Accomplished worriers -- the ones who went to the Woody Allen school of catastrophizing -- have something new to fret about: New research suggests that it is possible to worry oneself into an early grave.
In a study to be published in next month's issue of Psychological Science, investigators at Purdue University tracked 1,663 men middle-aged and older over a 12-year period starting in 1988. Regularly testing the subjects' neuroticism on a standard personality inventory, they found that men who scored above the 50th percentile in neuroticism, and whose neuroticism grew worse by 20 percentile points over the years, were 40% more likely to die during the study period than men whose neuroticism remained stable.
The study of these men, who were enrolled in an ongoing longitudinal investigation founded at the Boston Veterans Administration outpatient clinic in 1963, marks something of a milestone in behavior-mortality research, experts say. Although there's plenty of evidence that certain behavioral traits are associated with increased risk of death, this is one of the first to suggest that a change in such a trait over time could also affect mortality -- for good, or for bad.
"This study is one of several that are marking an important shift in how we think about individual risk factors for illness and premature mortality," says Howard Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology at UC Riverside and noted researcher in health and longevity.
In the past, he explains, most studies have looked at relatively static risk factors, such as weight and cholesterol. "But we are now shifting attention to the trajectories across many years," he says.
The notion that neuroticism can change over the years means that not only can the tendency to worry become more pronounced, it can also be reduced -- with positive consequences.
Characterized by excessive worry over relatively minor events and setbacks, neuroticism "is a tendency to over-predict what's going to be scary and under-predict one's ability to cope with it," says UCLA clinical psychologist Emanuel Maidenberg.
World-class handwringers are both born and made, he says. Most inherit a predisposition to it -- thanks, Mom and Dad -- that is affected by later environmental influences.
"People learn how to cope, first of all, by observing what their parents do," Maidenberg says, "and then are affected by their immediate community and environment, such as peers," who might model better, or worse, coping strategies.
