In preliminary analyses among the deceased, we examined whether personality traits were associated with longevity (age at time of death) after controlling for age at time of assessment, sex, education, and ethnicity. Partial correlations indicate that individuals with higher scores on General Activity (r = .07; p < .05), Emotional Stability (r = .08; p < .05), Personal Relations (r = .08; p < .05), and Conscientiousness (r = .08; p < .05) lived longer. To further evaluate the effect of personality traits on longevity, we used ANCOVA analyses to estimate marginal means after controlling for demographic variables. As shown in Figure 1, individuals scoring one SD above the mean on General Activity, Emotional Stability, or Conscientiousness lived on average two to three years longer than individuals scoring one SD below the mean. For Personal Relations the effects were weaker. With the exception of Emotional stability, there were little differences in longevity between the groups scoring average and low on these scales.
