Big Five personality traits and allostatic load in midlife

Abstract

Objective: To examine the cross-sectional associations of Big Five personality traits with midlife allostatic load, including the role of sex, socio-demographic factors and health-related behaviours.

Design: Cross-sectional analyses of 5512 members of the Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank, aged 49–63 years, 69% men.

Main outcome measure: Allostatic load (AL) based on 14 biomarkers representing the inflammatory, cardiovascular and metabolic system.

Results: Due to significant sex × trait interactions, analyses were stratified by sex. Openness and Conscientiousness were inversely associated with AL in both sexes, and Extraversion was positively associated with AL in men. Adjusting for socio-demographic factors significantly attenuated the association of Openness in both sexes and of Extraversion in men, for whom the inverse association of Agreeableness with AL was strengthened. Further adjusting for health-related behaviours, the Conscientiousness-AL association was attenuated but remained significant, and Agreeableness remained significantly associated with AL in men.

Conclusion: Results imply that higher levels of Agreeableness (in men) and Conscientiousness are associated with lower levels of AL above and beyond socio-demographic factors and health-related behaviours. The study further contributes by demonstrating the relevance of sex × trait and trait × trait interactions in the personality-health literature.

Keywords:

• allostatic load
• Big Five model
• occupational social status
• education
• health-related behaviours
• physiological dysregulation

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to report.

Data availability statement

In accordance with the Act on Processing of Personal Data (Act No. 429 of 31 May 2000) of the Danish Data Protection Agency, data cannot be made publicly available due to considerations for privacy and anonymity of the participants. However, an anonymised version of the full data set can be made available upon request to researchers who are qualified to handle confidential information in accordance with the aforementioned Danish Data Protection Agency act. Data are from the CAMB study whose steering group may be contacted at [email protected]

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff at Department of Public Health and National Research Centre for the Working Environment, who undertook the data collection. Further thanks to Kirsten Avlund, Helle Bruunsgaard, Nils-Erik Fiehn, Åse Marie Hansen, Poul Holm-Pedersen, Rikke Lund, Erik Lykke Mortensen and Merete Osler, who initiated and established the CAMB from 2009 to 2011. The authors acknowledge the crucial role of the initiators and steering groups of The Metropolit Cohort, The Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort and The Danish Longitudinal Study on Work, Unemployment and Health. The authors acknowledge the crucial role of the initiators and steering groups of the Metropolit Cohort, the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort, and the Danish Longitudinal Study on Work Unemployment and Health.

Additional information

Funding

The Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB) has been supported by a generous grant from the VELUX FOUNDATION (VELUX 26145 and 31539). The authors of this manuscript are independent of the funding agencies. Dinne Skjaerlund Christensen was supported by the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen.