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

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Abstract

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.

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Notes

  1. Controlling for age, sex, ethnicity and SES did not substantively alter the findings, with the exception that the total effect for neuroticism was no longer significant.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by an operating grant to the first two authors by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), a CIHR New Investigator Award to the first author, and Senior Investigator Award from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and Prevention Scientist Award from the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute to the second author.

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  1. Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2E 3G1, Canada

    Peter A. Hall

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Geoffrey T. Fong

  3. Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Geoffrey T. Fong

  4. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Lynette J. Epp

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  1. Peter A. Hall
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Correspondence to Peter A. Hall.

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Hall, P.A., Fong, G.T. & Epp, L.J. Cognitive and personality factors in the prediction of health behaviors: an examination of total, direct and indirect effects. J Behav Med 37, 1057–1068 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-013-9535-4

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