Personal views of aging in midlife and older age: the role of personality

Do personal views of aging among adults and older adults could be shaped by their personality dispositions?
The study, conducted within the PNRR “Age-It” (“Ageing well in an ageing society”) project and recently published in Frontiers in Psychology, involved a sample spanning the midlife and older age and examined the associations between the Big Five personality traits and different facets of personal views of aging, namely subjective age and awareness of age-related gains and losses in different domains of functioning (e.g., physical, cognitive, socio-emotional). Results showed that different personality traits were associated with personal views of aging depending on the facet considered: individuals high in Openness were the ones who reported feeling younger than their chronological age, whereas individuals high in Extraversion and high in Emotional Stability reported a higher awareness of age-related gains and a lower awareness of age-related losses, respectively. There results underscore the importance of considering personality among those individual characteristics capable of shaping the perceptions and expectations that adults and older adults could hold regarding their own aging process, with implications for the promotion of a healthy aging and longevity.

Authors: Elena Carbone, Enrico Sella, Diletta Signori, Erika Borella
Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2...