Reporting heterogeneity in the associations between personality and health problems: Anchoring self-reports with health vignettes.

Abstract

Associations between personality and self-reported health problems may be biased by reporting heterogeneity, that is, tendency to rate the severity of the same health problem differently. This study used hypothetical health vignettes to examine the magnitude of such heterogeneity. Participants were from Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n = 3950; mean age 65 years, range from 30 to 97) and Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS; n = 8664; mean age 64 years, range from 34 to 87). Personality traits of the Five Factor Model (extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) were only weakly associated with vignette ratings (rs < 0.10). Associations between personality and self-reported health problems were not substantially changed when the thresholds of self-reported severity were allowed to vary by personality, based on the participants' ratings of the vignettes. Reporting heterogeneity does not appear to be a major source of bias in the associations between personality traits and self-reported health problems.