Key result
Higher conscientiousness was associated with a lower risk of incident dementia (HR 0.84; 95% CI 0.71-0.91; P=0.001), an association not attributable to socioeconomic status or depression.
Why the study?
Whether associations between personality traits and cognitive outcomes such as dementia are robust to third variables remains debated.
Are big-5 personality traits associated with cognitive impairment and incidence of dementia in older adults?
Cohort (n=6,135)
Are big-5 personality traits associated with cognitive impairment and incidence of dementia in older adults?
Conscientiousness is independently associated with a lower risk of incident dementia, whereas the association between neuroticism and dementia is largely explained by depression.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Depression largely explains personality-cognition links; leaves open whether conscientiousness independently predicts dementia.
BACKGROUND: Personality traits have been liked to cognitive outcomes such as dementia, but whether these associations are robust to the effects of third variables remains the subject of debate. We examined the role of socioeconomic status, depression (history and depressive symptoms), health behaviours and chronic conditions in the association of the big-5 personality traits with cognitive performance, cognitive impairment and incidence of dementia. METHODS: Data on 6135 persons (30% women), aged 60-83 years in 2012/13, are drawn from the Whitehall II Study. Participants responded to the 26-item Midlife Development Inventory to assess personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), underwent cognitive testing in 2012/13 and 2015/16 and were followed for incidence of dementia (N=231) until 2019. RESULTS: Logistic regression, adjusted for sociodemographic factors, suggested a cross-sectional association with cognitive impairment for four of the five traits but only neuroticism was associated with incident cognitive impairment. All associations were completely attenuated when the analyses were adjusted for depression. Cox regression (mean follow-up: 6.18 years) adjusted for sociodemographic variables showed higher conscientiousness (HR per SD increment=0.72; 95% CI 0.65 to 0.81) and extraversion (HR=0.85; 95% CI 0.75 to 0.97) to be associated with lower dementia risk; higher neuroticism (HR=1.32; 95% CI 1.17 to 1.49) was associated with increased risk. Further adjustment for depression led to only conscientiousness retaining an association with dementia (HR=0.81; 95% CI 0.69 to 0.96), which was robust to adjustment for all covariates (HR=0.84; 95% CI 0.71 to 0.91; P=0.001). CONCLUSION: Our results show that only conscientiousness has an association with incidence of dementia that is not attributable to socioeconomic status or depression. The association of neuroticism with dementia was explained by depression.
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Singh‐Manoux et al. (2020) conducted a cohort in cognitive impairment and dementia (n=6,135). Big-5 personality traits (conscientiousness) vs. Lower levels of the trait was evaluated on incidence of dementia (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.71-0.91, p=0.001). Higher conscientiousness was associated with a lower risk of incident dementia (HR 0.84; 95% CI 0.71-0.91; P=0.001), an association not attributable to socioeconomic status or depression.
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