Recent research suggests conscientiousness is associated with another key health-related factor: stress. The experience of stress and psychophysiological reactions to it are associated with a broad swath of health problems, including cardiovascular disease [36]. Higher levels of conscientiousness are associated with a reduced exposure to stress [37, 38]. In addition, higher levels of conscientiousness are associated with an increased appraisal of coping abilities, as well as higher levels of control in the context of a stressor [39]. Moreover, conscientious individuals tend to find stressful situations less demanding than less conscientious individuals. Similarly, in stressful contexts, higher levels of conscientiousness are associated with using more adaptive coping strategies, such as instrumental problem solving and effective cognitive restructuring [40].
Other recent studies have examined the relationship between conscientiousness-related traits and cardiovascular reactivity during challenging and stressful laboratory tasks. Using mental arithmetic, reaction time, and speech preparation/delivery tasks, Heponiemi et al. [41] found individuals scoring higher on a measure of impulsive sensation-seeking showed increased heart rate reactivity and greater respiratory sinus arrhythmia withdrawal (an indicator of parasympathetic regulation of heart rate) compared to individuals scoring lower on impulsive sensation-seeking. Related work by Allen et al. [42] using a speech preparation task showed a measure of impulsiveness to negatively predict heart rate reactivity (i.e., impulsive individuals showed less heart rate change during speech preparation). More work is required to definitively discern the underlying patterns of effects between conscientiousness-related traits and cardiovascular reactivity, especially given the variety of possible task and trait measurement options.[...]
In the past decade, personality research has provided evidence for two patterns of trait development relevant to health status: consistency and change. A large-scale meta-analysis of longitudinal studies showed individuals tend to exhibit relatively high levels of rank-order consistency for conscientiousness, especially over shorter spans of time (i.e., over time, the most conscientious person at one time point is likely to be among the most conscientiousness at a later time point [74]). Results from another large-scale meta-analysis of longitudinal studies showed there to be normative patterns of mean-level change in conscientiousness across the life course, with the largest mean-level increase in conscientiousness occurring in early adulthood and smaller mean-level increases found in later life [58]. Taken together, these findings show that personality traits do change and change throughout the life course.
The fact that traits, such as conscientiousness, can change invites the real possibility that they could be directly modified through intervention. To the extent an individual is observed to have reduced standing on conscientiousness with concomitant reduced health status, then a further consideration of how one might purposefully change conscientiousness to improve health status becomes possible.[...]
More recent studies show therapy is associated with changes in personality traits. For example, after a 20-week cognitive behavior therapy intervention designed to treat depression, patients changed on a number of personality traits, most notably extraversion and neuroticism [76]. [...]In addition, other forms of interventions, such as training programs, appear to change personality traits. For example, mindfulness meditation training in medical students contributed to changes in conscientiousness, agreeableness, empathy, and emotional stability [78].[...]
Taken together, the above findings suggest therapeutic and training interventions are strong candidate modes of purposeful trait modification.
