Lifetime trauma, personality traits, and health: A pathway to midlife health status.

Objective: This study investigated whether lifetime experience of trauma is related to personality through instrumental and reactive trait processes, and whether lifetime trauma is a mechanism underlying the association between childhood conscientiousness and objectively assessed adult physical health.

Method: Participants (N = 831) were 442 women and 389 men from the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health. Teacher assessments of personality were obtained when the participants were in elementary school.

Harsh Environments, Life History Strategies, and Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study of Oregon Youth.

We modeled the effects of harsh environments in childhood on adjustment in early emerging adulthood, through parenting style and the development of fast Life History Strategies (LHS; risky beliefs and behaviors) in adolescence. Participants were from the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project (N = 988; 85.7% White).

Prospective Predictors of Novel Tobacco and Nicotine Product Use in Emerging Adulthood.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether risk factors for cigarette smoking assessed in adolescence predict the use of novel tobacco and nicotine products (hookah, little cigars, and e-cigarettes) in early emerging adulthood.

Methods: In a longitudinal study (N = 862), risk factors were measured in middle and high school, and novel product use was measured in emerging adulthood (mean age 22.4 years).

A Big Five approach to self-regulation: personality traits and health trajectories in the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health.

Self-regulatory processes influencing health outcomes may have their origins in childhood personality traits. The Big Five approach to personality was used here to investigate the associations between childhood traits, trait-related regulatory processes and changes in health across middle age. Participants (N = 1176) were members of the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health.

Personality Stability from Childhood to Midlife: Relating Teachers' Assessments in Elementary School to Observer- and Self-Ratings 40 Years Later.

We report on the longitudinal stability of personality traits across an average 40 years in the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort relating childhood teacher assessments of personality to adult self- and observer- reports. Stabilities based on self-ratings in adulthood were compared to those measured by the Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model (SIFFM; Trull & Widiger, 1997), and trait ratings completed by interviewers. Although convergence between self-reports and observer-ratings was modest, childhood traits demonstrated similar levels of stability across methods in adulthood.

Smoking trajectories across high school: sensation seeking and Hookah use.

Introduction: This study investigated the associations of trajectories of cigarette smoking over the high school years with the prior development of childhood sensation seeking and the subsequent use of cigarettes and hookah at age 20/21.

Methods: Participants (N = 963) were members of a cohort-sequential longitudinal study, the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project. Sensation seeking was assessed across 4th-8th grades and cigarette smoking was assessed across 9th-12th grades.

Smokeless tobacco cessation in military personnel: a randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: Military personnel are twice as likely as civilians to use smokeless tobacco (ST). This study evaluated the efficacy of a minimal-contact ST cessation program in military personnel.

Methods: Participants were recruited from 24 military dental clinics across the United States during annual dental examinations.

Women helping chewers: Effects of partner support on 12-month tobacco abstinence in a smokeless tobacco cessation trial.

Introduction: Social support has been relatively unstudied in smokeless tobacco cessation research; partner support could encourage quitting, buffer the stress of quitting and withdrawal, and counteract tobacco cues.

Methods: Using 12-month follow-up data, we examined the impact of social support provided by female partners (n = 328) of male participants in a smokeless tobacco cessation program.

Results: The ratio of positive support to negative support that participants reported receiving from their partners was significantly related to point prevalence 12-month tobacco abstinence (odds ratio [OR] = 1.

Childhood predictors of adolescent marijuana use: early sensation-seeking, deviant peer affiliation, and social images.

This study examined psychosocial mechanisms by which children's early sensation-seeking may influence their later marijuana use. In a longitudinal study, 4th and 5th grade elementary school children (N=420) were followed until they were in 11th and 12th grades in high school with annual or biennial assessments. Sensation-seeking (assessed over the first 4 assessments) predicted affiliating with deviant peers and level of favorable social images of kids who use marijuana (both assessed over the subsequent 3 assessments).

Trait Stability and Continuity in Childhood: Relating Sociability and Hostility to the Five-Factor Model of Personality.

