Personal Resources as a Factor of Biological Age: Individual Typological Approach.

Berezina Tatiana Nikolaevna Doctor of Psychology Professor of the Department of Scientific Basis of Extreme Psychology at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education. 123290, Russia, Moscow, nab. Shelepikhinskaya, 2a, room 508 tanberez@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction The relevance of the study is related to the pension reform taking place in many countries and the strategies of active longevity developed as a result.

Work in this direction includes classes on the development of personal resources for the purposes of active longevity.

There are three possible approaches to the definition of personal resources.  In the first approach, personal resources are understood as internal, as features of the personality itself that contribute to longevity, for example, (optimism ^[1], intelligence ^[2]. Sometimes personal resources include even constitutional features of the body and individual traits of temperament ^[3] that affect health, subjective well-being or life expectancy.   This approach is effective, however, many such resources depend on heredity and are difficult to train ^[4].

The second approach considers personal resources as socially conditioned ^[5]:  as a way of life of a person (profession, career, social status, work) ^[6], the presence of a family, children, relatives ^[7]. Socially conditioned resources form the basis of a person's daily life, in fact, they are life itself ^[8].  We can change them, but it is difficult to do this, because it requires the restructuring of the entire life path ^[9]. 

We single out the third approach, where personal resources are considered as compensatory formations that a person can master and use arbitrarily, in addition to his daily life, for example, hobbies ^[10], obtaining additional education ^[11], attending trainings and interest groups ^[12].   We called such resources – personal anti-aging resources. We have given the following definition: personal anti-aging resources are features of the psyche or behavior that contribute to slowing down biological age, improving health, and contributing to an increase in life expectancy ^[13]. We have proposed criteria for attributing the indicator to personal resources.  Firstly, these resources are controlled by the individual, i.e., a person can arbitrarily develop them, train them, for example, through receiving additional education in adulthood ^[14].  Secondly, these resources are auxiliary, complementary to the life path of a person; their use does not require a radical restructuring of the whole life.  Thirdly, there is empirical evidence of their effectiveness for various groups of people ^[15].   Based on the analysis of scientific literature, we have identified 13 resources that meet these criteria: sports resource (sports and physical activity), self-control resource (life control), creative resource, intellectual resource, subject resource (needlework), altruism resource (caring for others, kindness), humor resource, spiritual resource, risk resource, communication resource, nature resource, achievement resource (activity, success, victories), a resource of optimism. A more detailed description of the resources allocated by us is presented in our other work ^[13].

Various biomarkers of aging, such as walking speed, standing balance, grip strength, body mass index, waist circumference and muscle mass ^[16], indicators of physical performance and preservation of cognitive functions ^[17] are usually used as an object for evaluating the effectiveness of personal resources. The integral method of assessing the rate of aging is biological age ^[18].  To assess biological age, different methods are used, including various biomarkers of aging.    In the epigenetic theory of aging, measurement of the activity of sirtuin enzymes, which regulate many cellular functions, including DNA repair, is used to assess biological age, researchers suggest the presence of negative correlations between the activity of sirtuin and the rate of aging, an increase in the activity of sirtuin may indicate a decrease in the rate of aging ^[19]. 

In the chromosomal theory of aging, the criterion of biological age is the length of telomeres, which decreases with each cell division and is an indicator of the body's old age.   Researchers have shown that it is possible to slow down chromosomal aging through environmental factors, including factors that are regulated by the person himself, such as nutrition. lifestyle, they affect the rate of telomere shortening, due to the activity of the enzyme telomerase ^[20].  

In biopsychological studies, another integral indicator is more often used to assess biological age - the Frailty Index ^[21], which includes the definition of 1 to 5 key health indicators: slowness, weakness, low physical activity, exhaustion, weight loss, as well as indicators of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems ^[22]. In Russia, the most popular methods developed by the Research Institute of Gerontology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. Among the many options for calculating biological age, the Voitenko method is more often used, according to which biological age is determined by the state of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, balance system, body weight and subjective assessment of health ^[23].

