The mechanisms through which personality traits influence health and longevity are surely complex. We have often referred to behaviors that mediate the health benefits of being conscientious, emotionally stable, and active, but the analyses that included smoking and obesity suggest that health risk behaviors are unlikely to fully explain the personality-longevity association. Personality traits might also be linked to longevity through direct and indirect emotional and cognitive influences on physiological systems, such as immunity. It is also possible that personality traits are linked to socio-demographic, life-pathway, genetic or other biological factors that are the underlying cause of life expectancy differences. Whatever the causal mechanisms, the finding that personality traits are linked to longevity has clinical implications, from a better understanding of individual differences in longevity to the tailoring of prevention and treatment plans to the needs of individual patients.
