Education and Smoking: Confounding or Effect Modification by Phenotypic Personality Traits?
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BACKGROUND: Little is known about whether educational gradients in smoking patterns can be explained by financial measures of socioeconomic status (SES) and/or personality traits. PURPOSE: To assess whether the relationship of education to (1) never smoking and (2) having quit smoking would be confounded by financial measures of SES or by personality; whether lower Neuroticism and higher Conscientiousness would be associated with having abstained from or quit smoking; and whether education effects were modified by personality. METHOD: Using data from the Midlife Development in the US National Survey, 2,429 individuals were classified as current (n = 695), former (n = 999), or never (n = 735) smokers. Multinomial logistic regressions examined study questions. RESULTS: Greater education was strongly associated with both never and former smoking, with no confounding by financial status and personality. Never smoking was associated with lower Openness and higher Conscientiousness, while have quit was associated with higher Neuroticism. Education interacted additively with Conscientiousness to increase and with Openness to decrease the probability of never smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Education and personality should be considered unconfounded smoking risks in epidemiologic and clinical studies. Educational associations with smoking may vary by personality dispositions, and prevention and intervention programs should consider both sets of factors.
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More Extraverted people appear susceptible to smoking, regardless of whether older or new operationalizations of Extraversion are used.
“This effect was accounted for in part by smoking, a health behavior to which more Extraverted people appear susceptible, regardless of whether older or new operationalizations of Extraversion are used [82–85].”
From Personality and Longevity: Knowns, Unknowns, and Implications for Public Health and Personalized Medicine (2011) · cites this paper as [83]
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Chapman, B. P., Roberts, B., & Duberstein, P. (2011) · Journal of Aging Research · doi:10.4061/2011/759170 · Cited by 283 · see citing works
“The role of social inequalities in health is rarely a focus in personality and health research, but in Section 4 we outline three possible models for future investigation.”
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Personality and Physical Functioning Among Older Adults: The Moderating Role of Education
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- Authors
- Chapman, B., Fiscella, K., Duberstein, P., & Kawachi, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Rochester Medicine (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Chapman, Benjamin
- Venue
- Annals of Behavioral Medicine
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-12
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 237-248
- ISSN
- 0742-5554 (ISSN-L)
- 0883-6612
- 1532-4796
- PMC
- PMC2820130
- OpenAlex
- W2114579744
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 1.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annals of Behavioral Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (K08AG031328)
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH073452)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Keywords
- educational attainment, smoking, never smoking, smoking cessation, personality traits, socioeconomic status, financial conditions, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness, confounding, effect modification, Midlife Development in the United States
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Personality, Personality Inventory, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk Factors, Smoking, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic, Logistic Models, Smoking Cessation
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