Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Health Psychol. 2011 Sep;30(5):536-41. doi: 10.1037/a0023859.
Conscientious individuals tend to experience a number of health benefits, not the least of which being greater longevity. However, it remains an open question as to why this link with longevity occurs. The current study tested two possible mediators (physical health and cognitive functioning) of the link between conscientiousness and longevity.
We tested these mediators using a 10-year longitudinal sample (N = 512), a subset of the long-running Health and Retirement Study of aging adults. Measures included an adjective-rating measure of conscientiousness, self-reported health conditions, and three measures of cognitive functioning (word recall, delayed recall, and vocabulary) included in the 1996 wave of the HRS study.
Our results found that conscientiousness significantly predicted greater longevity, even in a model including the two proposed mediator variables, gender, age, and years of education. Moreover, cognitive functioning appears to partially mediate this relationship.
This study replicates previous research showing that conscientious individuals tend to lead longer lives, and provides further insight into why this effect occurs. In addition, it underscores the importance of measurement considerations.
尽责的人往往会体验到许多健康益处，其中最显著的是长寿。然而，为什么这种与长寿的联系会发生，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究测试了尽责性与长寿之间联系的两个可能的中介因素（身体健康和认知功能）。
我们使用了一个 10 年的纵向样本（N=512），这是老年人健康与退休研究（Health and Retirement Study）的一个子样本，对中介因素进行了测试。该样本包括一个形容词评定的尽责性量表、自我报告的健康状况以及三个认知功能量表（单词回忆、延迟回忆和词汇），这些量表包含在 HRS 研究的 1996 年波次中。
我们的结果发现，尽责性显著预测了更长的寿命，即使在包括两个拟议的中介变量（性别、年龄和受教育年限）的模型中也是如此。此外，认知功能似乎部分中介了这种关系。
这项研究复制了之前的研究，表明尽责的人往往寿命更长，并进一步探讨了为什么会出现这种效应。此外，它强调了测量考虑的重要性。
