The meta-analysis supported an inverse association between openness and risk of AD. Open individuals prefer variety, are attentive to inner feelings, are sensitive to art and beauty, and are intellectually engaged, curious, and imaginative. Open individuals tend to perform well on cognitive measures, such as executive functions and working memory tasks,36–38 and on measures of academic achievement.39 The higher intellectual engagement of these individuals is consistent with other evidence that relates cognitive activity with risk of AD.40, 41 Openness, especially its Ideas facet, is correlated with aspects of intelligence and education, which are associated with greater cognitive reserve and decreased risk for AD.40 It should be noted that openness was associated with risk of AD even with education as a covariate, suggesting that the effects of openness on AD might thus have been underestimated in our analyses.
