Aesthetic Chills as a Universal Marker of Openness to Experience

Aesthetic chills are transient emotional responses to music or other experiences of beauty. Item 188 of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) asks respondents if they have experienced these chills, and in American samples it is one of the best definers of Openness to Experience, one of the five basic personality factors. As part of the NEO-PI-R, the item has been translated into over 40 languages, and an examination of back-translations suggests that the phenomenon can be expressed in all the languages examined. Data from the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project show that Item 188 is one of the best definers of Openness in most of the 51 cultures examined. Aesthetic chills appear to be a universal emotional experience, although the functions they serve and the mechanisms that account for them remain to be discovered.

Effects of guided immune-imagery: The moderating influence of openness to experience

It is widely believed that personality has an important role in determining the effectiveness of guided imagery (GI) interventions. The primary aim of the current study was to examine whether the effect of GI on several outcome measures was dependent upon openness to experience, a theoretically relevant variable previously unexplored as a potential moderator. Thirty-five healthy participants were randomised to an animated imagery, verbal imagery or no-intervention control group, with imagery groups receiving 10 × 20 min sessions. Pre/post-assessments of cortisol, sleep, stress and creativity were administered along with the openness to experience scale. Regression analysis indicated a significant increase in cortisol and decrease in tiredness following verbal GI, but only for those high in openness. The efficacy of GI interventions may be dependent upon openness to experience and this variable should be accounted for in future studies.     

A coordinated analysis of the associations among personality traits,cognitive decline,and dementia in older adulthood

There are individual differences in the rates of cognitive decline across later adulthood. Personality traits are among the factors that may account for these differences. The current project investigated whether personality traits were associated with trajectories of cognitive decline, and whether the associations were different before and after dementia diagnosis. The data was analyzed using linear mixed effects regression. Across study aims is a focus on replicability and generalizability. Each question was addressed in four independent longitudinal studies (EAS, MAP, ROS, SATSA), then meta-analyzed, providing estimates of replicability. Results indicated that low neuroticism and high openness were associated with total cognitive function. We detected evidence for cognitive decline in all four samples, and openness was associated with decline post dementia diagnosis.     

Personality correlates of HIV stigmatization in Russia and the United States

To determine whether stigmatizing attitudes towards HIV/AIDS are associated with personality traits, and whether these associations are generalizable across two cultures, we administered the English and the brief Russian version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, a standardized measure of a comprehensive model of personality traits, together with items assessing HIV stigmatization. We hypothesized that stigmatization would be associated chiefly with low Openness to Experience. Self-reports and observer ratings of personality and self-reports of HIV attitudes were collected from volunteers recruited by research assistants. HIV stigmatization was more pronounced in Russia than in the United States, but it was similarly related to personality traits, chiefly low Openness to Experience, a variable associated with other forms of prejudice, and low Agreeableness, suggesting a lack of altruism and sympathy. HIV stigmatization is especially likely to be a problem with people, and in cultures, low in Openness to Experience.     

From madness to genius: The Openness/Intellect trait domain as a paradoxical simplex

A novel theory of Openness/Intellect is proposed, which integrates intelligence and positive schizotypy (or apophenia, false detection of patterns or causal connections) within the Big Five. Openness/Intellect comprises a simplex of subtraits arrayed along a single scaling dimension. Openness traits fall in one half of the simplex, bounded by apophenia; Intellect traits fall in the other half, bounded by intelligence. The simplex is paradoxical because intelligence and apophenia are negatively correlated despite both loading positively on the general Openness/Intellect factor. The model was supported in two samples and organizes theories of (1) the relation of intelligence and schizotypy to personality, (2) the psychological and biological mechanisms involved in Openness/Intellect, and (3) the costs and benefits of Openness, proximally and evolutionarily.     

