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Journal of Aging and Health
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What's this?

Personality and Defense Mechanisms in Late Adulthood

Yong Yu, MA

University of Nagoya, Japan, yuyong17{at}hotmail.com

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, PhD

University of London

Shuji Honjo, MD, PhD

University of Nagoya, Japan

Objective: Current understanding of the use of psychological defense mechanisms (DMs) in older adults is limited. This study set out to examine individual differences in DMs and Cloninger's biosocial model of personality in two age groups (50—64, 65—93), as well as their influence on health. Methods: A Japanese community sample (N = 330) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-125), the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). Results: Across age groups, psychological well-being was related to lower levels of harm avoidance and higher levels of self-directedness. In addition, older age was related to decreases in reward dependence, cooperativeness, and increases in self-transcendence, DMs of isolation, denial, and splitting. Discussion: An Age x Gender interaction revealed that men and women varied in their pattern of age differences for some specific DMs. Results further suggest that image-distortion defense may function to compensate resource loss.

Key Words: personality • defense mechanisms • late adulthood

This version was published on August 1, 2008

Journal of Aging and Health, Vol. 20, No. 5, 526-544 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0898264308317535
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