We investigated the continuity of personality constructs in the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project, a cohort-sequential study encompassing development from early childhood to adolescence with five annual or biennial assessments. Sociability and Hostility, assessed by teachers' ratings of children's behaviors at each assessment, were related to the traits comprising the Five-Factor model assessed by teachers' ratings at the fifth assessment. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that Sociability and Hostility were reliably measured at each assessment, and these constructs were relatively stable over time (mean rank-order stability coefficients over intervals of 1-5 years were .

The effect of subjective normative social images of smokers on children's intentions to smoke.

This paper expands the literature on peers' influence on a youth's behaviors through the examination of the effect of subjective normative social images of smokers (perceived peers' social images of smokers) on subsequent intentions to smoke and the relation between subjective normative social images and the youth's own social images, or prototypes. Data are from the two oldest cohorts (4th and 5th graders at the first assessment) and from the first five assessments of the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project, an ongoing longitudinal study. Results showed that both children's subjective normative social images and prototypes uniquely predicted intentions to smoke cigarettes at the subsequent assessment.

The effect of early cognitions on cigarette and alcohol use during adolescence.

The present study predicts cigarette and alcohol use in adolescence from the development of children's cognitions in the elementary years. Using latent growth modeling, the authors examined a model using data from 712 participants in the Oregon Youth Substance Use Project, who were in the 2nd through 5th grade at the 1st assessment and followed for 6 annual or semiannual assessments over 7 years. Growth in children's prototypes and subjective norms in the elementary years (Times 1 through 4) were related to their substance use in adolescence (Time 6) through their willingness and intentions (Time 5) to smoke and drink.

Predictors of the development of elementary-school children's intentions to smoke cigarettes: hostility, prototypes, and subjective norms.

Children's intentions to smoke are reliable predictors of subsequent smoking and precede smoking initiation; thus identifying predictors of intentions is important for preventing or delaying smoking initiation. Children's hostility and sociability, mediated by the development of prototypes (i.e.

Personality predictors of the development of elementary school children's intentions to drink alcohol: the mediating effects of attitudes and subjective norms.

The authors tested a mediation model in which childhood hostility and sociability were expected to influence the development of intentions to use alcohol in the future through the mediating mechanisms of developing attitudes and norms. Children in 1st through 5th grades (N=1,049) from a western Oregon community participated in a longitudinal study involving 4 annual assessments. Hostility and sociability were assessed by teachers' ratings at the 1st assessment, and attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions were assessed by self-report at all 4 assessments.

Cost effectiveness of changing health professionals' behavior: training dental hygienists in brief interventions for smokeless tobacco cessation.

Objective: Disseminating effective interventions to health care professionals is a critical step in ensuring that patients receive needed advice and materials. This cost effectiveness analysis compared two methods of disseminating an effective protocol for smokeless tobacco cessation intervention.

Method: Interested dental hygienists (N = 1051) were recruited in 20 Western and Midwestern U.

Personality traits, perceived risk, and risk-reduction behaviors: a further study of smoking and radon.

Personality traits and risk perceptions were examined as predictors of changes in smoking behavior. Participants (N = 697) were part of a randomized controlled trial of interventions to reduce exposure to the combined hazard of radon and cigarette smoke. Participants with higher perceived risk at baseline for the combination of smoking and radon were more likely to have a more restrictive household smoking ban in place at 12-month follow-up (p < .

Assessing perceptions of synergistic health risk: a comparison of two scales.

Two approaches to measuring perceptions of synergistic risk were compared, one using the traditional Likert scale, the other using an anchored, relative scale. Perception of synergistic risk was defined as rating the combined hazard as more risky than each of its constituent single hazards. In a within-subjects design, a convenience sample from the community (N= 604) rated three hazard combinations and their constituents: Driving while Intoxicated (familiar, high synergy), Radon and Smoking (unfamiliar, high synergy), and Smoking and Driving (familiar, low synergy), on both scales.

Women helping chewers: partner support and smokeless tobacco cessation.

Data from 363 male smokeless tobacco users and their romantic partners were analyzed to discern the role of support in cessation. Women reported playing a part in enrollment (71%), and more than half examined program materials or discussed cessation activities with the chewers. Women's reports of delivered support correlated substantially with men's experience of received support.