Cognitive and personality factors in the prediction of health behaviors: an examination of total, direct and indirect effects

Conscientiousness reliably predicts health behavioral patterns, and the same is true of executive function. However, few investigations have examined their relative predictive power, or probed for possible indirect effects and age-moderated effects. In the current study, we examined the predictive v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of behavioral medicine 2014-12, Vol.37 (6), p.1057-1068
Main Authors: Hall, Peter A., Fong, Geoffrey T., Epp, Lynette J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging - psychology
Analysis
Behavioral assessment
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Cognitive psychology
Executive Function
Family Medicine
Female
General Practice
Health Behavior
Health Psychology
Humans
Intelligence
Male
Medical research
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
Personality
Personality Inventory
Personality traits
Self control
Stroop Test
Young Adult
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Summary:Conscientiousness reliably predicts health behavioral patterns, and the same is true of executive function. However, few investigations have examined their relative predictive power, or probed for possible indirect effects and age-moderated effects. In the current study, we examined the predictive validity of all Big Five personality traits, executive function and IQ in relation to an index of health behaviors in an age-stratified community sample. Results indicated that conscientiousness, neuroticism and executive function were significant predictors of health behavior in age-corrected regression analyses. Using bootstrapping methods, we found that executive function partially explains the relationship between both personality dimensions and health behavior. Moderational analyses revealed that effects of personality traits on health behavior were uniformly modest across the age span, whereas the predictive power of executive function became more amplified with increasing age. Both conscientiousness and neuroticism predict health behavior patterns, though their magnitude of association is significantly weaker than executive function and some of their effects are explained by executive function.
ISSN:0160-7715
1573-3521
DOI:10.1007/s10865-013-9535-4