A Microlongitudinal Study of the Linkages Among Personality Traits, Self-Regulation, and Stress in Older Adults

This is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by Taylor & Francis and can be found at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hrhd20/current#.Ub-Js3d-7TE.Personality traits and daily self-regulation of health goals, social goals, and perceived stress were examined over 100 days to better understand how traits may influence self-regulation. This study was conducted with a sample of 99 older adults via web-based surveys. Results showed that, as predicted, traits of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion were significantly related to goal progress: those high in neuroticism made less social goal progress and those high in conscientiousness and extraversion made more health and social goal progress over the 100 day period. On days that were perceived as more stressful older adults made less goal progress overall. Health goal and social goal progress were related, although individuals did not always make progress on both goals simultaneously. Stress interacted with neuroticism and conscientiousness, uncovering relationships between goal progress and stressful days that were not evident when examining just direct effects. This study provides empirical evidence for linkages in the six-foci model of personality that are consistent with the idea that trait structures can shape processes