Health Psychology, 2nd Edition

relationship between conscientiousness and behaviours (Bogg and Roberts, 2004)
showed conscientiousness to be positively related to a range of protective health
behaviours (e.g. exercise) and negatively related to a range of health-risk behaviours
(e.g. smoking). In a recent cohort study, school-related conscientious ness was found
to be predictive of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking in adolescents
confirming its importance early in the lifecourse (Hagger-Johnson et al., 2012). Table
6.2 shows the size of these effects for a range of different health behav iours (the impact
of health behaviours on health is further considered in Chapter 7). A further way in
which conscientiousness may impact on health outcomes is through modifying
behaviour following illness. So, for example, some studies have demon strated that
individuals high in conscientiousness are more likely to follow health care advice and
that this difference is particularly apparent when the advice is difficult or time
consuming to follow (Christiansen and Smith, 1995; Schwartz J.E. et al., 1999). A
recent study (Booth et al., 2014) has shown that lower conscientiousness was associated
with increased brain ageing (e.g. objectively measured brain tissue loss) using the
Lothian Birth Cohort Study 1936 when the participants were in their seventies.
Importantly this effect of conscientiousness on brain ageing appeared to be partly
explained (i.e. mediated) by differences in health behaviours such as smoking, alcohol
use, physical activity and diet.
Recent research has begun to examine how personality traits may produce changes
in health behaviours through shaping the way in which individuals think about these

130 COPING RESOURCES

Age

Probability of death

50 60 70 80 90

1.00

0.80

0.60

0.40

0.20

0.00

Low conscientiousness Males whose parents

High conscientiousness divorced

Males whose parents

did not divorce

Females whose parents

did not divorce

FIGURE 6.3Survival curves for individuals from the Terman study.

Source: Copyright Howard S. Friedman and Joseph Schwartz.