Associations between Major Domains of Personality and Health Behavior

Abstract

Two studies are reported which capitalized on recent developments in the measurement of personality and health behaviors to examine personality- health behavior relationships comprehensively by determining associations between five major personality dimensions and four major health behavior dimensions. Prior associations between health behaviors and neurotic and extraverted personality tendencies generally replicated. However, conscientiousness and agreeableness, two previously neglected domains of personality, were the most important personality predictors of health behaviors. Multiple regression analyses showed that the personality measures cumulatively accounted for 8.8% to 25.1% of the variance in each of the health behavior aggregates. Personality can be a reliable predictor of health behavior aggregates, and its importance in this regard has been underestimated by failure to consider appropriate health behavior criteria and by omission of important personality dimensions.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 1991
Accession Number
ADA252717

Entities

People

  • R. R. Vickers Jr.
  • S. Booth-kewley

Organizations

  • Naval Health Research Center

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena
  • Data Science
  • Health Services
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Science
  • Measurement
  • Medical Personnel
  • Military Personnel
  • Myocardial Ischemia
  • Personality
  • Preventive Medicine
  • Psychology
  • Public Health
  • Regression Analysis
  • Social Psychology
  • Statistics

Fields of Study

  • Psychology

Readers

  • Medical or Health Care Field.
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Psychometric Testing or Psychological Assessment.