A study of 2,400 first- and second-graders more than 40 years ago on Oahu and Kauai has given researchers a unique chance to learn if children's personalities are related to their behavior and health as adults.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID SWANN / DSWANN@STARBULLETIN.COMResearchers hope to draw
a connection between children's
personalities and their health
as adults after some 40 yearsBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com"I don't think there's another opportunity in the world to do something like this," said Dr. Thomas Vogt, program director, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Hawaii.
He said a strong connection between childhood personality traits and excessive drinking, smoking, drug abuse or unsafe sexual activity as adults could lead to better education and intervention programs to improve health.
The idea that personality and disease are related goes back to the time of ancient Greece when Hippocrates, father of medicine, suggested people with particular character and temperament were more inclined to develop certain kinds of diseases, said Dr. Anthony Marsella, University of Hawaii professor and psychology department director.
This belief has remained through the years despite lack of data to support it, he said.
"We look at one another. We see differences among us. We recognize differences related to our normal behavior. Why shouldn't they be related to health and disease? Proving it is another point."
That's the goal of a $2.5 million research grant from the National Institute on Aging to the Kaiser Center for Health Research Hawaii and the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene. Vogt is chief investigator for a Hawaii subcontract for the study.
Marsella and Dr. Joan Dubanoski of UH are working with him.
About 1,800 of the "kids" who had personality assessments by their teachers were located in a remarkable effort by Dubanoski two years ago, Vogt said. About 1,200 responded to a follow-up survey and will be asked to participate in the new five-year project.
Vogt said self-assessments by participants in the 2000 survey correlated with the teachers' assessments 40 years earlier.
This was "astonishing, testifying that personality is stable," he said. "It's not something that changes year to year as people grow."
Vogt said the groundwork was laid by the late Dr. Jack Dignan, a University of Hawaii professor who conducted the initial study of the children.
When Dignan retired, he went to Eugene and volunteered at the Oregon Institute, Vogt said. He proposed a follow-up study that was funded through the institute in 1999. He died suddenly a few months later, Vogt said.
Meanwhile, Vogt said, Dignan had asked him to join the project; Marsella and the UH psychology department already were involved.
Dr. Lewis Goldberg of Eugene and Dr. Sarah Hampson of the University of Surrey, England, experts on human personality, are continuing Dignan's work in Oregon, Vogt said. Goldberg is principal investigator for the overall study, and Hampson, a noted psychology researcher, will relocate to Oregon to manage it.
Vogt said most of the grant money will come to the Hawaii team. His expertise is in assessments, epidemiology and disease, while Marsella's is in how culture interacts with personality.
Explaining that his interest is how to help people stay healthy, Vogt said for many years he has focused on weight, tobacco and exercise, but it is difficult for people to change and some never do.
There is a lot of literature on how messages should be directed to people about diet, smoking, exercise and other health factors, he noted.
"How should we tailor those messages to a person's culture to optimize support in helping them change? On the other hand, there's no knowledge at all at this point about whether personality should lead to structuring of messages to help people change."
He said Dignan's original study led to one of the world's leading theories of human personality, called "The Big Five." Everyone has a mix of these five characteristics, and the sum represents a person's personality, he said. They are extroversion or introversion; agreeableness or disagreeableness; conscientiousness vs. lack of conscientiousness; neuroticism vs. non-neurotic; and openness to new experiences.
Marsella said the grant will enable researchers to understand complex relationships between personality traits and other factors, such as nutrition, lifestyle, ethnoculture, racial issues and, ultimately, health and well-being.
Participants located from the original study will be invited to a brief physical examination at the Kaiser Center at Dole Cannery, and a team will go to Kauai to see people there. Those who live elsewhere will be asked to complete questionnaires and contact the Kaiser center if they visit Oahu within three years, Vogt said.
The Oregon team will analyze the data and interpret and define components of personality and how they relate to various outcomes, such as stability of the personality, which elements are stable and which are not, and how that relates to a person's culture, he said.
