Review Article
Personality and Longevity: Knowns, Unknowns, and Implications for Public Health and Personalized Medicine
Table 1
Summary of studies in personality and longevity.
| Personality dimension | Summary of findings | Strength of overall evidence |
| Conscientiousness | Numerous studies report reduced risk of all-cause mortality across diverse samples | Strong | Openness | Fewer studies, but results suggest reduced risk of all-cause and possibly CVD mortality | Modest | Extraversion | Results somewhat mixed, with findings of reduced, increased, and no mortality risk | Inconsistent | Optimism | Many studies suggesting reduced risk for all-cause, cardiovascular, and in some cases cancer mortality | Strong | Neuroticism | Some studies report increased, while other report decreased or no risk for all-cause and CVD mortality | Inconsistent | Control | Fewer studies, but findings tend to suggest reduced risk of all-cause mortality | Modest | Agreeableness | Fewer studies, with no few substantial effects | Weak | Hostility | Many studies, finding increased risk for all-cause and CVD mortality, driven by interpersonal antagonism and angry emotion | Strong | Type D | Modest number of studies in CVD populations, most finding increased CVD mortality risk | Strong | Suppression | Fewer studies, controversial interpretations of data, some studies suggest increased risk particularly for cancer mortality, others inconclusive | Inconsistent |
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