Meta-Analysis Identifies Association Between Personality Traits and Dementia Risk

Specific personality traits, including neuroticism, negative affect, low conscientiousness, and low extraversion, were associated with an increased risk for a dementia diagnosis, according to research published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Conversely, positive affect and higher conscientiousness and extraversion were shown to be protective against dementia.

The study was a meta-analysis of 8 longitudinal studies, which included a total of 44,531 participants aged 49 to 81 years at baseline. After 21 years of follow up, there were 1703 cases of dementia in the study population. Researchers utilized Bayesian multilevel models to investigate whether the “big 5” personality traits (conscientiousness, extraversion, openness to experience, neuroticism, and agreeableness) and subjective well-being (SWB; positive affect, negative affect, satisfaction with life) predicted neuropathologic and neuropsychologic characteristics of dementia.

Meta-analysis of the results revealed that high neuroticism, high negative affect, low conscientiousness, low extraversion, and low positive affect were all traits found to be associated with a greater risk of dementia. Of the 63 hypothesis tests conducted across the 8 different models for each of the 8 traits assessed in the study, 37 (58.7%) were significant.

• Neuroticism and low conscientiousness were associated with incident dementia diagnosis in each sample and overall.
• Negative affect was associated with incident dementia diagnosis in 3 of 5 samples and overall.
• Low positive affect was associated with incident dementia diagnosis in 3 of 6 samples and overall.
• Low extraversion was associated with incident dementia diagnosis in 3 of 8 samples and overall.
• Low satisfaction with life was associated with incident dementia diagnosis in 3 of 6 samples but not overall.

There were no consistent associations identified between psychological characteristics and neuropathology, nor were there consistent moderation relationships between psychological characteristics and neuropathology.