Organised or moody? These are the personality traits that could predict how long you live

How would you describe yourself? 

Impulsive, stressed and moody? Organised, active and helpful? If it’s the latter, you’re more likely to live longer, according to a new study. 

Researchers have found that certain personality traits could predict people's longevity, with our self-perceptions shaping how we feel and, in turn, behave. For example, if you’re more organised, you’re more likely to remember to take medications on time and maintain healthy routines. 

In the past, people’s personalities have been assessed using a broader category system known as the Big Five or OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. 

The study, which was published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, focused on breaking these categories down into smaller, more nuanced traits. 

Using a dataset of 22,000 people, the researchers evaluated past questionnaire responses to the Big Five, treating each individual answer as a separate trait. Mortality was then tracked between the ages of six to 28.

“We found that the prediction [of mortality] basically doubles if you move away from the big five into these smaller things,” René Mõttus, a personality professor at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the study, told Euronews Health. 

“This means that there must be many possible mechanisms of how personality can end up influencing people's longevity. So, for one person, it might be through something related to their emotion regulation. For others, it may be related to their behaviour,” Mõttus added. 

Those who described themselves as active were the least likely to die during the study period, according to Mõttus, with a 21 per cent lower risk despite age, gender and medical diagnoses.

Being organised, lively, responsible, hard-working, helpful and thorough were also linked to living longer - while those who considered themselves anxious or moody faced the opposite. 

“In a broad sense, certain patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour can impact directly on wellbeing and the ability to access and follow through with preventative measures and supports, which can in turn impact longevity,” Dr John Francis Leader, a psychologist and cognitive scientist, told Euronews Health. 

“However, healthcare providers can offer more personalised care to help bridge gaps by adapting supports in ways that are suitable to a range of different personality types and other individual differences”.

How changeable are our personalities?

If you’re reading this and worrying you don’t meet the descriptors for longevity, don’t worry - personality traits are relatively stable, but not fixed, according to Francis Leader. 

“They can shift across the lifespan, especially through intentional effort or life changes. An essential point in considering this topic is to not just look at it through an individual lens, but also through a social lens,” he said

“While someone may, by themselves, struggle with motivation, it may be quite a different case when they are in a supportive community. Or, they may potentially be entirely capable by themselves, but need certain supports or adaptations to help them to engage”. 

As healthcare increasingly shifts towards more personalised approaches, especially with advancements in hyper-specialised artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Mõttus believes research like this will be especially impactful for those with mental illness. 

“It means that we can, in the future, pretty accurately start predicting different kinds of mental illness or wellbeing manifestations from personality assessments earlier, and especially so if these personality assessments have been done in this nuanced way”. 

These precision-based personality tests could also be used in other areas of life, such as schools and workplaces, according to Mõttus. It’s important to note, however, that the study is still a proof of principle and requires more research in the future before being implemented in practice. 

“It might take five years or something, when we have enough time between data collections and mortality assessments,” he said.

 “But I am very sure that we will find stronger, more actionable, and more intuitive links between personality and things like mortality”.