Personality-Ability Relationships in Aged Adults

In an effort to investigate personality-ability interrelationships in older persons, 102 community-residing elderly persons were administered the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (HIT) and measures of both crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intelligence. Results suggested that each ability factor loaded on separate personality dimensions established in a previous analysis of HIT data using this sample. Whereas the personality factors labeled Anxiety Over Ideational Sufficiency and Feelings About Bodily Integrity loaded on Gc, factors termed Use of Cognitive Resources to Deal With Reality and Organizational Ability/Intellectual Functioning loaded on Gf. Causal inferences are difficult to make. However, these data suggest that individual differences in the maintenance of higher levels of intellectual functioning in later adulthood might be motivated by ego defensive mechanisms that act to insulate the older individual from feelings of self-worthlessness and failure and/or a loss of control over external forces via the development of intellectual skills. A LTHOUGH the interrelationships between personality * * and ability domains in young people have been of interest for some time (Horn, 1977), studies exploring this issue in elderly individuals are comparatively rare. The importance attached to this interface in the aged person is reflected in questions regarding whether or not personality is antecedent or consequent to ability or whether or not each has a mutual, ongoing influence on the other (see Lachman, 1983). Many researchers have found that personality dimensions (e..g., anxiety, locus of control, self-esteem, self estimates of ability) relate to individual differences in intellectua