Display Settings:

Format

Send to:

Choose Destination
We are sorry, but NCBI web applications do not support your browser and may not function properly. More information
    Aging (Albany NY). 2012 May;4(5):359-67.

    Positive attitude towards life and emotional expression as personality phenotypes for centenarians.

    Source

    Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, NY 10461, USA. kaorikatoboe@hotmail.com

    Abstract

    Centenarians have been reported to share particular personality traits including low neuroticism and high extraversion and conscientiousness. Since these traits have moderate to high heritability and are associated with various health outcomes, personality appears linked to bio-genetic mechanisms which may contribute to exceptional longevity. Therefore, the present study sought to detect genetically-based personality phenotypes in a genetically homogeneous sample of centenarians through developing and examining psychometric properties of a brief measure of the personality of centenarians, the Personality Outlook Profile Scale (POPS). The results generated two personality characteristics/domains, Positive Attitude Towards Life (PATL: optimism, easygoing, laughter, and introversion/outgoing) and Emotional Expression (EE: expressing emotions openly and not bottling up emotions). These domains demonstrated acceptable concurrent validity with two established personality measures, the NEO-Five Factor Inventory and Life Orientation Test-Revised. Additionally, centenarians in both groups had lower neuroticism and higher conscientiousness than the US adult population. Findings suggest that the POPS is a psychometrically sound measure of personality in centenarians and capture personality aspects of extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, as well as dispositional optimism which may contribute to successful aging.

    PMID:
    22626632
    [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
    PMCID:
    PMC3384436
    Free PMC Article

      Supplemental Content

      Icon for Impact Journals, LLC Icon for PubMed Central

      Save items

      Recent activity

      Your browsing activity is empty.

      Activity recording is turned off.

      Turn recording back on

      See more...
      Write to the Help Desk