Research in the PATHS Lab is focused on understanding links between personality, sleep, and health across the lifespan.
Broadly, our lab studies personality and sleep, and how they are both dynamically intertwined and produce health across the lifespan. We have a special focus on cardiovascular disease-related outcomes. The long-term vision of our lab is to develop lifespan, causal models of personality-health relationships that can be used to promote resilience and physical health, particularly in “at risk” or vulnerable populations.
Our lab provides foundational research and professional development experiences to undergraduates, graduate students, and junior faculty interested in careers in public health, the social and physical sciences, psychology, and behavioral medicine. Our research program supports trainees while they develop expertise in evidence-based practice and scientific research. We are a collaborative research laboratory, working with several scientists at NDSU and beyond. PATHS Lab trainees (undergraduate and graduate students, and junior faculty) are brought on as project leads and co-authors on these projects whenever possible.
“Friends” (and current and past collaborators of the lab) include Drs. Jeremy Hamm (Psychology, NDSU), Ryan Brindle (Neuroscience, Washington & Lee University), Pete Gianaros (Psychology, Pitt), Kate Simon (Clinical Psychology, UCI/CHOC), Nicola Cellini (Neuroscience, U. Padova), Thomas Krumel (Agricultural Economics, NDSU), Lauren Whitehurst (Psychology, U. Kentucky), Lizzie McDevitt (Psychology, Princeton), Sara Mednick (Cognitive Science, UCI), Chandra Reynolds (Behavioral Genetics, UC Boulder), Howard Friedman (Psychology, UC Riverside), Karen Matthews (Psychology, Pitt), and Tica Hall (Psychiatry, Pitt).
Are personality and other psychosocial characteristics related to health?
Duggan & Friedman (2014): We summarize lifespan developmental associations linking personality and other psychosocial characteristics with educational outcomes, career success, relationship quality and satisfaction, psychological well-being, physical health, and healthy aging in the lifelong Terman sample.
Duggan et al. (2019): We test lifespan moderation models for conscientiousness. Adolescent conscientiousness was related to better psychological resources, regardless of participant race or socioeconomic status. However, we found there was a physical cost to conscientiousness for Black men from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds: these men were more likely to have high metabolic syndrome (cardiovascular risk) scores as adults. Perhaps there is a physiological cost to effortful achievement striving.
Spears et al. (2019) finds sleep duration and daytime dysfunction are mediators of associations between personality and all-cause mortality risk in the MIDUS sample. This is the first lifespan analysis of personality, sleep, and mortality risk in the literature.
Cundiff et al. (2021): Parenting practices (i.e., communication, warmth, and monitoring) during childhood are a more sensitive predictor of later adolescent big five personality traits (particularly lower extraversion and conscientiousness, and higher neuroticism) than is substantiated maltreatment (i.e., neglect and/or abuse), which has implications for later adult health.
Matthews et al. (2021): We find parenting practices (communication, warmth, and monitoring) and individual differences (anxiety, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and peer rejection) are part of a long-term developmental pathway linking childhood socioeconomic status to worse adult sleep.
In Thomas et al. (2022), we find conscientiousness is related to higher cardiovascular risk (i.e., metabolic syndrome) primarily via self-reported and behaviorally-assessed sleep and physical activity.
Hamm et al. (2022) found adults who lost control over their goals because of the pandemic reported worse psychological well-being (as expected). Importantly, those adults who reported more goal reengagement (but not disengagement) were able to preserve their well-being. This suggests that in highly stressful and unpredictable circumstances, it is important for people to redirect and find a new sense of meaning and purpose.
Hamm, Barlow et al. (2023) notes people who felt in control of their lives during the pandemic were able to re-engage with previously challenging life goals; Hamm, Shane et al. (2023) notes that even in the face of challenging life circumstances, adults who perceive opportunity are more likely to flourish up to one year later.
Is personality related to sleep?
Duggan, Friedman et al. (2014): In one of the most comprehensive analyses of personality traits and multiple self-reported sleep domains, we find that high conscientiousness and low neuroticism are associated with earlier chronotype, better sleep hygiene, better sleep quality, and lower daytime sleepiness. Associations were not significant for sleep duration. We present a model of how associations between personality and sleep may unfold across the lifespan.
