The DOI matches its Crossref record, with a small difference in title or year; 231 of the 233 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Power of Personality: The Comparative Validity of Personality Traits, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Ability for Predicting Important Life Outcomes
Open accessAbstract
The ability of personality traits to predict important life outcomes has traditionally been questioned because of the putative small effects of personality. In this article, we compare the predictive validity of personality traits with that of socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive ability to test the relative contribution of personality traits to predictions of three critical outcomes: mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment. Only evidence from prospective longitudinal studies was considered. In addition, an attempt was made to limit the review to studies that controlled for important background factors. Results showed that the magnitude of the effects of personality traits on mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment was indistinguishable from the effects of SES and cognitive ability on these outcomes. These results demonstrate the influence of personality traits on important life outcomes, highlight the need to more routinely incorporate measures of personality into quality of life surveys, and encourage further research about the developmental origins of personality traits and the processes by which these traits influence diverse life outcomes.
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In the citing paper
“Conscientiousness was a stronger predictor of longevity than any other Big Five trait and a stronger predictor than either IQ or socioeconomic status.”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner et al. [2007]
In the citing paper
“In general, traits related to Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, and Agreeableness are associated with longer lives, whereas those related to Neuroticism are associated with shorter life spans.”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner et al. [2007]
In the citing paper
“Most studies in their meta-analysis control for relevant background factors, including gender and severity of disease.”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner et al. [2007]
In the citing paper
“All-cause mortality has consistently been associated with both socioeconomic status (SES) (1-4) and personality traits (5).”
From Personality, Socioeconomic Status, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States (2010) · cites this paper as [5]
In the citing paper
“The strength of associations between Conscientiousness and longevity appears comparable to those between longevity and SES and IQ [59].”
From Personality and Longevity: Knowns, Unknowns, and Implications for Public Health and Personalized Medicine (2011) · cites this paper as [59]
In the citing paper
“Our best personality score of fell just above the standard “correlational upper-limit” for behavior to predict personality (a Pearson correlation of to ) [94], [95].”
From Personality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach (2013) · cites this paper as [95]
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Cited by
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Items 1,001–1,002 of 1,002
Kaiser, C., Kaiser, J., Schallner, R., & Schneider, S. (2025) · Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706599.3720123 · Cited by 11
“Since neuroticism is associated with a general pessimistic outlook [18, 19], it stands to reason that people higher in neuroticism are less likely to be among early adopters for new technologies [2].”
A Conceptual Framework to Integrate Research Programs on Self-Regulation in Education
Wortha, F., Gerjets, P., Azevedo, R., Bernacki, M., Brucker, B., Bühler, B., Ehlis, A.-C., Kasneci, E., Miyake, A., Murayama, K., et al. (2026) · Educational Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10648-026-10196-7
“…such as academic self-concept, dispositional interest (Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Marsh, 1990; Rieger et al., 2017), vocational interests (Gati, 1991; Holland, 1997; Low et al., 2005; Nye et al., 2012), mindsets (Yeager & Dweck, 2012), or even cognitive abilities (e.g., Roberts et al. 2007).”
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Roberts, B. W., Kuncel, N. R., Shiner, R., Caspi, A., & Goldberg, L. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Colgate University (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Oregon Research Institute (US)
- Venue
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2007-12
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 313-345
- ISSN
- 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-6924
- PMC
- PMC4499872
- OpenAlex
- W2089632658
- Semantic Scholar
- bcbc6fe16b36fc8cbc28967c96039cbec4325875
- Cited by
- 2,361
- References
- 233
- Citations by year
- 2026: 94 · 2025: 108 · 2024: 135 · 2023: 129 · 2022: 132 · 2021: 171 · 2020: 239 · 2019: 168 · 2018: 148 · 2017: 157 · 2016: 180 · 2015: 139 · 2014: 118 · 2013: 97 · 2012: 92
- FWCI
- 55.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ag020048-24)
- National Institute on Aging (R01-AG020048)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH049227, R37MH049227, R01MH049414, R01MH045070)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- personality traits, socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, predictive validity, mortality, divorce, occupational attainment, life outcomes, quality of life survey
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