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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2023 Feb 17.
Published in final edited form as: Intelligence. 2022 Aug 11;94:101682. doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2022.101682

IQ in Adolescence and Cognition over 50 years later: The Mediating Role of Adult Personality

Yannick Stephan 1, Angelina R Sutin 2, Martina Luchetti 2, Damaris Aschwanden 2, Antonio Terracciano 2
PMCID: PMC9937542  NIHMSID: NIHMS1871422  PMID: 36816630

Abstract

There is substantial evidence for the association between higher early life IQ and better cognition in late life. To advance knowledge on potential pathways, the present study tested whether Five-Factor Model personality traits in adulthood mediate the association between adolescent IQ and later-life cognition. Participants were from the Graduate sample of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study on Aging (WLS; N= 3,585). IQ was assessed in 1957 (about age 17), personality was assessed in 2003–2005 (age = 64), and cognition was assessed in 2011 (age = 71). Controlling for demographic factors, higher IQ in adolescence was related to higher openness, lower neuroticism, lower extraversion, lower agreeableness and lower conscientiousness in adulthood. Higher openness partially mediated the association between higher IQ and better cognition. Additional analyses indicated that the pattern of associations between IQ, personality and cognition was similar when the polygenic score for cognition was included as an additional covariate. Although effect size were small, this study provides new evidence that openness in adulthood is on the pathway between early life IQ and later-life cognition.

Keywords: IQ, personality traits, cognition, mediation, longitudinal study

1. Introduction

There is substantial evidence on the role of early life factors for a range of outcomes in late life (Calvin et al., 2017; Čukić et al., 2017; Deary et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2011; Wraw et al., 2015). In the cognitive domain, a higher IQ assessed in childhood and adolescence is predictive of higher cognitive functioning in old age (Cadar et al., 2020; Corley et al., 2012; Deary et al., 2013; Gow et al., 2008; Staff et al., 2018; Von Stumm & Deary, 2013; Zhang et al., 2020). The benefits of higher early life IQ have been found across different cognitive domains such as memory (Deary et al., 2013; Staff et al., 2018), verbal fluency (Deary et al., 2013; Gow et al., 2008; Von Stumm & Deary, 2013), reasoning (Deary et al.. 2013), and processing speed (Deary et al., 2013). Furthermore, higher early life IQ is associated with reduced risk of incident dementia (Russ et al., 2017). Research on potential pathways through which early life IQ is related to cognition in old age has found that this relationship was explained in part by adult educational attainment and socioeconomic status (Zhang et al., 2020). In contrast to socioeconomic factors, relatively little is known about whether psychological traits link early life IQ to cognitive function in old age. Therefore, the present study addresses whether personality traits in adulthood mediate the association between IQ in adolescence and late-life cognition.

The Five-Factor Model (FFM, McCrae & John, 1992) organizes personality traits into five broad dimensions: Neuroticism (the tendency to be vulnerable to stress and to experience negative emotions), Extraversion (the tendency to be sociable and to experience positive emotions), Openness (the tendency to be creative and curious), Agreeableness (the tendency to be altruistic and cooperative), and Conscientiousness (the tendency to be organized and self-disciplined). There is consistent evidence for the relationship between several of these personality traits and cognition across adulthood. For example, higher neuroticism is related to lower global cognition (Graham et al., 2021; Luchetti et al., 2016) and worse performance in specific domains such as memory (Luchetti et al., 2021), verbal fluency (Sutin et al., 2019) and reasoning (Sutin et al., 2021). In contrast, higher conscientiousness and openness are associated with better global cognitive functioning (Graham et al., 2021; Luchetti et al., 2016 ), better memory (Luchetti et al., 2021), and better verbal fluency (Sutin et al., 2019). Higher openness has also been associated with better reasoning (Sutin et al., 2022). There is less consistent evidence for the association between cognitive function and extraversion and agreeableness (Graham et al., 2021; Luchetti et al., 2016; Sutin, Stephan, Damian et al., 2019; Sutin, Stephan, Luchetti, et al., 2019 ; Sutin et al., 2022). That is, previous research has reported positive (Sutin, Stephan, Luchetti et al., 2019), negative (Sutin et al., 2022) or no (Graham et al., 2021 ; Luchetti et al., 2016 ; Sutin et al., 2022 ) relationship between these traits and cognition.

