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