Turiano Nicholas A, Chapman Benjamin P, Gruenewald Tara L, Mroczek Daniel K
Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California.
Health Psychol. 2015 Jan;34(1):51-60. doi: 10.1037/hea0000038. Epub 2013 Dec 23.
Personality traits predict both health behaviors and mortality risk across the life course. However, there are few investigations that have examined these effects in a single study. Thus, there are limitations in assessing if health behaviors explain why personality predicts health and longevity.
Utilizing 14-year mortality data from a national sample of over 6,000 adults from the Midlife in the United States Study, we tested whether alcohol use, smoking behavior, and waist circumference mediated the personality-mortality association.
After adjusting for demographic variables, higher levels of Conscientiousness predicted a 13% reduction in mortality risk over the follow-up. Structural equation models provided evidence that heavy drinking, smoking, and greater waist circumference significantly mediated the Conscientiousness-mortality association by 42%.
The current study provided empirical support for the health-behavior model of personality-Conscientiousness influences the behaviors persons engage in and these behaviors affect the likelihood of poor health outcomes. Findings highlight the usefulness of assessing mediation in a structural equation modeling framework when testing proportional hazards. In addition, the current findings add to the growing literature that personality traits can be used to identify those at risk for engaging in behaviors that deteriorate health and shorten the life span.
人格特质在整个生命历程中既预测健康行为又预测死亡风险。然而，很少有研究在一项研究中同时考察这些影响。因此，在评估健康行为是否能解释人格为何能预测健康和长寿方面存在局限性。
利用来自美国中年研究中6000多名成年人的全国样本的14年死亡率数据，我们测试了饮酒、吸烟行为和腰围是否介导了人格与死亡率之间的关联。
在调整了人口统计学变量后，较高水平的尽责性预测随访期间死亡风险降低13%。结构方程模型提供的证据表明，大量饮酒、吸烟和更大的腰围显著介导了尽责性与死亡率之间42%的关联。
本研究为“人格 - 尽责性”的健康行为模型提供了实证支持——尽责性影响人们参与的行为，而这些行为会影响健康状况不佳的可能性。研究结果凸显了在测试比例风险时，在结构方程建模框架中评估中介作用的有用性。此外，目前的研究结果进一步丰富了相关文献，即人格特质可用于识别那些有从事损害健康和缩短寿命行为风险的人。