Evidence for the role of personality in the cognitive performance of older male drivers

ObjectivesThis study aimed to examine whether in older male drivers the level of information processing under increasing cognitive workload varies with the level of personality traits.MethodThe study involved 60 male, active drivers aged between 65 and 81 (M = 71, SD = 4.4). During passive driving they performed central (a test in the n-back scheme, in three cognitive workload levels) and peripheral (memorizing objects characteristic for road traffic) tasks presented simultaneously in the central and peripheral visual fields. A wide-angle high-fidelity collimated visual system was used to display visual stimuli. In the central task, the reaction time and its correctness were measured, while the peripheral task measured the number of memorized objects. The EPQ-R questionnaire was used to assess personality traits, and the memory functions were assessed using the MMSE test.ResultsAs the central task-induced cognitive workload increases, the performance of both central and peripheral tasks deteriorates. These tasks were performed less accurately by drivers with a higher level of psychoticism than those with a lower level of this trait. This dependency related to all levels of cognitive workload. In contrast, the drivers with a higher level of neuroticism showed a lower level of performance of the peripheral task than those with a low level of this trait. This dependency concerned only the central task with a medium cognitive workload.ConclusionThe level of personality traits, especially the ones related to the emotional sphere, contributed to the decrease in the effectiveness of action (longer reaction time, increase in the number of errors, decrease in the number of memorized objects) in the conditions of increasing cognitive workload. A higher level of neuroticism and psychoticism can be conducive to making errors on the road. This applies especially to situations that pose high demands on the driver’s cognitive system.     

Level of cognitive performance as a correlate and predictor of health behaviors that protect against cognitive decline in late life: The path through life study

There is a lack of information on how cognitive ability relates to both health behaviors and change in health behaviors over time. This study examined verbal ability and processing speed as predictors of health behaviors in the PATH Through Life Study that includes cohorts aged in their 20s, 40s and 60s. Higher cognitive scores were associated with higher levels of physical activity, greater likelihood of taking vitamin and mineral supplements, reduced likelihood of current smoking and not abstaining from alcohol. However, lower level of verbal ability and processing speed were associated with higher levels of use of cholesterol lowering medication in the 60s cohort. Physical activity, consumption of vitamins and minerals and taking cholesterol lowering and antihypertensive medication over the four-year follow-up period increased in this cohort. The likelihood of adopting healthier behaviors was greatest for those with the lowest cognitive scores. We conclude that while higher levels of cognitive performance are associated with health promoting behaviors, improvements in health behavior are more likely to be due to non-cognitive, contextual and societal factors.     

Why schema-violations are sometimes preferable to schema-consistencies: The role of interest and openness to experience

We investigated the appraisal processes and personality antecedents that regulate people’s attraction to schema-violations - targets and objects that disconfirm schema- and stereotype-based expectancies. In two studies a preference for schema-violations (vs. consistencies) correlated positively with openness to experience, and negatively with the need for structure. In the second study, schema-violations were seen as more surprising (by all individuals), decreasing intentions to approach schema-violations, but were also seen as more interesting (by those higher in openness to experience), increasing intentions to approach and accept schema-violations. This suggests that two opposing processes - appraisals of surprise and appraisals of interest - regulate reactions to schema-violations, and that these processes are bounded by individual differences in openness to experience.     

Temporal contiguity and ageing: The role of memory organization in cognitive decline

The temporal contiguity effect is the tendency to form associations between items presented in nearby study positions. In the present study, we explored whether temporal contiguity predicted conversion to cognitively unimpaired-declining (CUD) status from a baseline of unimpaired older adults. Data from 419 participants were drawn from the Wisconsin Registry of Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP) data set and analysed with binary logistic regressions. Temporal contiguity was calculated using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Other predictors included age, years of education, sex, APOE-ε4 status, and other measures of memory recall. Lower temporal contiguity predicted conversion to CUD after accounting for covariates. These findings support the hypothesis that temporal organization in memory is related to cognitive decline and suggest that temporal contiguity may be used for studies of early detection.     

