The effects of personality and aging attitudes on well-being in different life domains

Abstract

Objectives

Personality plays a major role in determining the way people adjust to life experiences, ultimately affecting life satisfaction. Aging attitudes also impact well-being, but there is little research on whether these personality and attitudinal effects reflect the same mechanism. The purpose of this study was to examine whether aging attitudes mediate the relationship between personality and well-being across seven different domains of everyday functioning, and whether this effect depends on age.

Methods

Data from 563 adults ranging in age from 30 to 89 were used. Sociodemographic information as well as the Big Five Inventory, aging attitudes, and well-being (i.e. current self-views and life satisfaction) in seven different life domains was assessed.

Results

The mediating effect of aging attitudes in the relationship between personality and well-being was strong for neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness and varied across domains. Significant mediation effects were limited for openness and extraversion. Significant moderated mediations were rather limited but the effects were stronger in later life.

Discussion

These results suggest that personality influences aging attitudes, which in turn affect well-being. Further, our results indicate that such relationships are context-specific, suggesting that the global assessments of attitudes and well-being may not fully characterize significant aging outcomes.

Keywords:

• Aging
• personality
• aging attitudes
• well-being
• context

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Anna Kornadt and members of the NCSU Adult Development Lab on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 0 = Early childhood education, 1 = Primary education, 2 = Lower secondary education, 3 = Upper secondary education, 4 = Post-secondary non-tertiary education, 5 = Short-cycle tertiary education, 6 = Bachelor’s or equivalent level, 7 = Master’s or equivalent level, 8 = Doctoral or equivalent level

2 Although desirable to control for other aspects of health (e.g. depressive symptoms), more extensive health data were not collected as part of the project.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the VolkswagenStiftung (Az. 86 758).