The Influence of Personalities on Cognition in African American Adults

Abstract

The five-factor personalities, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism were examined to find if these personalities have an influence on cognition in African Americans. The quantitative analyses of descriptive statistics, frequencies, correlations, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted on a subsample of 94 African American adults (mean age of 61 years) from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) data. Of the five personalities, openness and agreeableness had significant influence on episodic memory and executive function. These findings suggest that some personalities do influence domains of cognition. Further research of the relationship between personality and cognition is necessary in larger African American samples to explore and understand these relationships.