Abstract
Objective
Substantial literature indicates that personality traits are integral to well-being and health in aging. We examined time trends in personality over birth cohorts spanning 45 years.
Methods
We used two community-based studies of 3,000 older adults at Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, continuously enrolled since the 1990s and born across seven birth cohorts: 1905–1914, 1915–1919, 1920–1924, 1925–1929, 1930–1934, 1935–1939, and 1940–1950. Conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion were assessed using components of the NEO five-factor personality inventory.
Results
Overall, the mean age was 79 years (interquartile range: 73–84). Within birth cohorts, mean age ranged from 87 years (standard deviation [SD] ± 4.8) among those born in 1905–1914 to 72 ± 4.3 years among those born in 1940–1950. Over 90% of participants were white, and about one-quarter were male. Given the modest age range, age was not related to personality, although sex and study varied; we compared sex- and study-standardized mean levels of personality across birth cohorts. We found strong associations of later birth cohort with lower neuroticism (e.g., mean ± SD neuroticism was 16.7 ± 6.3 for the 1905–1914 birth cohort; 15.8 ± 6.5 in 1925–1929; 15.2 ± 7.0 in 1940–1950; overall p < .0001 across birth cohorts). Similarly, conscientiousness was higher with later birth cohort (e.g., mean ± SD conscientiousness was 33.7 ± 4.7 in the 1905–1914 birth cohort; 33.9 ± 5.6 in 1925–1929; 35.3 ± 5.9 in 1940–1950; overall p < .0001). Trends were weak for extraversion.
Discussion
We found associations of later birth cohort with lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness among older adults. Findings suggest that personality at older ages is amenable to population-level shifts, with implications for health.
Keywords: personality, secular trends
In 20 years, there will be approximately 81 million individuals age 65 years and older in the United States (Administration for Community Living, 2021). Examining trends over time in health and health behaviors among the growing population of older persons is an essential component of public health planning and intervention (Grodstein et al., 2023).
Substantial literature indicates that personality traits are integral to both well-being and health; e.g., the Big Five personality traits, especially neuroticism and conscientiousness, are strongly associated with premature mortality (Graham et al., 2017) and chronic diseases in older persons, including stroke (Stephan et al., 2023) and dementia (Beck et al., 2024). The Big Five personality traits can change during the life course, particularly through the younger and middle ages, but also in later adulthood (Bleidorn et al., 2022; Graham et al., 2020); neuroticism and consciousness appear to shift to a greater degree than other traits with aging (Bleidorn et al., 2022). However, this work focused on within-person changes, rather than considering population-level alterations over time. By examining trends in personality traits across birth cohorts, it may be possible to better understand the potential for notable personality shifts across large segments of the older population.
Thus, we extend current research by examining trends in neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion in older adults across seven birth cohorts over 45 years, from 1905 to 1950. We leverage two studies of aging (Bennett et al., 2018); the continuous recruitment and follow-up, from 1994 to the present, along with the stable age ranges recruited, uniquely enable evaluation of personality trends in older persons over long time periods.
Methods
The Religious Orders Study (ROS; Bennett et al., 2018) was initiated in 1994 and includes older priests, nuns, and brothers across the United States, who were free of known dementia at enrollment. Nearly 1,500 participants completed a baseline evaluation as of April 2025. Overall follow-up exceeds 90%. The Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP) was established in 1997, with virtually identical design and data collection, and includes older adults from the Chicago area, without known dementia at enrollment; nearly 2,500 participants completed a baseline evaluation as of April 2025. Overall follow-up exceeds 90%. Participants in both studies receive annual home visits to collect health and lifestyle data. Data are managed by a single supervisor, with a single trainer and study team. We examined the participants to whom we administered a personality inventory. Both studies were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Rush University Medical Center. All participants signed informed consent. Data can be requested at https://www.radc.rush.edu.
Definition of birth cohorts
We examined personality trends across groups defined by calendar year of birth. We defined year-of-birth categories such that each birth cohort contained a fairly similar sample size and encompassed a fairly uniform breadth of years. We created seven categories: 1905–1914; 1915–1919; 1920–1924; 1925–1929; 1930–1934; 1935–1939; 1940–1950.
Overall, 3,209 participants completed parts of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Specifically, neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness were assessed in ROS at enrollment. In MAP, initially, neuroticism and extraversion were assessed, and conscientiousness was added later; items were administered at either enrollment, first follow-up, or second follow-up. Thus, 3,209 participants had data on neuroticism and extraversion, and 2,643 provided information on conscientiousness. We note that openness and agreeableness in the Big Five traits were initially queried in ROS but were not associated with health; therefore, those two items were not administered in MAP, leading to an inadequate sample size to examine here.