Recent research suggests that personality traits could be explanatory pathways of the association between early life factors and cognitive outcomes in adulthood (Sesker et al., 2021; Sutin et al., 2021). This model suggests that early life factors shape personality traits in adulthood which in turn contribute to cognition in late life. Consistent with this model, Sesker and colleagues (2021) found that lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness explained part of the relationship between higher childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and lower risk of cognitive impairment in old age. Furthermore, Sutin and colleagues (2021) found that higher childhood social class was associated with higher midlife cognition in part through its association with higher conscientiousness and openness in adolescence. Less is known, however, about whether early life IQ and later-life cognition could be mediated by personality.

The Openness-Fluid-Crystallized-Intelligence theoretical framework (OFCI, Ziegler et al., 2015) supports a mediational role of personality, and openness in particular. Two main hypotheses are included within this model. First, an environmental success hypothesis suggests that IQ influences the development of openness. According to this hypothesis, individuals with higher IQ are more likely to sucessfully master new challenging situations and problems, leading them to seek out new situations, which results in higher openness over time (Ziegler et al., 2015). In turn, the environmental enrichment hypothesis postulates that higher openness leads to investment in enriched, cognitively stimulating environments and activities that are beneficial for cognitive functioning (Ziegler et al., 2015). Consistent with these assumptions, one study found that intellectual curiosity partially mediated the relationship between higher childhood IQ and better verbal fluency in old age (Von Stumm & Deary, 2012). Given that intellectual curiosity is one feature of openness, this trait could mediate the association between early-life IQ and late-life cognition. However, openness is a broader personality trait that encompasses more dimensions (e.g., affective, sensory, attitudes, and preferences) than intellectual curiosity (which is a facet of openness).

There is also indirect evidence for a potential mediating role of personality: Higher childhood and adolescence IQ, for example, has been related to higher adult openness (Furnham & Cheng, 2016; Gow, Whiteman, Pattie, & Deary, 2005; Sutin et al., 2017) and lower neuroticism (Furnham & Cheng, 2017; Gow et al., 2005; Sutin et al., 2017), which in turn are consistently related to better cognition in old age (Luchetti et al., 2016; Sutin et al., 2019, 2022). There is less evidence for an association between early life IQ and extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Gow et al., 2005; Sutin et al., 2017).

Using data from the graduate sample of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), the present study examined whether the association between adolescent IQ and later-life cognition is mediated by personality traits in adulthood (see Figure 1). It was hypothesized that higher openness and lower neuroticism in adulthood would mediate the relationship between higher IQ and better cognition in late life. Given the mixed findings in the literature, we did not make specific hypotheses on the mediating role of extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Conceptual Mediational Model of the Relationship between IQ and Cognition Through Personality Traits

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were from the graduate sample of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLSG). The WLS is a long-term study of a random sample of men and women born between 1937 and 1940 who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. The WLSG is representative of white, non-Hispanic older Americans who graduated at least from high school. Data on IQ were obtained in 1957 when participants were in high school at about age 17, data on personality traits were obtained in 2003–2005 when participants were about age 64, and cognitive measures (memory, reasoning, and verbal fluency) were obtained in 2011 when participants were about age 71. Complete data on IQ in 1957 were obtained from a total of 10,317 participants. Of this sample, 4,069 individuals had complete data on cognitive measures and demographic factors in 2011. The final sample was composed of 3,585 individuals who also had complete data on personality traits in 2003–2005 (See Table 1). Attrition analyses were conducted using t-test and chi-square to examine whether individuals with and without complete data differed on baseline IQ and demographic factors. These analyses indicated that individuals with complete follow-up data had higher IQ in adolescence, t(10315)= 13.10, p<.001,d=.27 and were more likely to be women (55% vs 50%), χ2(1, 10317)= 21.61, p<.001.

Table 1:

Descriptive Statistics

Variables M/% SD Range Skewness Kurtosis
Age at Cognitive Assessment(Years) 71.19 0.90 70–74 0.61 0.03
Education (years) 13.84 2.39 12–21 0.96 −0.39
Sex (% women) 55% - - - -
IQ 103.07 14.23 61–145 0.05 −0.13
Neuroticism 2.99 0.90 1–6 0.13 −0.16
Extraversion 3.81 0.87 1.17–6 0.11 −0.23
Openness 3.60 0.77 1–6 0.14 −0.07
Agreeableness 4.81 0.69 2.33–6 −0.31 −0.43
Conscientiousness 4.80 0.68 1.83–6 −0.29 −0.30
Letter Fluency 11.33 4.13 1–31 0.38 0.08
Similarities 6.46 2.28 0–12 0.02 −0.43
Number Series 8.57 3.64 0–15 −0.53 0.006
Digit Ordering 6.94 2.56 0–12 −0.45 0.52
Recall 9.11 2.84 0–20 0.008 −0.04
Total Cognition 0.000 0.62 −2.44–2.11 −0.18 0.10
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Note. N= 3,585

