Big Five traits, affect balance and health behaviors: A self-regulation resource perspective

a r t i c l e i n f o Despite the relatively consistent finding that Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and low Neuroticism are associated with the practice of health-promoting behaviors, the reasons for these linkages are not well understood. This prospective study addressed this gap by taking a self-regulation resource perspective on why these traits relate to health-promoting behaviors by examining the role of higher positive relative to negative state affect. Students completed baseline (N = 330), and two week follow-up (N = 195) surveys. Bootstrapping analyses of the indirect effects of each of the three traits on Time 2 health behaviors were significant in the expected directions, with Kappa squares ranging from .11 to .13. In the full longitudinal analyses controlling for Time 1 health behaviors, the indirect effects of Conscientiousness and Agreeableness through affect balance on Time 2 health behaviors were positive and significant, whereas the indirect effects through Neuroticism were negative and significant after accounting for the Time 1 practice of health behaviors. These findings provide a process-oriented understanding of how Big Five traits are linked to health-promoting behaviors and extend previous research supporting a self-regulation resource perspective on personality and health behaviors. Despite the known benefits of engaging in health-promoting behaviors for current and long-term health and well-being, many individuals have difficulty regulating these important behaviors while others are more successful at reaching and maintaining their health behavior goals, perhaps due to intra-individual factors such as personality and mood. Indeed, current theory and research highlight personality as a key factor for understanding health behaviors and related outcomes is one commonly used model for understanding how personality relates to health behaviors, with considerable evidence supporting the role of three particular personality factors. Both Conscientiousness and Agreeableness have been linked to the practice of health promoting behaviors However, the reasons proposed for these relations have focused more on the qualities associated with these traits than on the underlying self-regulation processes that may be involved. Engaging in health behaviors can be viewed as the prototypical self-regulatory task (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994), in part, because it requires monitoring and regulating emotional states to maintain focus on the long term consequences of behavior rather than giving in to the immediate rewards of unhealthy choices (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013; Tice & Bratslavsky, 2000). Viewing the relation between personality factors and health behaviors from such a self-regulation lens may contribute to a …