Table 3.
Personality and Mortality Assessment Characteristics and Descriptive Statistics
| Sample | Personality Inventory | Max. Person. MOs |
Max. Person. Follow-up |
Baseline Conscien. | Baseline Neurot. | Baseline Extrav. | Baseline Agree. | Baseline Open. | Mortality Follow-up | Mortality Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIDUS | Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) (Lachman and Weaver, 1997) |
3 | 18 years | 8.15 | 4.09 | 7.32 | 8.26 | 6.7 | 24 years | 14% |
| NAS | Eysenck Personality Inventory Short Form (EPI-Q) (Floderus, 1974; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968) |
11 | 43 years | NA | 3.52 | 5.91 | NA | NA | 45 years | 78% |
| WLS | Big Five Inventory (BFI) (John et al., 1991) |
3 | 19 years | 7.69 | 4.42 | 5.64 | 7.47 | 5.25 | 19 years | 20% |
| SATSA | EPI (Eysenck, 1975) (N&E) and NEO-PI (Costa & McCrae, 1985a, 1985b) (O) | 9 | 30 years | NA | 2.98 | 5.23 | NA | 5.99 | 35 years | 70% |
| SLS | NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) |
6 | 13 years | 6.28 | 3.94 | 5.66 | 6.68 | 6.10 | 25 years | 22% |
| HRS | MIDI (Lachman and Weaver, 1997) |
3 | 8 years | 7.94 | 3.49 | 7.38 | 8.45 | 6.51 | 10 years | 16% |
| LASA | Dutch Personality Questionnaire (DPQ) (Luteijn, Starren, & van Dijk, 2000) | 3 | 6 years | NA | 1.99 | NA | NA | NA | 26 years | 75% |
| LBC | International Personality Item Pool (IPIP50) (Goldberg, 1992) | 4 | 12 years | 7.02 | 4.02 | 5.32 | 7.73 | 5.98 | 12 years | 19% |
| EAS | IPIP (Goldberg, 1992) | 10 | 12 years | 7.07 | 2.67 | 5.82 | 7.63 | 6.71 | 15 years | 20% |
| BASE | NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1985a, 1985b) |
5 | 13 years | NA | 3.22 | 6.04 | NA | 5.43 | 26 years | 100% |
| OCTO | EPI-Q (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968) |
4 | 6 years | NA | 2.51 | 5.60 | NA | NA | 16 years | 100% |
Note. Samples are shown in order from the youngest to oldest mean age at baseline. Personality traits were rescaled on a 0–10 scale across studies. Units are in standard deviations (SDs); thus, the baseline SD is equal to 1 for all traits across all studies. NA = Not assessed. MIDUS = Midlife in the United States Study. NAS = Normative Aging Study. WLS = Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. SATSA = Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. SLS = Seattle Longitudinal Study. HRS = Health and Retirement Study. LASA = Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam. LBC = Lothian Birth Cohort. EAS = Einstein Aging Study. BASE = Berlin Aging Study. OCTO = Origin of Variances in the Oldest Old: Octogenarian Twins Study. Max. = Maximum. Person. = Personality. MOs = Measurement Occasions. Neurot. = Neuroticism. Conscien. = Conscientiousness. Extrav. = Extraversion. Agree. = Agreeableness. Open. = Openness.