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. IQ

The Henmon-Nelson Test of Mental Ability was used to assess adolescent IQ (Hauser & Palloni, 2011; Zhang et al., 2020). This test included 90 problems that assessed verbal, spatial, and numerical knowledge and reasoning. Raw scores were standardized to a mean of 100 based on centile rank. IQ scores ranged from 61 to 145 in the present study.

2.2.2. Personality

Personality was assessed with a 29-item version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI; John et al., 1991). Participants rated items that assessed neuroticism (e.g., To what extent do you agree that you see yourself as someone who can be tense? ), extraversion (e.g., To what extent do you agree that you see yourself as someone who is full of energy? ), openness (e.g., To what extent do you agree that you see yourself as someone who has an active imagination?), agreeableness (e.g., To what extent do you agree that you see yourself as someone who is considerate to almost everyone?), and conscientiousness (e.g., To what extent do you agree that you see yourself as someone who does things efficiently?). Answers were given on a scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 6 (agree strongly). McDonald’s Omega coefficients were .75, .77, .63, .68, and .69 for neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, respectively.

2.2.3. Cognition

In line with past research conducted in the WLS (Zhang et al., 2020), the present study used measures of verbal fluency, reasoning, and memory to assess cognition. Verbal fluency was assessed with a letter fluency task. Participants were asked to name as many words as possible in 60 seconds that started with either “L” or “F” (participants answered to one letter or the other). The total number of words retrieved was used as a measure of letter fluency. Abstract reasoning was assessed using the six-item similarities test from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R, Wechsler, 1981). Participants were asked to rate the extent to which two objects or concepts are alike. The total score ranged from 0 to 12. Higher scores indicated higher abstract reasoning. Numerical reasoning was assessed using a number series task. In this task, participants had to identify the number that correctly completed a string of numbers. Each participant was asked to answer six items. All participants were given the same three items in the first block. The number of items answered correctly determined the difficulty of the three items in a second block. The number of correct answers in the second set was added to 3, 6 or 9 points depending on the number of questions correctly answered in the first set (1, 2 or 3 respectively). The score ranged from 0 to 15 with higher scores indicating higher numerical reasoning. A digit ordering task was used to assess working memory. The interviewer read participants a series of three one-digit numbers. When participants correctly repeated the numbers in ascending order, they moved on to the next level of the task, in which they were asked to rearrange and restate a series of numbers that was one-digit longer. When participants repeated the first set of numbers in an incorrect order, they were given a second series of three one-digit numbers. If they correctly rearranged this set, they moved on to the next level of the task; the task ended if they once again restated the numbers in an incorrect order. This incremental administration pattern continued until the number sequences reached a maximum of eight digits or until the participant incorrectly rearranged two consecutive number sequences of equivalent length. Scores ranged from 0 to 12, and higher scores reflected higher working memory. Finally, episodic memory was assessed using a word recall task. Participants were asked to read a list of 10 words and to repeat as many words as they could, both immediately and after a delay of around nine minutes. The number of correct words for immediate and delayed recall were summed. Scores ranged from 0 to 20, with higher scores indicating better episodic memory. Performance on all tasks were z-scored within task and averaged to compute a total cognition score.

2.2.4. Covariates.

Age at time of cognitive assessment (in years), education (in years), and sex (coded as 1 for female and 0 for male) were included as covariates. The polygenic score (PGS) for cognition was included as a covariate in additional analysis. Polygenic scores aggregate the effects of thousands of DNA variants associated with a given outcome, which reflects the genetic propensity for a given trait or phenotype. The PGS score for cognition was derived from Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) estimates of Lee et al. (2018).

2.3. Data Analysis

The PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018), using 5,000 bootstrapped samples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals, was used to evaluate mediation. PROCESS is a bootstrapping statistical computer tool that was developed to test the mediating role of one or more variables in the relationship between a predictor and an outcome. This program computes the total, direct, and indirect effects of a predictor on the outcome. In the present study, this tool was used to test whether personality traits mediated the association between adolescent IQ and later-life cognition. Personality traits were entered simultaneously. Age at the time of cognitive assessment, education, and sex were entered as covariates. Additional analyses were conducted for each cognitive task and including PGS for cognition as an additional covariate. Analyses were performed using SPSS software version 22.