Domain‐Specific Creativity in Relation to the Level of Empathy and Systemizing

This study aimed to explore self‐reported domain‐specific creativity in relation to the level of empathy, systemizing, and the Big Five personality dimensions. The research sample consisted of 1112 college students to whom the Kaufman Domains of Creativity Scale (K‐DOCS ), the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ ), Baron‐Cohen's empathy and systemizing quotients (EQ and SQ ), and NEO ‐FFI were administered. The results suggest that the systemizing quotient (SQ ) significantly correlated positively with the K‐DOCS Mechanical/Science, and Scholarly scales, as well as with the CAQ Invention and Scientific Discovery scales. The empathy quotient (EQ ) significantly correlated in a positive direction with the K‐DOCS Self/Everyday creativity. In spite of the fact that the EQ and SQ overlap to a considerable extent with the five general personality dimensions and are closely linked to gender, the results confirm their incremental validity beyond the framework of these variables. The EQ and SQ explain the considerable amount of variability, particularly in the case of the scales connected with scientific and technical creativity: the SQ is a relevant predictor of the K‐DOCS Mechanical/Science scale and the CAQ Invention and Scientific Discovery scale. By contrast, the EQ represents a significant predictor of Self/Everyday creativity.     

Maintaining an open mind to closed individuals: The effect of resource availability and leadership style on the association between openness to experience and organizational commitment

This paper examines whether workplace characteristics, particularly resource availability and transformational leadership, moderate the association between openness to experience and organizational commitment. In Study 1, 205 employees completed a questionnaire that assessed their openness, organizational commitment, and perceived availability of resources at their organization. Openness reduced the extent to which individuals felt obliged to remain loyal to the organization, although this association diminished as resources became more accessible. In Study 2, 312 employees completed a similar questionnaire that also gauged the perceived leadership style of their supervisors. Transformational leadership amplified the positive relationship between openness and organizational commitment. These findings align with the proposition that individuals are more committed in work environments that facilitate the expression of their traits.     

Cognitive performance in older adults with stable heart failure: Longitudinal evidence for stability and improvement

Cognitive impairment is prevalent in heart failure (HF), though substantial variability in the pattern of cognitive impairment is found across studies. To clarify the nature of cognitive impairment in HF, we examined longitudinal trajectories across multiple domains of cognition in HF patients using latent growth class modeling. 115 HF patients completed a neuropsychological battery at baseline, 3-months and 12-months. Participants also completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Latent class growth analyses revealed a three-class model for attention/executive function, four-class model for memory, and a three-class model for language. The slope for attention/executive function and language remained stable, while improvements were noted in memory performance. Education and BDI-II significantly predicted the intercept for attention/executive function and language abilities. The BDI-II also predicted baseline memory. The current findings suggest that multiple performance-based classes of neuropsychological test performance exist within cognitive domains, though case-controlled prospective studies with extended follow-ups are needed to fully elucidate changes and predictors of cognitive function in HF.     

Auditory speed tasks as potential candidates for the study of cognitive ageing

Speed of information processing is an important cognitive ability. It facilitates the efficient operation of higher order cognitive functions, such as reasoning, and is implicated in various models of cognitive decline. The present study considers the potential benefits of expanding the measurement of processing speed to include the auditory modality. It examines the reliability and factorial structure of a variety of auditory and visual speed tasks in a sample of N = 138 older adults aged between 51 and 82 years. Our findings demonstrate that auditory measures can be used to assess processing speed as indexed by existing widely used tests of this ability. Moreover, the inclusion of auditory tasks significantly increases the relationship between processing speed and general cognitive ability. This novel research provides strong evidence of the suitability of auditory speed tasks for the study of cognitive function in older people, and demonstrates the importance of expanding cognitive measurement to include alternate modalities.     

Relationship of cognitive strategy use to prospective memory performance in a diverse sample of nondemented older adults with varying degrees of cognitive complaints and impairment

Although older adults typically have better performance on prospective memory (PM) tasks carried out in naturalistic settings, a paucity of research directly assesses older adults’ use of compensatory strategies on such tasks. The current study investigates external memory strategy use during performance of a clinical PM test that features both short-term (in laboratory) and long-term (out of laboratory) subtasks (i.e., the Royal Prince Alfred Prospective Memory Test – RPA-ProMem. Nondemented, community-dwelling older adults (n = 214; mean age = 80.5; 68.2% female; 39.7% non-white) with mild cognitive impairment, subjective cognitive decline, and healthy controls completed the RPA-ProMem while external strategy use was permitted and recorded. Overall, participants utilized external strategies 41% of the time on the RPA-ProMem. Increased utilization of external memory strategies was significantly associated with better PM performance. Additionally, better performance on executive functioning tasks was associated with increased use of external memory strategies. Results are discussed in relation to how memory strategy use can be enhanced to improve everyday memory ability in older adults at risk for dementia.     

