The conscientious retiree: The relationship between conscientiousness, retirement, and volunteering

Investigating the role of adversity and benevolence beliefs in predicting prosociality

BACKGROUND

Does experiencing adversity engender kindness, and if so, for whom? Two studies tested the hypothesis that adversity predicts increased pro-social outcomes, and that this relationship is strongest for individuals who view others as good and trustworthy, or benevolent.

METHOD

In Study 1, a cross-sectional survey design was utilized, and in Study 2 a longitudinal survey was conducted.

RESULTS

In Study 1 (N = 359), the number of lifetime adverse life events was associated with increased volunteering, empathic concern, and self-reported altruism. The association of adversity and altruism was stronger for those with greater benevolence beliefs. In Study 2 (N = 1157), benevolence beliefs were assessed, and in subsequent years, adverse life events were reported. The number of past-year adverse life events predicted more volunteering and charitable involvement, but only among people with high benevolence beliefs.

CONCLUSION

Exposure to adversity may be associated with increased pro-social behavior among those with higher benevolence beliefs. In part, this could be due to benevolence beliefs increasing the expectation that one's efforts will be appreciated and reciprocated.

Interindividual age differences in personality structure

Most investigations in the structure of personality traits do not adequately address age; instead, they presuppose a constant structure across the lifespan. Further, few studies look at the structure of personality traits a-theoretically, often neglecting to examine the relationship among indicators within a trait (convergence) and across traits (divergence). Using a network approach, the present study examines (1) age differences in divergence and convergence, (2) the similarity between the Big Five and network structures, and (3) the consistency of network structure across age groups in a large, cross-sectional sample. Results indicate that convergence shows early gains in adolescence with few differences across the lifespan, while divergence mostly weakens across adulthood. The result of these age-related differences is that Big Five indicators only parallel the Big Five structure among young but not older adults. The structure of young adults tends to be quite similar while the network structures of older adults appear to greatly differ from one another. These results suggest that older adults have a different structure of personality than younger adults and suggest that future research should not assume consistency in personality structure across the lifespan.

Volunteer participation differentially moderates the association between insomnia and poor subjective well-being in community-dwelling older adults: the Yilan study, Taiwan

Objectives

We aimed to elucidate the moderating effect of volunteer participation on the association between insomnia and subjective well-being.

Methods

This was a community-based, cross-sectional study that targeted community-dwelling older adults aged ≥ 65 years in Yilan city, Taiwan. Whether individuals had volunteered in the past month was asked. Insomnia was measured using the Athens Insomnia Scale-5. Subjective well-being was evaluated using self-rated health, self-rated happiness, the physical component summary (PCS), and the mental component summary (MCS) of Short-form 12. Interaction terms between volunteer participation and insomnia were examined to test the moderating effect of volunteer participation on subjective well-being.

Results

In total, 3,875 participants were included in the study. After controlling for confounders, older adults with insomnia were more likely to have poor subjective well-being, except with respect to PCS. By contrast, volunteering was associated with a low risk of association between self-rated health and happiness. The interaction terms for volunteering with self-rated happiness (p = 0.03) and the MCS (p = 0.02) were significant. The association between insomnia and poor self-rated happiness among volunteers (odds ratio [OR] = 3.91, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.85–8.28) was significantly stronger than that in non-volunteers (OR = 1.48, 95% CI = 1.18–1.86). However, insomnia was linked with poor MCS in non-volunteers (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.21–1.94), but not in volunteers (OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.27–1.50).

Discussion

Volunteer participation moderated the association between insomnia and subjective well-being; specifically, volunteering strengthened the association between insomnia and poor self-rated happiness but mitigated the relationship between insomnia and poor MCS.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-03004-8.