Cellini et al. (2017) shows neuroticism and agreeableness are strong predictors of sleep quality in Italians. Positive affect and hyperarousal also important psychosocial predictors.
Duggan et al. (2018) shows conscientiousness is related to healthier daytime sleep (napping) profiles.
Spears et al. (2019) finds sleep duration and daytime dysfunction are mediators of associations between personality and all-cause mortality risk in the MIDUS sample. This is the first lifespan analysis of personality, sleep, and mortality risk in the literature.
Duggan and Krizan (2019) presents an overview of personality and sleep research at both the state and trait levels, and makes recommendations for future research.
Mead et al. (2021): This is the first pre-registered analysis of personality traits and sleep, with conscientiousness and extraversion emerging as key predictors. Conscientiousness and lower extraversion were related to longer sleep duration, earlier timing (chronotype), and less variability in sleep duration (consistent with Duggan et al., 2014).
Matthews et al. (2021): We find parenting practices (communication, warmth, and monitoring) and individual differences (anxiety, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and peer rejection) are part of a long-term developmental pathway linking childhood socioeconomic status to worse adult sleep.
In Thomas et al. (2022), we find conscientiousness is related to higher cardiovascular risk (i.e., metabolic syndrome) primarily via self-reported and behaviorally-assessed sleep and physical activity, including sleep quality and midpoint variability, consistent with Duggan et al. (2014).
Garcia et al. (2023) review bidirectional ties between psychological well-being (using the PERMA framework), mental health (particularly depression, anxiety, and ADHD), and multiple sleep domains.
Is sleep related to health?
Duggan, Reynolds et al. (2014): We show for the first time that childhood sleep duration predicts lifelong all-cause, cardiovascular, and infectious disease mortality risk in boys (but not girls) in the Terman sample.
Duggan et al. (2018): In one of the first comprehensive analyses of why people nap, we find only napping for emotional reasons (i.e., due to stress, depression, or avoiding a situation) is related to worse self-reported health.
Brindle et al. (2018): We find that the often-reported association between high cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress and worse cardiovascular outcomes (assessed here are carotid intima-media thickness, which is related to plaque build up) occurs only in participants with less slow wave sleep as assessed using polysomnography.
Bowman et al. (2019): In the first analysis of polysomnographically (PSG) assessed sleep and subsequent metabolic syndrome, only self-reported sleep latency was related to newly-developed metabolic syndrome. Objectively-assessed sleep wasn’t related to metabolic syndrome scores.
In Thomas et al. (2022), we find self-reported and behaviorally-assessed sleep, including sleep quality and midpoint variability, are predictors of cardiometabolic risk over and above other health behaviors, including diet and substance use.
Garcia et al. (2023) review bidirectional ties between psychological well-being (using the PERMA framework), mental health (particularly depression, anxiety, and ADHD), and multiple sleep domains.
Other collaborative research:
We have collaborated on several manuscripts related to sleep and cognitive performance. For example, Whitehurst et al. (2016) shows heart rate variability during sleep is correlated with sleep-dependent learning. McDevitt et al. (2015) shows REM sleep is required to “rescue” learning from interference, and McDevitt et al. (2014) demonstrates rapid eye movement sleep (and to some extent, active wake) facilitate novel object learning. Finally, McDevitt et al. (2018) finds that an experimental manipulation of daytime sleep (nap) habits does not markedly change nocturnal sleep or cognitive performance across five weeks.
Yetton et al. (2016) includes an open source tool for identifying rapid eye movements during sleep in polysomnography studies.
In a separate line of collaborative nonverbal research, Cui et al. (2017) describe the development of an animated, open source teaching avatar and program for use by educators, parents, or scientists for developing interactive teaching lessons. Cook et al. (2016) use this animated teaching avatar to demonstrate the benefits of content-focused and charismatic gestures for children’s math learning.
Papers from the NDSU National COVID study:
Jeremy Hamm and I have an ongoing, national longitudinal study following over 600 participants (300 from the initial cohort in 2020, and an additional 350 from the “refresher” cohort in 2022). Currently, 5 waves of data are available including multiple measures of personality, psychosocial resources, psychological well-being, sleep, and physical health. The study was pre-registered here. Several presentations and publications are available based on this ongoing study, including manuscripts focused on goal disengagement and re-engagement, as well as self-regulation.