3. Results

Descriptive statistics are in Table 1; correlations between study variables are in supplementary Table S1. Table 2 shows the results of the mediational model. As expected, adolescent IQ was related to better cognition in older adulthoodd. Higher IQ in adolescence was also related to higher openness, lower neuroticism, lower extraversion, lower agreeableness, and lower conscientiousness in adulthood. Higher openness was associated with better cognition ; none of the other traits was related to cognition.

Table 2.

Indirect Effects of IQ on Cognition Through Personality Traits

IQ to Mediatorsa Mediators to Cognitionb Indirect Effectc Total Effectd Direct Effecte
Variables β β Estimate (95%CI) β β
Cognition .45*** .44***
Neuroticism −.10*** −.02 .0001 (.0000; .0002)
Extraversion −.04* .02 .000 (−.0001; .0000)
Openness .12*** .07*** .0004 (.0002; .0006)
Agreeableness −.07*** −.002 .000 (−.0001; .0001)
Conscientiousness −.04* .02 .000 (−.0001; .0000)
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Note. N=3,585

*

p<.05

**

p<.01

***

.p<.001.

a

Controlling for age at the time of cognitive assessment, education and sex

b

With age at the time of cognitive assessment, education, sex, and the other personality traits included

c

Bootstrap estimates and 95% bias-corrected confidence interval for indirect effects of IQ on cognition through neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness, controlling for age at the time of cognitive assessment, education, and sex

d

Total effect of IQ on cognition controlling for age at the time of cognitive assessment, education and sex

e

Direct effect of IQ on cognition with mediators, age at the time of cognitive assessment, education and sex included.

As hypothesized, openness mediated part of the association between IQ and cognition (Table 2). The proportion of the mediated effect for openness was around 2% for the association between IQ and cognition. None of the other traits mediated the association between IQ and cognition. Additional analyses indicated that openness mediated the relationship between IQ and letter fluency, similarities, and recall but not number series or digit ordering (Supplementary Table S2). Furthermore, the pattern of results was unchanged when PGS for cognition was included as a covariate.

4. Discussion

Based on 50-year longitudinal data, the present study examined whether personality in adulthood mediated the relationship between adolescent IQ and late-life cognition. As hypothesized, higher openness partially mediated the link between higher IQ in adolescence and better overall cognition in late life. In other words, a higher IQ around age 17 was associated with higher openness around 64, which in turn was related to better cognitive functioning around age 71. The effect size for the mediating role of openness was relatively small. Still, these findings were robust because they were observed controlling for demographic factors, including age, sex, educational level, and genetic factors. Neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness did not mediate the association between IQ and cognition. This study contributes to existing knowledge by providing new evidence on the personality pathways through which early life IQ contributes to cognition in late life.

As expected, openness mediated the association between adolescent IQ and late-life cognition. This result suggests that higher IQ in adolescence may shape a higher tendency to be curious, imaginative and creative in adulthood, which may benefit cognitive functioning in old age. This finding extends past research that found that the association between childhood IQ and verbal fluency was explained by intellectual curiosity (Von Stumm & Deary, 2012). This study also supports separate research that has reported an association between early-life IQ and higher openness (Gow et al., 2005; Sutin et al., 2017), and between higher openness and better global cognitive functioning (Graham et al., 2021). Individuals with higher IQ in early life are more likely to be exposed to a diversity of activities, including cognitive (Gow et al., 2005; Von Stumm & Deary 2012) and physical activities (Wraw et al., 2018), which foster openness in adulthood (Schwaba et al., 2018; Stephan et al., 2014). In turn, openness is the most consistent personality correlate of cognitive ability in old age (Curtis et al., 2014). Indeed, Higher openness is characterized by higher interest in knowledge, cognitive flexibility and creativity, and higher verbal abilities (Noftle & Robins, 2007; DeYoung, 2015). According to the environmental enrichment hypothesis (Ziegler et al., 2015) and the investment theory (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004), openness leads to a cognitively demanding and enriched environment that results in higher cognition. Consistent with these theoretical asssumptions, openness has been associated with higher cognitive ability in part through its link with engagement in cognively demanding activities (Jackson et al., 2021). Taken as a whole, the present findings are consistent with the OFCI model (Ziegler et al., 2015). It is likely that higher IQ in early life may lead to an engagement in more stimulating activities and to new situations that foster higher Openness, which in turn may predispose individuals to engage in cognitively demanding activities that protect/enhance their cognitive ability in later life. It is important to note that openness explained only a small part of the association between IQ and cognition. Numerous biological, behavioral, psychological, social and environmental pathways, however, are likely to explain the association between IQ in adolescence and cognition in older adulthood. Therefore, the size of the mediating role of personality is unlikely to be large.

