Do We Become More Lonely With Age? A Coordinated Data Analysis of Nine Longitudinal Studies.

Loneliness is a pervasive experience with adverse impacts on health and well-being. Despite its significance, notable gaps impede a full understanding of how loneliness changes across the adult life span and what factors influence these changes. To address this, we conducted a coordinated data analysis of nine longitudinal studies encompassing 128,118 participants ages 13 to 103 from over 20 countries.

Are there place-based disparities in mortality risk? Findings from two longitudinal studies.

Objective: Most work on place-based (e.g., rural-urban) health disparities has been conducted with population-level data, which is limited in its capacity for causal inferences about and .

Associations Between Generativity and Social Asymmetry Among Older Adults in Japan.

Objectives: Loneliness and social isolation are major public health concerns among older adults in Japan. Generativity, the concern for and commitment to future generations, may buffer older adults from loneliness. This study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between generativity and social asymmetry (the discrepancy between social isolation and loneliness) among older adults in Japan.

Longitudinal associations among the Big Five personality traits and healthcare utilization in the U.S.

Objective: One critical component of individual and public health is healthcare utilization, or the extent to which individuals have routine check-ups, schedule treatments, or use emergency services. However, we know little about who uses healthcare services and what types, the conditions that exacerbate utilization, or the factors that explain why people seek out services. The present study fills these gaps in the literature by investigating the role of personality factors in predicting various forms of healthcare utilization, how these associations vary by age, socioeconomic resources, and chronic conditions, as well as one potential psychological mediating mechanism (i.

Personality Science in the Digital Age: The Promises and Challenges of Psychological Targeting for Personalized Behavior-Change Interventions at Scale.

With the rapidly growing availability of scalable psychological assessments, personality science holds great promise for the scientific study and applied use of customized behavior-change interventions. To facilitate this development, we propose a classification system that divides psychological targeting into two approaches that differ in the process by which interventions are designed: audience-to-content matching or content-to-audience matching. This system is both integrative and generative: It allows us to (a) integrate existing research on personalized interventions from different psychological subdisciplines (e.

Is there intergenerational continuity in early life experiences? Findings from the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

There has been longstanding and widespread interdisciplinary interest in understanding intergenerational processes, or the extent to which conditions repeat themselves across generations. However, due to the difficulty of collecting longitudinal, multigenerational data on early life conditions, less is known about the extent to which offspring experience the same early life conditions that their parents experienced in their own early lives. Using data from a socioeconomically diverse, White U.

Investigating the Link between Narcissism and Problem Behaviors in Adolescence.

Previous research has shown that narcissistic traits such as exploitativeness, exhibitionism, and entitlement are associated with delinquency and aggression in childhood and adolescence. However, there is a paucity of longitudinal research examining these associations, and virtually no research examining other problem behaviors such as drug use and early sexual behavior. In this study, we extended previous research by testing whether two facets of narcissism, exploitativeness and superiority, assessed at age 14, predicted problem behaviors at age 16, while controlling for problem behaviors at age 14.

The structure of adolescent temperament and associations with psychological functioning: A replication and extension of Snyder et al. (2015).

The present study attempts to replicate and extend Snyder et al. (2015, JPSP). The original study examined the latent factor structure of the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire-Revised (EATQ-R), a commonly used measure of adolescent temperament, and showed that the resulting latent factors (i.

Why Has Personality Psychology Played an Outsized Role in the Credibility Revolution?

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing "credibility revolution" in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our field's practices and norms have now become models for other fields to emulate (or, for those who share Baumeister's (2016, https://doi.

Personality Predictors of Emergency Department Post-Discharge Outcomes.

Personality traits are important predictors of health behaviors, healthcare utilization, and health outcomes. However, we know little about the role of personality traits for emergency department outcomes. The present study used data from 200 patients (effective Ns range from 84 to 191), who were being discharged from the emergency department at an urban hospital, to investigate whether the Big Five personality traits were associated with post-discharge outcomes (i.

Big five personality traits and common mental disorders within a hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology: A longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth.

