Personality as a Predictor of Health

Running head: PERSONALITY AS A PREDICTOR OF HEALTH
PERSONALITY AS A PREDICTOR OF HEALTH
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2PERSONALITY AS A PREDICTOR OF HEALTH
The term personality is used to define and understand the characteristics of an individual and the
differences in various traits from other individuals. Every person has their own patterns of
feelings, behaviors and thoughts and personality describes the individual differences in all of
these aspects. Two major categories that come into light when studying personality are
individual trait differences and traits that make up a person as a whole (Kandler, 2017). The
method that is used for measuring the various personality constructs of a human being is called a
personality test. Most of the personality testing tools are introspective, which means, they are
self-report questionnaires of differing rating scales. Raymond Cattell however tried to construct
personality tests that were objective and based on performance (Cattell & Warburton, 1967).
However, the problem with such tests is that they are very susceptible to distorted response due
to biased perception of others and oneself. Health, according to the definition by WHO is not
just absence or disease or disorders but a state of complete mental, social and physical well
being. There exists limited literature about self report personality tests as predictors of health
however there are studies showing that personality traits maybe important predictors of health
outcomes (Turiano et al., 2011). Neuroticism as defined by Lahey (2009) can be referred to as
the tendency to have stable responses to negative emotions like frustration, loss or threat.
Individuals who score high on neuroticism have intense emotional responses where as individual
with lower neuroticism scores (higher stability scores) are capable of being calm even at the
most stressful situations.
There are a number of different personality theories linking to the different aspects
related to the different aspects related to the relations of the mind to and the personality to the
health of the person. First type of relationship that can be deduced is the cause effect relationship
model which will overall affect the health of a person. The second type of the model will take

3PERSONALITY AS A PREDICTOR OF HEALTH
into account the causal link between the personality of the person and the health factors affected
by it as in the case of shared genetic trail leading to similar personality traits and illnesses. The
different personality dimensions can help in understanding the effect of the personality trait on
the health. The three-personality dimensions mentioned in this theory are Extraversion,
neuroticism and Psychoticism. Another model of personality, which is widely used for
personality testing, is the five-factor model and it describes the five personality traits of
Openness, conscientiousness extraversion, agreeableness and Neuroticism.
Personality assessments of different kinds exist. In case of a self-report inventory, there
are a number of items, which the testee has to respond introspectively by assessing their own self
on a Likert-type rating scale. There has been a growing research body over the past few decades
who have been trying to link, personality traits with the various health related behaviors,
mechanisms and outcomes. A number of models have also been proposed in explaining the ways
in which personality of an individual can affect their health due to their coping mechanisms,
risky health behaviors, shared genetic risks, physiological responses and resilient factors (Smith
& Baucom, 2017).
Although a number of studies have shown that personality has a role to play in maintenance and
promotion of health, there have not been many, which links particular traits to the outcomes of
health (Friedman & Kern, 2014). A study by Atherton, Robins, Rentfrow & Lamb, (2014) used a
sample of 460 individuals for replicating and extending the between three outcomes related to
health and the Big five personality traits. They found that individuals with low
conscientiousness, high neuroticism reported poorer health and individuals with high
extraversion had more tendencies towards substance abuse. There were other studies too like the
one conducted by Weston & Jackson, (2016), where 7051 participants were investigated to find