Personality traits are often treated as quirks — the habits and tendencies that shape how we think, feel, and interact with others. But a new analysis suggests they may also play a quieter, more consequential role: influencing how long we live.
The findings come from a large new review published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Analyzing decades of studies that followed nearly 570,000 people, the researchers linked more anxious, worry-prone personality traits to a higher risk of dying earlier.
“Personality is a critical driver of health and longevity. It is important to emphasize that these effects are similar in size to those of commonly considered public health determinants, such as socio-economic status,” said Máire McGeehan, a psychologist at the University of Limerick, in a press release.
Personality Traits and Long-Term Health
Psychologists typically describe personality using five broad traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These traits reflect relatively stable patterns in how people respond to stress, organize their lives, seek social interaction, and manage responsibilities.
Over time, those patterns can shape daily behavior in ways that influence health. Personality traits have been linked to habits such as smoking, physical activity, medication adherence, and how people cope with stress — all factors that can quietly affect disease risk across decades.
Previous research has hinted at connections between personality and lifespan, but results have often been inconsistent. Some studies found strong effects for certain traits, while others found little or none, depending on the population or country studied.
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Anxiety, Organization, and the Risk of Dying Earlier
The researchers reviewed data from 48 longitudinal studies that tracked participants for years — in some cases, decades — recording personality traits early on and following up on survival later in life.
One of the clearest patterns involved neuroticism, a trait characterized by chronic worry, anxiety, and emotional instability. Across studies, higher levels of neuroticism were associated with a modest but consistent increase in the risk of dying earlier. The link was strongest in younger and middle-aged adults, suggesting that anxiety-related traits may be particularly relevant to premature death.
Conscientiousness showed the opposite effect. People who scored higher on traits linked to organization, self-discipline, and reliability tended to live longer. Extraversion — reflecting sociability and engagement with others — was also associated with lower mortality risk, though this protective effect was most evident in North America and Australia.
Not all traits showed clear links. Openness and agreeableness were generally not associated with lifespan once the researchers accounted for differences between studies.
The effects for neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion held even when the traits were analyzed together, suggesting that each contributes independently to longevity.
Small Differences, Long-Term Consequences
The differences in risk tied to personality were relatively small — often just a few percentage points. But across populations and over long periods of time, those effects can add up.
Personality traits may influence health indirectly, by shaping behavior and biological stress responses, rather than acting as direct causes of disease. When researchers adjusted for factors such as smoking, body weight, or existing health conditions, some of the associations weakened, suggesting that personality may work through these pathways.
The findings do not mean personality is destiny. Traits can shift over time, and many of the behaviors linked to health remain modifiable.
Still, the results highlight that how people tend to think, feel, and cope with the world may quietly shape their health trajectories across a lifetime — sometimes in ways that rival more familiar risk factors.
Read More: Around 25 Percent of Your Mental Health Risk Is Tied to Your Personality
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