Executive functioning as a potential mediator of age-related cognitive decline in normal adults

Critical requirements for the hypothesis that executive functioning is a potential mediator of age-related effects on cognitive functioning are that variables assumed to reflect executive functioning represent a distinct construct and that age-related effects on other types of cognitive functioning are reduced when measures of executive functioning are statistically controlled. These issues were investigated in a study involving 261 adults between 18 and 84 years of age. Although age-related effects on various cognitive abilities were substantially reduced after statistical control of the variance in measures hypothesized to represent executive functioning, there was only weak evidence for the existence of distinct constructs corresponding to executive functioning or to aspects of executive control concerned with inhibition, updating, or time sharing.     

Randomised controlled trial of group cognitive behavioural therapy for comorbid anxiety and depression in older adults

Anxiety and depression are commonly comorbid in older adults and are associated with worse physical and mental health outcomes and poorer response to psychological and pharmacological treatments. However, little research has examined the effectiveness of psychological programs to treat comorbid anxiety and depression in older adults. Sixty-two community dwelling adults aged over 60 years with comorbid anxiety and depression were randomly allocated to group cognitive behavioural therapy or a waitlist condition and were assessed immediately following and three months after treatment. After controlling for cognitive ability at pre-treatment, cognitive behaviour therapy resulted in significantly greater reductions, than waitlist, on symptoms of anxiety and depression based on a semi-structured diagnostic interview rated by clinicians unaware of treatment condition. Significant time by treatment interactions were also found for self-report measures of anxiety and depression and these gains were maintained at the three month follow up period. In contrast no significant differences were found between groups on measures of worry and well-being. In conclusion, group cognitive behavioural therapy is efficacious in reducing comorbid anxiety and depression in geriatric populations and gains maintain for at least three months.     

Context processing in older adults: evidence for a theory relating cognitive control to neurobiology in healthy aging.

A theory of cognitive aging is presented in which healthy older adults are hypothesized to suffer from disturbances in the processing of context that impair cognitive control function across multiple domains, including attention, inhibition, and working memory. These cognitive disturbances are postulated to be directly related to age-related decline in the function of the dopamine (DA) system in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). A connectionist computational model is described that implements specific mechanisms for the role of DA and PFC in context processing. The behavioral predictions of the model were tested in a large sample of older (N = 81) and young (N = 175) adults performing variants of a simple cognitive control task that placed differential demands on context processing. Older adults exhibited both performance decrements and, counterintuitively, performance improvements that are in close agreement with model predictions.     

Stronger evidence for own-age effects in memory for older as compared to younger adults

Three studies examined whether younger and older adults better recall information associated with their own than information related to another age group. All studies compared young and older adults with respect to incidental memory for previously presented stimuli (Studies 1 and 2: everyday objects; Study 3: vacation advertisements) that had been randomly paired with an age-related cue (e.g., photo of a young or an old person; the word “young” or “old”). All three studies found the expected interaction of participants’ age and age-associated information. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the memory bias for information arbitrarily associated with one's own as compared to another age group was significant for older adults only. However, when age-relevance was introduced in a context of equal importance to younger and older adults (information about vacations paired either with pictures of young or older adults), the memory bias for one's own age group was clearly present for both younger and older adults (Study 3).     

Stronger evidence for own-age effects in memory for older as compared to younger adults

Three studies examined whether younger and older adults better recall information associated with their own than information related to another age group. All studies compared young and older adults with respect to incidental memory for previously presented stimuli (Studies 1 and 2: everyday objects; Study 3: vacation advertisements) that had been randomly paired with an age-related cue (e.g., photo of a young or an old person; the word "young" or "old"). All three studies found the expected interaction of participants' age and age-associated information. Studies 1 and 2 showed that the memory bias for information arbitrarily associated with one's own as compared to another age group was significant for older adults only. However, when age-relevance was introduced in a context of equal importance to younger and older adults (information about vacations paired either with pictures of young or older adults), the memory bias for one's own age group was clearly present for both younger and older adults (Study 3).