RESEARCH & LAB CULTURE
While there is not yet a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias, the existing literature suggests that adherence to a healthy lifestyle, including social, physical, and cognitive engagement, can delay the progression and onset of incident dementia, thereby contributing to cognitive healthspan, or years of longevity without cognitive impairment. Importantly, personality traits, which reflect an individual’s characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior, can act as valuable higher-order predictors of consistency in social, physical, and cognitive activity across the lifespan. Led by primary investigator (PI) Dr. Tomiko Yoneda, The Healthspan Lab focuses on understanding how, for whom, and under which circumstances personality traits are linked with physical and cognitive health in older adulthood.
Further, whenever possible, the lab aims to identify, discuss, and address current issues in psychological science. This quarter, we discussed papers focused on sex/gender, open science, pre-registration, questionable research practices, racial inequality, and discrimination in psychological science. Our research also strives to address these issues via the topics studied and our methodological approaches. For example, in light of (sub)cultural differences in environmental and structural support systems, consideration of how health unfolds differently and similarly within and across individuals, spaces, cultures, and time is imperative to address the global dementia epidemic. Notably, the use of predominantly white, western, highly educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic samples is a well-recognized and critical limitation of psychological science. In response, The Healthspan Lab uses a multi-study approach focused on personality and developmental processes in older adulthood. Importantly, Coordinated Data Analysis (CDA), which involves using identical statistical models to independently analyze data from multiple longitudinal studies in the same paper, permits a powerful basis to evaluate generalizability and variability in results. For instance, this work shows that across countries, personality traits, especially conscientiousness and neuroticism, are robust predictors of cognitive aging processes and that cognitive aging may account for the links between traits and mortality. This work contributes to risk stratification efforts and the identification of early indicators of dementia, which may support optimal aging by facilitating the development of personality-informed screening assessments, interventions, and care strategies.