Laughing your way to 100 – personality important for ageing

Laughing your way to 100 – personality important for ageing Genetics, Happiness, Living Longer, Positive Psychology

May 252012

“It’s in their genes” is a common refrain from scientists when asked about factors that allow centenarians to reach age 100 and beyond. And it could be your ‘dispositional optimism.” Up until now, research has focused on genetic variations that offer a physiological advantage such as high levels of HDL (“good”) cholesterol. But researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology of Yeshiva University have found that personality traits like being outgoing, optimistic, easygoing, and enjoying laughter as well as staying engaged in activities may also be part of the longevity genes mix.

People who get to 100 are more optimistic and easy going and don’t bottle up their emotions, the study shows.

Nir Barzilai

The findings, published online in the journal Aging, come from Einstein’s Longevity Genes Project, which includes over 500 Ashkenazi Jews over the age of 95 and 700 of their offspring. Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews were selected because they are genetically homogeneous, making it easier to spot genetic differences within the study population.

Previous studies have indicated that personality arises from underlying genetic mechanisms that may directly affect health. The present study of 243 of the centenarians (average age 97.6 years, 75 percent women) was aimed at detecting genetically-based personality characteristics by developing a brief measure (the Personality Outlook Profile Scale, or POPS) of personality in centenarians.

“When I started working with centenarians, I thought we’d find that they survived so long in part because they were mean and ornery,” said Nir Barzilai, M.D., the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research, director of Einstein’s Institute for Aging Research and co-corresponding author of the study. “But when we assessed the personalities of these 243 centenarians, we found qualities that clearly reflect a positive attitude towards life. Most were outgoing, optimistic and easygoing. They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network. They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up.” In addition, the centenarians had lower scores for displaying neurotic personality and higher scores for being conscientious compared with a representative sample of the U.S. population.

“Some evidence indicates that personality can change between the ages of 70 and 100, so we don’t know whether our centenarians have maintained their personality traits across their entire lifespans,” continued Dr. Barzilai. “Nevertheless, our findings suggest that centenarians share particular personality traits and that genetically-based aspects of personality may play an important role in achieving both good health and exceptional longevity.”

The study is titled “Positive attitude towards life and emotional expression as personality phenotypes for centenarians.” The POPS was developed by lead author Kaori Kato, Psy.D., now at Weill Cornell Medical College, who validated it through comparisons with two previously established measures of personality traits. Other authors of the study were Richard Zweig, Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Einstein and director of the Older Adult Program at Ferkauf, and Gil Atzmon, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and of genetics at Einstein.

Although the personality traits are genetically based – perhaps there is still a nature or nurture question? We asked professor Barzilai can younger people encourage the appropriate traits as a way to living a longer happier life? “Absolutely, gene environment interactions are philosophically a 50/50 collaboration because we are with those genes in this environment. The question is can one force on himself a personality and also enhance life-span? I don’t know.”

How far are we from genetically based tests that isolate personality being part of medical assessment?

“We have not found these genes in our study yet although we will look for them in an unbiased way. However there are genes implicated in risky behaviors for example, so the science is there,” he responded.

Given the correlation between Personality Outlook Profile Scale, or POPS and living longer could the POPS instrument be a predictor of exceptional longevity (leaving misadventure aside) we asked. ”I doubt it! Many people with good attitude are treated for cancer, diabetes, etc.”

Given your sample of Jewish people, could the experience of the trauma in Europe in the 40′s had any effect on the survivors? ”Maybe,” he responded. “We certainly have some Holocaust survibors in our study. They could have gone through caloric restriction which may lengthen life-span. It is hard to test because they mostly Holocaust survivors are rare. People who were in their 30-40s during the Holocaust were too old to survive for this study.”

I wonder if you could slightly expand your thoughts on how personality might change after 70? Do you have a theory on why that may happen? Is it because people distil their life experience? ”If you show young and old people good slides (like an island in Hawaii) and bad slides ( for example, cockroaches in a pizza), the young people remember all slides and the old tend to remember just the good ones. So, there is some physiological adaptation that tells us to note the good as we age. Maybe that is behind the agreeable personality that develops in centenarians,” Professor Nir Barzilai responded.

Source: Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Email correspondence with Nir Barzilai