Harvard Medical School research found that personality traits crafted from early life experience predict well-being and wisdom later in life. In order to look at whether personality traits in formative years related to personality growth or personality adjustment, which in turn affect well-being, the authors examined graduates born between 1915 and 1924. Though wisdom and subjective well-being at 80 years old were positively correlated, early life predictors differed. This included openness to experiences in early adulthood predicted wisdom 60 years later, whereas greater emotional stability and extraversion predicted subjective well-being. Old age wisdom was linked to psychosocial growth throughout life, facilitated by a supportive childhood, adolescent competence, emotional stability in early adulthood and generativity at midlife.
NBHC Population Health