly biological / genetic, so aren’t we just stuck with who we are?

I think that a better concept is that genes are cards we are given to play, and how we play them makes all the difference. I have never played bridge, but we do play hearts in my family, and there are strategies for playing a hand that can give you more success. I assume that is true of bridge also.

So while I may not be naturally high in conscientiousness, I can build that as a skill since it is linked to some very good outcomes. The opposite, impulsiveness, would not be worth developing, in my humble opinion.

The theory would be that this is a trait that is normally distributed. Imagine a bell-shaped curve. Most of us are clustered around the center of the bell curve, and only a few are out on the extremes of either being very conscientious or very impulsive. I suspect what we can learn from such research as this is to move ourselves somewhat toward the conscientious side of the dimension, cultivating habits of following through, being careful to avoid harm, trying to do things “right” while not falling into traps of extremes.

In other words, I argue for a Growth model, not a Fixed model of personality. We can shape our temperment through our choices. Around half of these personality factors seem to be inherited, leaving the other half open to influence through our choices. If we get into the habit, for example, of always hanging up our clothes, we are cultivating that conscientious trait. You are more than your physical body. That means, your mind can shape your brain and your body.

Here’s the wikipedia entry on conscientiousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness

And, here is the press release:

Editor’s Notes: Obtained from the American Psychological Association
Find this press release and its web enhancements at: <http://bit.ly/1pzjWnc>

March 11, 2014
Personality May be Key Risk Factor in Preventive Health Care

Conscientious young adults enjoy better health as they age, research finds

WASHINGTON — When it comes to helping young adults avoid serious health problems later in life, assessing their personalities during routine medical exams could prove as useful as recording their family medical histories and smoking habits, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Health care reform provides a great opportunity for preventive care, with physicians seeing more young adults who may not previously have had insurance,” said lead author Salomon Israel, PhD, of Duke University and Duke University Medical Center. “Our research found that if a doctor knows a patient’s personality, it is possible to develop a more effective preventive health care plan that will result in a much healthier life.”

APA Executive Director Norman B. Anderson, PhD, said this study provides more evidence of the benefits of integrated health care. “The best health care is one that treats the whole person including how their personality traits impacts their attitudes and behaviors vis-à-vis their health,” said Anderson, who is also director of APA’s Center for Psychology and Health.

Being conscientious appears to be the best bet for good health among traits known as the “Big Five,” which are the basis for most psychological personality assessments. Along with conscientiousness, the Big Five include extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience. Participants who were more conscientious when they were 26 years old were more likely to be in much better health at age 38 than those who were low in that personality trait, the study found.

“Among the least conscientious, 45 percent went on to develop multiple health problems by age 38, while just 18 percent of the most conscientious group developed health problems,” Israel said. “Individuals low in conscientiousness were more often overweight, had high cholesterol, inflammation, hypertension and greater rates of gum disease.”

On the press release, there is a link: Translating Personality Psychology to Help Personalize Preventive Medicine for Young Adult Patients (PDF, 109KB)

Conscientious people are more likely to have active lifestyles, maintain healthy diets and have more self-control, so are less likely to smoke or abuse alcohol and drugs, the study noted. This could explain the apparent relationship between that trait and better health, the researchers said. A surprising find was that being neurotic at age 26 was not linked to poorer physical health at age 38, contrary to some theories that aspects of neuroticism such as stress and anxiety can lead to ill health. This was the case even though the neurotic participants rated themselves in poorer health at the later age, according to the study.

Researchers examined data from a Dunedin, New Zealand health and development study involving 1,037 people born between April 1972 and March 1973. Slightly more than half the subjects were male. The participants were assessed about every two years from birth until they were 38 years old. At age 26, the participants nominated a person who knew them well, such as a parent, spouse or friend, to describe them using the Big Five traits. Researchers also gathered participants’ clinical health information and risk factors commonly recorded in primary care offices, including income, education, smoking, obesity, current and past illnesses and family medical history.

At age 32, the participants’ personalities were again assessed on the Big Five scale, but this time in a clinical setting with ratings by the clinic receptionist and nurse who were not aware of the study’s focus. This brief clinical assessment yielded similar results to those done by people who knew the participants well when they were 26 years old, according to the study. At age 38, the participants had physical exams that checked for abnormalities of liver and kidney functions, blood pressure, heart and lung fitness, vascular inflammation and periodontal disease.

“Personality traits can be measured cheaply, easily and reliably, and these traits are stable over many years and have far-ranging effects on health,” said Israel. “Our findings suggest that in addition to considering ‘what’ a patient has among risks for chronic age-related diseases, physicians can benefit from knowing ‘who’ the patient is in terms of personality in order to design effective preventive health care.”

Article: “Translating Personality Psychology to Help Personalize Preventive Medicine for Young Adult Patients,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, March 2014, by Salomon Israel, Duke University and Duke University Medical Center; Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University and King’s College London; Daniel W. Belsky, Duke University and Duke University Medical Center; Robert J. Hancox, W. Murray Thomson and Richie Poulton, University of Otago; Brent Roberts, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; Avshalom Caspi, Duke University, Duke University Medical Center and King’s College London.

Salomon Israel, PhD, can be contacted by email or by phone at (919) 259-9362

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes more than 134,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives.