Personality and cognitive adaptation: the absence of neuroticism and its effects on the well-being of widowed women over time

Widows scoring lower on the trait of neuroticism (N; i.e., negative emotional reactivity) tend to score higher on measures of well-being than high-N widows. This study examined if low-N widows employ adaptive cognitive processes (e.g., positive information processing biases) to mediate the association between personality and well-being. Reports of widowed women's perceptions of their marriage, measured in 2002/2003 by the Marital Aggrandizement Scale (MAS; O'Rourke & Cappeliez, 2002), were compared to their perceptions of their marriage at that time, as recalled three years later, as well as at present (N = 47). It was predicted that low-N widows would have higher MAS responses than high-N widows, and that this difference would increase over time. There was no interaction between neuroticism and time on MAS scores. Scores of high- and low-N widows on measures of psychiatric distress and life satisfaction were different at baseline and demonstrated lesser disparity at Time 2.