Members in the Media
From: CTV News

Your friends could predict your lifespan: study

CTV News:

Giving new meaning to the oft-uttered exclamation that your friends know you better than you think, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis say close friends know each other well enough to have an idea of how long the other will live.

“You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave,” says Joshua Jackson, PhD, assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences.

Personality types can predict longevity, even at an early age, according to the study, which was published in the journal Psychological Science and involved data collected in the 1930s about a group of 600 young people in their mid-20s.

Read the whole story: CTV News

More of our Members in the Media >

Comments

The observation that significant others provide better
prediction of medical outcomes has been around for at least
two decades (Ketterer & Smith. Psychosomatic Medicine 2011:
73:721-722). Yet researchers persist in using self report measures, giving away explanatory variance. Astronomers spents decades justifying and buildig the Hubble space telescope to improve measuremeant, yet psychological researchers won’t invest an extra half hour per subject to maximize accuracy?


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.