Community-dwelling volunteers (N = 1,988) were drawn from the BLSA, an ongoing multidisciplinary study of normal aging administered by the National Institute on Aging. The BLSA began in 1958 with a convenience sample of men, mostly college educated and predominantly White. Later recruitment has helped balance the sample by including minorities and, since 1978, women. Participants are generally healthy and highly educated (M = 16.53 years of education, SD = 2.47); the present sample is 71% White, 22% Black, and 7% other or unknown ethnicity and 50% women. Basic anthropometric measures (see below) were available on all participants since the BLSA’s inception; administration of the current personality measure (see below) started in 1989. Of participants with at least one valid assessment of personality, 89% were either active (66%) or deceased (23%). Of the remaining 11%, approximately 2% had formally withdrawn (although they are willing to participate by phone, mail, and/or home visits) and approximately 9% had dropped out, were at least one year past their due date, or were lost to follow-up.