Assessment of personality
The NEO Five-Factor Inventory includes 12 items for neuroticism and conscientiousness. Participants rated agreement with each item on a five-point scale; item scores ranged from 0 to 4 and were summed to yield a total score ranging from 0 to 48, with higher scores representing more of the trait. For extraversion, we administered six items, and scores ranged from 0 to 24; we previously found the 6-item score performed equivalently to the 12-item score (r = 0.9) and administered six to most participants.
Statistical analysis
We examined distributions of age, sex, education, and study (ie, ROS or MAP), by birth cohort and by personality, to evaluate possible confounding (Table 1, Supplementary Table S1, Supplementary Figure S1). We then focused on potential confounding variables, which differed both across birth cohorts and personality traits, since confounding is driven by factors related to both. As expected, age differed across birth cohorts. However, given the modest age range in our studies of older persons, age did not differ between levels of personality (Supplementary Table S1, Supplementary Figure S1). By contrast, the distribution of sex and study varied somewhat across birth cohorts and personality traits; thus, to control for sex and study, we computed sex and study-standardized mean scores of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion for each birth cohort. Such standardization is a classic statistical technique (Ahmad et al., 2001) in time-trend analyses, using weighted averages (e.g., weighted by the distribution of sex and study in the chosen population standard) to adjust for confounding factors; the weighted average creates a uniform sex and study structure across birth cohorts. We standardized to the distribution of sex and study in the overall analytic population. We then calculated sex- and study-standardized means, and standard deviations (SD) of the weighted data (ie, the SD each group would have had if it had the same sex and study distribution as the overall analytic population).
Table 1.
Characteristics of participants according to birth cohort: ROS and Rush MAP.a
| Characteristics | Birth cohort |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1905–1914 (n = 322) | 1915–1919 (n = 386) | 1920–1924 (n = 576) | 1925–1929 (n = 636) | 1930–1934 (n = 508) | 1935–1939 (n = 412) | 1940–1950 (n = 369) | |
| Demographics | |||||||
| Age in years, Mean (SD) | 87 (4.8) | 84 (5.3) | 81 (5.9) | 79 (7.3) | 77 (6.9) | 76 (5.8) | 72 (4.3) |
| Male, % (n) | 24 (78) | 32 (124) | 30 (174) | 29 (185) | 26 (133) | 22 (91) | 22 (81) |
| White, % (n) | 98 (316) | 96 (371) | 95 (549) | 94 (595) | 91 (461) | 92 (380) | 93 (342) |
| Education in years, Mean (SD) | 17 (3.5) | 16 (3.7) | 16 (3.7) | 16 (3.6) | 16 (3.7) | 17 (3.8) | 17 (3.6) |
| MAP cohort, % (n) | 30 (96) | 50 (193) | 59 (339) | 57 (364) | 59 (301) | 63 (260) | 67 (248) |
| Health Status | |||||||
| No. of comorbidities, Mean (SD) | 1.4 (1.2) | 1.5 (1.1) | 1.5 (1.1) | 1.4 (1.1) | 1.5 (1.1) | 1.5 (1.1) | 1.4 (1.0) |
| Hypertension, % (n) | 43 (140) | 54 (210) | 53 (303) | 52 (329) | 52 (265) | 55 (226) | 55 (204) |
| Diabetes, % (n) | 10 (31) | 10 (40) | 15 (86) | 12 (76) | 17 (87) | 15 (61) | 15 (56) |
Note. MAP = Memory and Aging Project; ROS = Religious Orders Study. All characteristics at the same study evaluation when personality items were administered.
For statistical testing across years of birth, we used ANCOVA, with Tukey’s test for post hoc comparisons. To help interpret significant findings, we calculated Cohen’s d for the earliest versus the latest birth cohort.
Results
Overall, the mean age of participants was 79 years (SD 7.4), with a fairly narrow age range (interquartile range 73–84; data not shown in tables). Participants’ year of birth extended from 1905 to 1950 (Table 1). Mean age at NEO survey was two to three years younger with each successive birth cohort; for example, mean age was 87 in the 1905–1914 group, 84 in the 1915–1919 group, and 72 years in the 1940–1950 cohort. The percentage of men in each birth cohort varied over time, with a high of 32% in 1915–1919 and a low of 22% in the two most recent cohorts. All participants had high educational attainment, with a mean of 16–17 years in all birth cohorts. The mean number of comorbidities was approximately 1.5 (SD∼1.1) across birth cohorts. Prevalence of hypertension was lowest in the earliest birth cohort (43%), then remained steady across later years (52%–55%). Finally, diabetes prevalence was lower in the earlier (10%) than later birth cohorts (12%–17%), consistent with rising diabetes in the general population (Neupane et al., 2024).