A mega-analysis of personality prediction: Robustness and boundary conditions

Decades of studies identify personality traits as prospectively associated with life outcomes. However, previous investigations of personality characteristic-outcome associations have not taken a principled approach to covariate use or other sampling strategies to ensure the robustness of personality-outcome associations. The result is that it is unclear (a) whether personality characteristics are associated with important outcomes after accounting for a range of background variables, (b) for whom and when personality-outcome associations hold, and (c) that background variables are most important to account for. The present study examines the robustness and boundary conditions of personality-outcome associations using prospective Big Five associations with 14 health, social, education/work, and societal outcomes across eight different person- and study-level moderators using individual participant data from 171,395 individuals across 10 longitudinal panel studies in a mega-analytic framework. Robustness and boundary conditions were systematically tested using two approaches: propensity score matching and specification curve analysis. Three findings emerged: First, personality characteristics remain robustly associated with later life outcomes. Second, the effects generalize, as there are few moderators of personality-outcome associations. Third, robustness was differential across covariate choice in nearly half of the tested models, with the inclusion or exclusion of some of these flipping the direction of association. In summary, personality characteristics are robustly associated with later life outcomes with few moderated associations. However, researchers still need to be careful in their choices of covariates. We discuss how these findings can inform studies of personality-outcome associations, as well as recommendations for covariate inclusion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The association between facets of conscientiousness and performance-based and informant-rated cognition, affect, and activities in older adults

OBJECTIVE

To identify facets of conscientiousness associated with objective cognitive performance, informant-rated cognitive decline, and informant-rated affect and activities implicated in cognitive health.

METHOD

Health and Retirement Study participants (N = 2,516) reported on their personality, completed a comprehensive cognitive assessment, and had knowledgeable informants report on their cognition, affect, and activities.

RESULTS

Industriousness and responsibility were associated with better cognitive performance; order was associated with less informant-rated cognitive decline. The facets were also associated with more positive affect, less negative affect, greater engagement in cognitive activities and activities outside the house, and less engagement in passive activities, as rated by a knowledgeable informant. Informant-rated engagement in cognitive activities mediated the association between self-reported responsibility and objective cognitive performance.

CONCLUSIONS

Tendencies toward achievement and accountability were associated with healthier cognitive performance and daily profiles that support cognitive health, whereas organization was associated with cognition as reported by a knowledgeable informant. The differential pattern of correlates is informative for the theoretical processes that link distinct facets of conscientiousness to healthier cognitive aging.

Personality Development Beyond the Mean: Do Life Events Shape Personality Variability, Structure, and Ipsative Continuity?

OBJECTIVES

Life experiences are thought to prompt changes in personality. However, existing studies find few replicable mean-level changes in personality following life events. The focus on mean-level change may obscure other types of personality change that are not routinely studied in the context of life events. These are variability in response, structural, and ipsative change.

METHODS

The current proposal examines whether major life events (e.g., divorce and job loss) affect these 3 understudied types of personality trait change using 3 waves of Big Five trait data in a large-scale, representative longitudinal study (German Socioeconomic Panel Study, N = 16,368). Structural equation models compare those who had an event to their prior self and a control group who did not experience the event.

RESULTS

Life events were found to have mostly null or small effects on variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Across 2 types of tests for variability in response, few replications occurred. The only consistent effect across 3 types of change was for mental health events, which served to increase variance in all Big Five traits and increase consistency in ipsative profiles.

DISCUSSION

Life events tend not to affect these novel metrics of personality trait change. The one exception of mental health events is consistent with previous literature on mean-level change. Overall, life events do not appear to by major catalysts of personality change, regardless of how change is defined.

Fifty-Five Years of Research Into Older People's Civic Participation: Recent Trends, Future Directions

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

This study analyzes critically existing knowledge concerning older people's civic participation, pinpoints gaps in the literature, and proposes new directions for research.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

We conducted a scoping review of literature on older people's civic participation. To conduct this review, we followed the 5-step framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley (Arksey H, O'Malley L. Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. Int J Soc Res Method. 2005; 8: 19-32), and expanded by Levac and colleagues (Levac D, Colquhoun H, O'Brien KK. Scoping studies: Advancing the methodology. Implement Sci. 2010; 5: 69).

RESULTS

Research into older people's civic participation has grown steadily over the past 55 years. However, the increasing number of publications mainly concerns collective forms of social participation, particularly volunteering, with other types of participation being more stable over time. Contextual as well as dynamic aspects of civic participation remain underdeveloped. Diversity of older people is scarcely represented in current research.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

This scoping review identifies 4 critical gaps in the literature that should be at the forefront of future research. These are classified as conceptual, contextual, processual, and diverse aspects of research into older people's civic participation.

