Chapter 10 Personality and health
We can see similarities in how people act as well as clear differences. Scientists have been describing these similarities and differences for centuries and the concept of personality is an important part of current psychological research. Reliable measures of personality have been found to predict performance and health. Such research has important applications. For example, many businesses now use personality profiling as part of their selection procedures so that they can employ people who have predictable social skills and behaviour patterns. Similarly, if someone behaves out of character, we should look for causes that might be related to health, such as drug abuse, the onset of dementia or a breakdown in a relationship.
Below we focus on some of the implications of research into personality for health and health care.
Personality and context
Behaviour is shaped by social roles as well as by personality differences. If you look around a lecture theatre, most people are acting in a very similar manner. This is true of many social situations. The roles people occupy within social situations determine, to a large extent, how they behave. Yet there are differences. For example, whereas two lecturers may both deliver the same lecture, the manner in which they do this is likely to be shaped by their different personalities. Moreover, these differences become more evident in less structured social situations. Thus while social contexts shape behaviour, we can still identify stable individual differences in how people behave.
Traits
Traits are clusters of individual differences in emotion and behaviour observed between people and across situations (Stone & McCrae, 2007). Trait theories can be used to predict differences in behaviour and health between individuals. Cattell (1971), Eysenck (1967) and others used factor analysis (a statistical technique that investigates correlations between variables, and identifies clusters of association which suggest an underlying structure) to identify key factors shaping personality.
Much recent research on personality has focused on five broad personality traits: openness to experience (or intellect), conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (also referred to as emotional stability and negative affect) (Fig. 1). This group of five traits is known as the big five or OCEAN model of personality and research indicates that the big five traits may determine the extent to which people engage in general clusters of health-related behaviours like substance
Does personality change over time? Are these changes in underlying personality or changes in how people learn to cope with familiar situations?
use risk behaviours such as smoking (Booth-Kewley & Vickers, 1994).
Openness (O)
Openness refers to the tendency to welcome new ideas and to be curious about new ways of looking at everyday reality. It is associated with intellectual curiosity, intelligence and creativity. High O scorers may be more likely to appreciate the arts and be engaged in intellectual work but may be more easily bored. Low scorers prefer familiarity and some types of work focusing on routine and procedure may be better suited to those with low O scores. There is little evidence linking O scores to health.
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