In addition to considering characteristics by birth cohort, we examined characteristics according to levels of each personality trait (Supplementary Table S1; we categorized personality traits into tertiles to simplify comparisons). In general, most characteristics were similar across levels of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion, although there were modest differences in sex and in the source study across birth cohorts. Importantly, we found no difference in mean age across personality traits, likely due to the narrow age range of our participants; for example, mean age was 79 years across tertiles of neuroticism. Further, when we plotted age and personality traits as continuous variables (Supplementary Figure S1), we found correlations of just 1%–8.7%.
When we examined sex- and study-standardized mean levels of neuroticism across birth cohorts (Figure 1A), we found progressively lower mean neuroticism scores across birth cohorts (overall p < .0001). Specifically, mean score ranged from 16.7 (SD 6.3) in those born 1905–1914 to 15.2 (SD 7.0) in those born 1940–1950; for interpretation, Cohen’s d for the earliest versus the latest birth cohort was 0.23 (not shown in Figure 1A). In post hoc testing, the mean neuroticism score in each of the three most recent birth cohorts was significantly lower than scores in each earlier birth cohort. Thus, neuroticism clearly is lowering across the birth cohorts.
Figure 1.
Time trends in levels of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion across seven birth cohorts.a an = 3,209 for neuroticism/extraversion, n = 2,630 for conscientiousness. Scale 0–48 for neuroticism/conscientiousness, 0–24 for extraversion. Means and standard deviations are provided at the top of each bar. (A) Neuroticism: overall p < .0001; 1930–1934, 1935–1939, 1940–1950 are each significantly lower than all earlier years. (B) Conscientiousness: overall p < .0001; 1905–1914, 1915–1919, 1920–1924 are each significantly lower than 1935–1939 and 1940–1950. (C) Extraversion: overall p = .0002; 1905–1914 is significantly lower than 1920–1924, and all later years.
For conscientiousness (Figure 1B), there appeared to be higher levels over birth cohorts (overall p < .0001). For example, standardized mean conscientiousness was 33.7 (SD 4.7) for those born 1905–1914, while the mean was 35.3 (SD 5.9) for those born 1940–1950; Cohen’s d for the earliest versus the latest birth cohort was 0.30 (not shown in Figure 1B). In post hoc testing, scores were significantly higher in the most recent two birth cohorts compared to each of the first three.
Finally, for extroversion (Figure 1C), we found overall differences in mean levels between birth cohorts (overall p = .0002); the only significant difference in post hoc testing was lower extroversion for 1905–1914 than later birth cohorts. Thus, there did not appear to be meaningful or consistent shifts in extroversion.
Finally, since the first and the most recent birth cohorts tended to be most different in terms of demographic characteristics, and also had smaller sample sizes, we conducted sensitivity analyses excluding those born in 1905–1914 and 1940–1950 (results not shown in tables). Trends for neuroticism (overall p < .0001) and conscientiousness (overall p = .0009) remained strong, while the association weakened substantially for extraversion (overall p = .02).
Discussion
Across seven birth cohorts over nearly half a century, we found clear evidence of lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness over time, among over 3,000 older women and men. By contrast, we found little evidence of meaningful differences in extraversion across birth cohorts. Given consistent research that personality traits—especially neuroticism and conscientiousness—are related to chronic disease development and premature mortality in older persons, our findings suggest that population-level interventions, which impact aspects of personality, could be tested for enhancing quality of life and health in aging.
These results build on previous studies of older adults that examined personality traits across birth cohorts. Those findings were generally consistent with ours, reporting lower neuroticism in later birth cohorts (Brandt et al., 2022; Mroczek & Spiro, 2003; Terracciano et al., 2005) and higher conscientiousness (Terracciano et al., 2005). While existing studies largely focused on “young-old” ages (e.g., mean ages in the early fifties to early sixties), our work contributes new information by examining substantially older ages; the mean age of our participants was 79 years, with a minimum age of 65 years. Thus, we provide important evidence that birth cohort trends for personality traits appear durable well into older ages.
There are several considerations that could help explain these results. Environmental or sociocultural influences on personality traits are well-established (Roberts, 2018; Roberts & Mroczek, 2008). Potentially relevant here, the earlier but not later birth cohorts were raised during the Great Depression; further, only the later birth cohorts experienced parental financial benefits of the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act of 1939. Childhood adversity, such as financial difficulty, has been related to greater neuroticism and lower conscientiousness, with associations persisting into older age (Luo et al., 2021); this could partly explain our findings across birth cohorts. In addition, social investment, often determined by societal roles (e.g., working), can impact maturation-related personality traits (neuroticism and conscientiousness). It has been suggested (Brandt et al., 2022) that improved health status of later birth cohorts could result in earlier and more opportunities for adopting greater societal roles, potentially leading to lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness. The later cohorts here benefitted starting in childhood from vitamin fortification in the food supply, which became common after the Farm Act of 1942 to enrich flour, and widespread antibiotic use, resulting from mass production during World War II.