Hardly Silent: Exploring Civic Engagement and Participation among a Panel of Adults Ages 85

The past twenty years have seen a surge of resources for and public attention devoted to civic participation opportunities for older adults in the United States. At the same time, technology has transformed the way information related to political and social issues is spread and shared. As more older adults migrate to using a wider range of communication tools and the internet, technology-mediated forms of engagement represent a new way for the oldest old to participate in society. In this study, a panel of adults ages 85 and older was surveyed to understand their experiences engaging with political and social issues. Responses to a questionnaire (N = 24) and focus groups (n = 22) indicate the oldest old are interested in social and political issues, and there are opportunities for technology to facilitate the oldest olds' civic and political action. This study identifies roles social workers may play in helping the oldest old engage with social and political issues in their communities.

Unemployment and the Relationship between Borderline Personality Pathology and Health

Evidence suggests that employment may buffer against the negative health outcomes associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The purpose of the current analyses was to examine unemployment and the BPD-health relationship prospectively. Participants were 1,536 older adults in a longitudinal study of health and aging, with repeated measures of physical health, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction. We measured BPD features using multiple sources at baseline, and used principal components analysis to obtain latent scores. Multilevel models indicated that unemployment experiences did not moderate the prospective relationship between BPD features and physical health or life satisfaction, but did strengthen the positive relationship between BPD features and depressive symptoms. These findings provide insight into mechanisms of recovery for individuals with BPD.

What makes us busy? Predictors of perceived busyness across the adult lifespan

Busier people tend to perform better on cognitive tasks than less busy individuals. Nevertheless, the characteristics that are associated with greater perceived busyness are unknown. To address this question participants (N = 463) from the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study (ages 20-89) completed a self-report busyness assessment and demographic, health, personality, and lifestyle measures. Results revealed that perceived busyness peaked in 30-year-olds, showed age-related decreases until age 60, and then remained stable. Moreover, women generally reported being busier than men. Analysis of age by gender interactions revealed that men exhibited a significant cubic age effect for busyness, whereas women did not. Overall, younger age, female gender, agreeableness, neuroticism, frequent participation in novel activities, and enjoyment of cognitive processing were independently associated with being busier, and the characteristics related to busyness were generally stable across age. Notably, participation in novel activities and need for cognition were the most predictive lifestyle characteristics, supporting the framing of busyness as an indicator of mental engagement. We also propose personality-based sources of self-generated and other-generated busyness.

Reluctance to Retire: A Qualitative Study on Work Identity, Intergenerational Conflict, and Retirement in Academic Medicine

Purpose of the Study

Some professions foster expectations that individuals cultivate their work identity above all other aspects of life. This can be problematic when individuals are confronted with the expectation that they will readily terminate this identity in later-career stages as institutions seek to cycle in new generations. This study examines the relationship between work identity and retirement by examining multiple generations of academic physicians.

Design and Methods

This study used a multimethod qualitative design that included document analysis, participant observation, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with academic physicians from one of the oldest departments of medicine in North America.

Results

This study illustrates how participants were predisposed and then groomed through institutional efforts to embrace a career trajectory that emphasized work above all else and fostered negative sensibilities about retirement. Participants across multiple generations described a lack of work-life balance and a prioritization of their careers above nonwork commitments. Assertions that less experienced physicians were not as dedicated to medicine and implicit assumptions that later-career physicians should retire emerged as key concerns.

Implications

Strong work identity and tensions between different generations may confound concerns about retirement in ways that complicate institutional succession planning and that demonstrate how traditional understandings of retirement are out of date. Findings support the need to creatively reconsider the ways we examine relations between work identity, age, and retirement in ways that account for the recent extensions in the working lives of professionals.

Determinants of participation in voluntary work: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies

BACKGROUND

Participation in voluntary work may be associated with individual and societal benefits. Because of these benefits and as a result of challenges faced by governments related to population ageing, voluntary work becomes more important for society, and policy measures are aimed at increasing participation rates. In order to effectively identify potential volunteers, insight in the determinants of volunteering is needed. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review including meta-analyses.

