Personality characteristics, particularly negative affectivity, anger, hostility, and optimism, are linked to physical health outcomes such as longevity and cardiovascular disease.
Do personality characteristics affect the risk of physical illness and cardiovascular disease?
This review highlights the association between specific personality traits and physical health outcomes, emphasizing the need for further research into underlying mechanisms and intervention applications.
Several personality characteristics have been linked in multiple well-designed prospective studies to subsequent physical health outcomes, such as longevity and the development and course of cardiovascular disease. The evidence is strongest for negative affectivity/neuroticism, anger/hostility and related traits, and optimism. Models of mechanisms underlying these associations have emphasized physiological effects of stress, exposure to stressors, and health behavior. Preliminary evidence supports the viability of some mechanisms, but formal mediational tests are lacking. In addition to addressing limitations and inconsistencies in this literature, future research should address developmental aspects of these psychosocial risk factors, contextual moderators of their health effects, and intervention applications in the prevention and management of disease. In these efforts, greater incorporation of concepts and methods in the structural, social-cognitive, and interpersonal perspectives in the field of personality are needed.
Smith et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Physical illness and cardiovascular disease. Personality characteristics (negative affectivity, anger/hostility, optimism) was evaluated on Physical health outcomes (longevity and cardiovascular disease). Personality characteristics, particularly negative affectivity, anger, hostility, and optimism, are linked to physical health outcomes such as longevity and cardiovascular disease.