Importantly, in combination with findings of shifts in personality, there is also evidence pointing to interventions. A meta-analysis was conducted of clinical psychology intervention studies, spanning pharmacological to behavioral interventions (Roberts et al., 2017). Across nearly 200 studies of varying interventions, results indicated approximate improvements of 0.2–0.6 standard deviations for neuroticism and conscientiousness. The meta-analysis also indicated that personality changes could be achieved with a modest duration of intervention (a mean of 6 months) and were maintained over time (∼1 year or more), after completion of the intervention. Although the majority of interventions were pharmacologic and administered to clinical populations, there is increasing interest in identifying population interventions. Indeed, a recent randomized trial applied a 3-month digital coaching tool for personality change in a non-clinical sample of >1,000 participants (Steiger et al., 2021); compared to waitlist controls, significant changes in personality traits, including neuroticism and conscientiousness, were found after three months, and changes appeared to persist after another three months without the digital tool. Thus, this study, combined with existing studies of interventions, strongly supports further investigating population interventions on personality traits.
In addition to public health implications, our work may be interesting in broadly understanding mechanisms by which health in aging has changed in the United States. Over recent decades, death rates have declined, as have specific chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, and possibly dementia (Langa et al., 2017; U.S. Burden of Disease Collaborators, 2018; U.S. Burden of Disease Collaborators GBD 2021, 2024). For example, the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study indicated a 15%–25% decrease in dementia prevalence over about a decade (Hudomiet, 2018; Langa et al., 2017). In our own previous research, we reported that lower levels of neuroticism (∼1 SD) were associated with a three- to four-year delay in the onset of dementia (Grodstein et al., 2022). Estimates indicate an intervention that delays dementia by three years could reduce its prevalence by ∼20% (Zissimopoulos et al., 2014). Thus, together, data suggest that reduced neuroticism in the population could explain, in part, observed reductions in dementia over time.
There are important strengths of our study. We measured multiple personality traits in large, community-based studies of older persons. Both studies are conducted via home visits to enhance and simplify participation, reducing likelihood of inherent differentials over time in the health of participants or in their personality traits. Most significantly, these studies have been ongoing since the 1990s, with uniform data collection methods; this is a particular strength, uniquely enabling careful tracking of long-term trends.
There are limitations to consider. Our measure of extraversion incorporated fewer items than the other traits, and thus the distribution of scores was narrower; this may reduce our ability to detect shifts in extraversion over time, and our findings for extraversion were weaker than those for neuroticism or conscientiousness. Additionally, in birth cohort studies, it can be difficult to disentangle age versus birth cohort, which are usually correlated. Although the mean age was somewhat younger in each successive birth cohort we considered, our studies included fairly narrow age ranges, limiting opportunities for confounding. Moreover, the greatest age differences were for the most extreme birth cohorts (mean difference = 15 years); yet, we found similar trends in personality traits when we excluded the earliest and latest birth cohorts (mean difference = 8 years across birth cohorts). Thus, it is unlikely our findings can be fully explained through confounding by age. Another limitation is that research participants may have varying personality traits from the general population, potentially hindering a full understanding of trends in personality across the U.S. population. However, our internal comparisons of personality over seven birth cohorts remain valid; moreover, the general consistency of our results with previous birth cohort studies is reassuring. Most importantly, we measured personality traits only at older ages. Thus, we cannot discern at what point in the life course personality may have shifted. Nonetheless, previous studies suggested that associations of personality and change in personality with health may be strongest in mid-life (Luo et al., 2023). Thus, several lines of research together provide compelling evidence to motivate future research on developing and testing population interventions on personality at mid-life as novel approaches to improve public health.
Supplementary Material
Contributor Information
Francine Grodstein, Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States; Department of Internal Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Robert S Wilson, Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Eileen K Graham, Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Daniel K Mroczek, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
David A Bennett, Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Martina Luchetti,, (Psychological Sciences Section).
Supplementary material
Supplementary data are available at The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences online.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health (grant numbers P30AG59988, P30AG10161, P30AG72975, R01AG15819, R01AG17917, R01AG67622, R01AG82954).
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Data availability
Data are available to researchers upon request to www.radc.rush.edu. Studies reported in the manuscript were not preregistered.
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Supplementary Materials
Data Availability Statement
Data are available to researchers upon request to www.radc.rush.edu. Studies reported in the manuscript were not preregistered.