METHODS

A systematic search in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, Business Source Premier, and EconLit was performed on August 12th 2015. We included longitudinal cohort studies conducted in developed countries that quantified factors associated with volunteering among samples from the general adult population. Two reviewers independently selected eligible studies, extracted the data and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies using the QUIPS tool. Estimates reported in the papers were transformed into Odds Ratios and 95% Confidence Intervals. For each determinant, random-effects meta-analyses were used to generate summary estimates.

RESULTS

We found that socioeconomic status, being married, social network size, church attendance and previous volunteer experiences are positively associated with volunteering. Age, functional limitations and transitions into parenthood were found to be inversely related to volunteering.

CONCLUSIONS

Important key factors have been identified as well as gaps in the current literature. Future research should be directed towards deepening the knowledge on the associations between the factors age, education, income, employment and participation in voluntary work. Moreover, major life course transitions should be studied in relation to volunteering.

Activity Engagement and Activity-Related Experiences: The Role of Personality

Objectives

The associations of personality with activity participation and well-being have been well studied. However, less is known concerning the relationship between personality and specific aspects of activity engagement in older adults. We conducted a fine-grained examination of the effects of extraversion and conscientiousness on reported activity engagement-which we define as participation, time allocated, and affective experience-during 8 everyday activities.

Method

Data were obtained using a day reconstruction measure from a subgroup of participants in the 2012 Health and Retirement Study (HRS: N = 5,484; mean age = 67.98 years).

Results

We found mixed support for hypotheses suggesting that specific personality traits would be associated with activity participation, time allocated, and activity-affective experience. For example, extraverts were more likely to socialize and experienced higher socializing-related positive affect, but did not spend more time socializing.

Discussion

Results are discussed in light of the value of including personality in, and its contribution to, studies of activity engagement in later life. In addition, the need to acknowledge the complexity of the concept of activity engagement in future research is highlighted.

The Life Skills of Older Americans: Association with Economic, Psychological, Social, and Health Outcomes

Studies of children and adolescents indicate that success in life is determined in part by attributes such as conscientiousness, emotional stability and sense of control, independently of childhood socioeconomic status and cognitive ability. Less is known about the role of these characteristics at older ages. This study investigated the relationship of five life skills - conscientiousness, emotional stability, persistence, optimism and sense of control - with a range of outcomes in 8,843 participants (mean age 72.57 years) in the Health and Retirement Study, a representative study of older Americans. More life skills were associated with greater wealth and income, better emotional wellbeing, stronger social relationships, less loneliness, better health, fewer chronic illnesses and impaired activities of daily living, better mobility and less obesity, after controlling for childhood socioeconomic status and current cognitive ability. Longitudinally, more life skills predicted emotional wellbeing, less loneliness and more prosocial behavior, better health and mobility over a 4 year period. Associations were independent of gender, ethnicity, family background, education and cognitive ability. The number of attributes was important rather than any single life skill. Life skills continue to matter at advanced ages, and fostering these characteristics in older adults may pay dividends in terms of later life health and wellbeing.

Borderline personality pathology and physical health: The role of employment

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with negative physical health outcomes. Clinical case studies suggest that employment status may buffer against the negative effects of BPD on physical health. The goal of the current study was to examine the interaction between BPD features and employment status in predicting subjective perceptions of physical health. We hypothesized that employment status would moderate the relationship between BPD features and physical health, such that individuals who are employed would exhibit a weaker negative relationship between BPD features and self- and informant ratings of physical health. We investigated this question using data from a community sample of 1,630 middle-aged to older adults participating in the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network, an ongoing study of personality, health, and aging. Results indicated that employment status and BPD features were significant predictors of both self- and informant ratings of physical health. Confirming our hypothesis, the interaction term contributed to a significant increase in the proportion of explained variance, suggesting that employment is associated with a weaker negative relationship between BPD features and physical health. These findings highlight the importance of examining occupational functioning in the long-term course of BPD and offer avenues for further research into moderators of the relationship between BPD features and physical health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Volunteering and mortality risk: a partner-controlled quasi-experimental design

Background

The consensus that volunteering is associated with a lower mortality risk is derived from a body of observational studies and therefore vulnerable to uncontrolled or residual confounding. This potential limitation is likely to be particularly problematic for volunteers who, by definition, are self-selected and known to be significantly different from non-volunteers across a range of factors associated with better survival.