In contrast to our hypothesis, neuroticism did not mediate the association between IQ and cognition. However, higher IQ was related to lower neuroticism. This finding is consistent with past reports of an association between higher IQ and lower neuroticism (Gow et al., 2005; Sutin et al., 2017). Early-life IQ is associated with a lower likelihood of depression, anxiety, and mental disorders in adulthood (Koenen et al., 2009) thatmay manifest into lower neuroticism (Hakulinen et al., 2015).

We did not make a speicifc hypothis for extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness, and there was no evidence that any of these traits mediated the relationship between adolescent IQ and late-life cognition. However, higher IQ was related to lower extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. It is plausible that these significant associations may be chance findings or confounded by third variables. Indeed, these results are inconsistent with some past research that found no association between early life IQ and extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness in adulthood (Gow et al., 2005) or a positive association between intelligence and extraversion (Wolf & Ackerman, 2005) and agreeableness among adolescents and young adults (Bartels et al., 2012). Other studies have reported a negative association between intelligence and extraversion among young adults and with agreeableness in old age (Baker & Bishel, 2006). Similarly, other studies have found a negative association between intelligence and conscientiousness (Moutafi et al., 2004; 2006; Zajenkowski & Stolarski, 2015). Despite some inconsistent findings, some have speculated that a compensatory mechanism may operate in the relationship between lower IQ and higher conscientiousness (Von Stumm et al., 2011): Individuals with lower IQ in adolescence may compensate for their lower cognitive abilities by being more conscientious across adulthood, including being more hard-working, organized, and self-disciplined. In addition, individuals with lower IQ in adolescence may develop a higher propensity to be sociable, prosocial, and compliant with socio-cultural norms and rules in adulthood

The present study contributes to knowledge on the pathways that link early life IQ to late-life cognition. Previous studies have reported that higher adult educational attainment and economic conditions explain part of the association between higher adolescent IQ and better cognition in old age (Zhang et al., 2020). The present study adds that openness is also a mediator, independent of education. Furthermore, this study complements recent evidence on the mediating role of personality in the relationship between early-life SES and cognitive function in middle adulthood and old age (Sesker et al., 2021; Sutin et al., 2021). Indeed, these studies combined with the present findings suggest that adult personality may be a common pathway in the association between early life factors and later life cognition.

The present study has several strengths, including a large longitudinal sample that spans more than 50 years, with three waves of measurement—IQ at about age 17, five major personality traits at about age 64, and cognition at about age 71. There are also some limitations. The observational design of the present study does not allow causal interpretations. Indeed, reciprocal relationships between personality and cognition exist, such that better cognitive functioning predicts personality traits (Stephan et al., 2021; Wettstein et al., 2017). Furthermore, personality and cognition were not available at baseline. The present study focused only on the five broad personality domains. In addition, the version of the BFI used in the WLS does not allow for a facet-level analysis. Therefore, further research is needed to examine the mediating role of personality facets in the relationship between IQ and cognition, particularly for openness. It is also likely that the link between IQ, openness, and cognition may be confounded by other factors. Although additional analyses revealed that genetic factors related to cognition did not alter the overall pattern of relationships, other factors such as SES may affect both cognition and personality. Finally, the results are specific to a sample of White Americans who graduated from high school. More research is needed to test whether the pattern of relationship between IQ, personality and late-life cognition replicates in more diverse samples.

Despite these limitations, the present study indicates that openness is a pathway through which adolescent IQ is related to late-life cognition. Higher IQ in adolescence was related to higher total cognition in part through its association with higher openness. None of the other personality traits were significant mediators, and the effect of openness was relatively small. The present study paves the way for more research on the mechanisms through which early life IQ is associated with cognition in late life.

Supplementary Material

supp

Acknowledgment:

The present study is based upon the analysis of data collected in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS). The WLS has been supported principally by the National Institute on Aging (AG-9775, AG-21079, AG-033285, and AG-041868), with additional support from the Vilas Estate Trust, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Funding :

No specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors was received for the present research

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest : The authors have no conflict of interest to report.

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