The present study (a) tested whether a structure of common mental disorders within the hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology was invariant from late childhood to adolescence in a sample of Mexican-origin youth, (b) examined the developmental course of psychopathology at different levels of the hierarchy, and (c) tested the degree to which changes in psychopathology were associated with changes in the Big Five personality domains. Results were consistent with the longitudinal hierarchical invariance of common mental disorders from age 12 to 17 ( = 674). Further, initial levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability were positively associated with lower initial levels of a higher order factor of psychopathology, and increases in extraversion and decreases in neuroticism were associated with decreases in a higher order factor of psychopathology, which captured the general tendency for externalizing, internalizing, and attention-hyperactivity-related dimensions of psychopathology to correlate.

Predicting Late Adolescent Anxiety From Early Adolescent Environmental Stress Exposure: Cognitive Control as Mediator.

Early exposure to stressful life events is associated with greater risk of chronic diseases and mental health problems, including anxiety. However, there is significant variation in how individuals respond to environmental adversity, perhaps due to individual differences in processing and regulating emotional information. Differences in cognitive control - processes necessary for implementing goal directed behavior - have been linked to both stress exposure and anxiety, but the directionality of these links is unclear.

Stability and Change in Personality Traits and Major Life Goals From College to Midlife.

The association between personality traits and motivational units, such as life goals, has been a long-standing interest of personality scientists. However, little research has investigated the longitudinal associations between traits and life goals beyond young adulthood. In the present study ( = 251), we examined the rank-order stability of, and mean-level changes in, the Big Five and major life goals (Aesthetic, Economic, Family/Relationship, Hedonistic, Political, Religious, Social) from college (age 18) to midlife (age 40), as well as their co-development.

Are self-esteem and academic achievement reciprocally related? Findings from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth.

Objective: Previous research has shown that self-esteem is associated with academic achievement. However, few studies have used longitudinal data to examine how self-esteem and achievement co-develop over a long time span, and even fewer have focused on ethnic minority youth.

Method: We used data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth (N = 674) to examine the bidirectional associations between self-esteem and academic achievement from 5th to 11th grade.

Life satisfaction trajectories during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood: Findings from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth.

Despite the importance of life satisfaction for health and well-being, there is a paucity of longitudinal studies tracking changes in life satisfaction in ethnic minority youth. In a sample of 674 Mexican-origin youth, the present research examined life satisfaction trajectories from middle (age 14) to late adolescence (age 17) and from late adolescence to young adulthood (age 21). On average, life satisfaction did not change significantly from age 14 to 17, and then decreased from age 17 to 21 ( = .

The development of effortful control from late childhood to young adulthood.

The present study investigated the developmental precursors of effortful control, a temperament trait that involves the propensity to regulate one's impulses and behaviors, to motivate the self toward a goal when there are conflicting desires, and to focus and shift attention easily. Data came from the California Families Project, a multimethod longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth (and their parents), who were assessed at ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19. Effortful control (measured via self- and parent-reports) was moderately stable over time ( = .

The role of effortful control in the development of ADHD, ODD, and CD symptoms.

Many adolescents have difficulty regulating their impulses and become prone to externalizing problems (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], oppositional defiant disorder [ODD], and conduct disorder [CD]) and other adverse consequences.

Developmental Precursors of Relational Aggression From Late Childhood Through Adolescence.

Relational aggression-a psychological form of aggression-has numerous negative consequences for physical and emotional health. However, little is known about the risk factors that lead youth to engage in relational aggression. Using multimethod data from a longitudinal research of 674 Mexican-origin youth, this study examined the influence of parents, siblings, and peers on the development of relational aggression.

The codevelopment of effortful control and school behavioral problems.

Effortful control refers to the propensity to regulate one's impulses and behaviors, to focus and shift attention easily, and to motivate the self toward a goal when there are competing desires. Although it seems likely that these capacities are relevant to successful functioning in the school context, there has been surprisingly little longitudinal research examining whether youth with poor effortful control are more likely to act out in the classroom, get suspended, and skip school. Conversely, there is even less research on whether youth who exhibit these school behavioral problems are more likely to decline over time in effortful control.