Methods

This is a census-based record-linkage study of 308 733 married couples aged 25 and over, including 100 571 volunteers, with mortality follow-up for 33 months. We used a standard Cox model to examine whether mortality risk in the partners of volunteers was influenced by partner volunteering status-something expected if the effects of volunteering on mortality risk were due to shared household or behavioural characteristics.

Results

Volunteers were general more affluent, better educated and more religious than their non-volunteering peers; they also had a lower mortality risk [hazard ratio (HR)adj = 0.78: 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.71, 0.85 for males and HRadj = 0.77: 95% CI = 0.68, 0.88 for females]. However, amongst cohort members who were not volunteers, having a partner who was a volunteer was not associated with a mortality advantage (HRadj = 1.01: 95% CI = 0.92, 1.11 for men and HRadj = 1.00: 95% CI = 0.88, 1.13 women).

Conclusions

This study provides further evidence that the lower mortality associated with volunteering is unlikely to be due to health selection or to residual confounding arising from unmeasured selection effects within households. It therefore increases the plausibility of a direct causal effect.

Effects of Pre-Retirement Personality, Health and Job Lock on Post-Retirement Subjective Well-being

Retirement can be difficult, and experiences vary greatly. Although health, financial status, and family responsibilities have been associated with retirement adjustment, individual psychosocial characteristics may also play a role. Moreover, relatively little is known about the impact of perceived 'job lock'-the belief that retirement is impossible due to financial or health constraints-and its relationship with later retirement adjustment. The current study addresses these limitations in the literature by examining the retirement transition over four years in a large sample of U.S. adults, with a particular focus on the ways in which personality may affect this transition. Data collected at baseline (2008/2010) and again four years later (2012/2014) included the Big Five personality traits, pre-retirement job lock, self-rated health, and multiple indicators of post-retirement well-being, such as global and experienced well-being (anchored within activities in a single day). Participants were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 716; Mage = 61.9 at baseline). Results indicated that experienced positive affect was the only post-retirement well-being outcome with a significant association with job lock, although only for those with low conscientiousness. Findings also suggest that pre-retirement personality and subjective health play an important role for post-retirement well-being. Thus, the current study highlights the importance for researchers and practitioners to consider both pre-retirement personality and health when evaluating individuals' management of the retirement transition. Word Count: 224.

Volunteering is prospectively associated with health care use among older adults

RATIONALE

Although observational and experimental studies have shown that volunteering is linked with better mental health, physical health, and health behaviors, no studies have examined whether volunteering is associated with patterns of health care use.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to prospectively examine whether volunteering was associated with a greater use of preventive health care services, but fewer doctor visits and nights spent in the hospital.

METHODS

Participants (n = 7168) were drawn from the 2006 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel study of American adults over the age of 51, and tracked for one wave (2 years). Logistic regression and generalized linear models were used for analyses.

RESULTS

In analyses that adjusted for sociodemographic factors and baseline health, volunteers were 30% more likely to receive flu shots (OR = 1.30, 95% CI = 1.16-1.47), 47% more likely to receive cholesterol tests (OR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.24-1.74); female volunteers were 53% more likely to receive mammograms/x-rays (OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.28-1.83) and 21% more likely to receive Pap smears (OR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.03-1.41); male volunteers were 59% more likely to receive prostate exams (OR = 1.59, 95% CI = 1.29-1.95). In a model that adjusted for sociodemographic factors, volunteers spent 38% fewer nights in the hospital (RR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.52-0.76), however volunteering was not associated with frequency of doctor visits (RR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.87-1.02). The association between volunteering and number of nights spent in the hospital was minimally affected after adjusting for potential confounding (baseline health) and explanatory variables (health behaviors, social integration, stress, positive psychological factors, personality).

CONCLUSION

This is the first known study to examine the association between volunteering and health care use. If future studies replicate these findings, the results may be used to inform the development of new strategies for increasing preventive health screenings, lowering health care use and costs, and enhancing the health of older adults.