Conscientiousness Leads to a Longer Life

Since this month is Older Americans Month, I've been blogging about Healthy Aging. (Side note: I just discovered that September is Healthy Aging month. Glad the calendar has these topics covered!)

In fact, there are SO many resources about Healthy Aging that I can't keep them all straight.  I searched for a podcast about Healthy Aging yesterday and so many came up that I can't even remember which one I listened to. 

The podcast, for the most part, didn't reveal much that I hadn't heard before.  However, the one new thing that I learned is that the personality trait, conscientiousness, is related to longevity!

This was good news for me because I suspected that conscientiousness is one of my strongest personality traits! I'm a very dependable person!

I wanted to confirm this claim I heard on the podcast, and so I googled it today and found this article from Psychology Today: 

One Personality Trait Predicts Longevity More Than Others—But Why?

High conscientiousness, then, appears to pay off in terms of improved longevity through multiple behavioral and biological pathways. So, how conscientious are you? A brief Big Five trait assessment can be found here . If you’re low on conscientiousness, there is still hope. One can learn to become more conscientious through purposeful practice. Psychotherapy can also help improve conscientiousness. Finally, research has shown that personality in general and conscientiousness, in particular, can change, and tend to improve with age . So, your low conscientiousness could improve on its own over time—that is, if it doesn’t kill you first.

The article is referring to The Big Five Personality Test. Unlike some of the other personality tests, you can take the assessment and get the results very quickly.  Here are my results.

Yay! High in conscientiousness, as suspected! (Of course, it was a self-assessment, so there's a possibility that I subconsciously rated myself higher than I really am.)

Before congratulating myself too much, I wanted to find out exactly what the definition of conscientiousness was and what the downsides might be.  Too much of ANY personality trait can be a problem.

I found this definition of conscientiousness with this description of the downsides:

However, individuals who score high in conscientiousness on a personality test can be compulsive perfectionists and workaholics. They might also be seen as being boring or inflexible. 

I thought this was interesting as "inflexibility" is also a downside of the "Upholder" personality in Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendency model.  Inflexibility is a personality trait that I think I had when I was younger, but my agile training has helped me become much more flexible.

One thing I really think is key is that our personality traits are not fixed! 

What personality trait would you like to change? I've nailed changing my natural tendency towards "inflexibility"..  now I need to work on being less boring!