Researchers note that the influence of personal resources on biomarkers of aging is mediated by many conditions ^[24], such as age ^[25], gender ^[26], personality traits ^[24], profession ^[27], employment at work ^[6]. The rate of aging of the body also depends on the place of residence, for example, for Japan it has been shown that it depends on living in a peripheral or central region ^[28].   Many personal characteristics affect a person's biological age through the prism of his personality, in particular, depending on his gender and age, for example, they can change their sign after a person retires; in women, after retirement, the indicators "work now" and "study now" began to decrease the index biological aging, although it was increased in the pre-retirement age ^[29], this may be due to a general decrease in workload, which in turn is associated with a positive perception of time ^[30]. The effectiveness of the impact on human health of green spaces depends on age and education (resource "nature") ^[31].  A person's activity in retirement, having a hobby can reduce the risk of dementia, but it depends on his age and health status ^[10]. 

The novelty of our research lies in the individual typological approach.  We study the relationship of personal resources with biopsychological age separately for groups of people who differ in gender, age, place of residence, profession, physique, emotionality, etc. We propose to consider these conditions (age, gender, place of residence, family, children, and a number of others) as individual typological features of personality through which resources affect biological aging. Also new is our definition of personal resources as activities additional to a person's daily life (for example, hobbies) that are easily amenable to personal control and training. 

Organization of the studyThe purpose of our study is to study the relationship of personal resources with biological aging, taking into account the individual typological characteristics of the respondent.

The hypothesis of the study is the assumption that the effectiveness of personal resources is associated with individual typological characteristics of a person. The cumulative influence of personal resources and personality types differs from the influence of each resource and each type separately.

Research methods.1. Biological age according to Voitenko ^[23] is an indicator of the degree of aging of the body according to health characteristics.

2. The index of relative biological aging, which was calculated as the difference between biological age and the indicator of expected biological age (statistical age norm).

2. The test "Questionnaire of personal resources", author's development ^[32].  Structural reliability: Kronbach alpha is 0.4 – 0.6. Criterion validity: 0.2-0.4. Retest reliability: 0.7-0.8.

3) Evaluation of personality types.

- Socio-biographical features were determined: gender, age, family and children, place of residence, profession. Questionnaire.

- Anthropological types. Body type (picnic, asthenic, athlete, indefinite); was determined based on functional measurements of shoulder width, height, weight, hip and wrist volume. The type of functional asymmetry in the leading arm (left-handed, ambidextrous, right-handed).

Psychological types. The style of interaction (rivalry, cooperation, compromise) was evaluated based on the Prisoner's Dilemma game (online game: http://95.181.226.63 /).  The type of emotionality (communicative, psychomotor, intellectual) was determined by the test of V.M. Rusalov.

The subjects.A total of 1,632 people from different regions of the Russian Federation were examined, of which 792 men and 840 women. Women of pre-retirement age from 36 to 55 years old and men from 36 to 60 years old were selected. 

Data analysis.

- One-factor analysis of variance ANOVA to assess the impact of personal resources and personality types on the index of biological aging.

- Automatic neural networks (Statistics -12). Training method: Regression We have set the following parameters for creating and training a neural network.  Network type: MPP.  The number of hidden neurons is 1 (both minimum and maximum). Networks for learning: 20. Networks to save: 5 (then 1 network was selected, which showed maximum compliance with the initial data in the test study).  Size of subsamples: random.  The training network was built on 70% of the sample size, the control network on 15% and the test network also on 15% of the sample.

The continuous target variable is BV-DBV (biological aging index).

Input variables: 1) Continuous - personal resources: sports, order, creativity, intelligence, needlework (subject activity), kindness (altruism), humor, spirituality, risk, communication, nature, achievements, optimism.

2) Categorical – types of individuality.

As a result, a trained neural network was formed. For women, it was a network with a training algorithm: BFGS 61, with the activation function of hidden neurons; hyperbolic and the activation function of output neurons: exponential. For men, it was a network with a training algorithm: BFGS 80, with the activation function of hidden neurons: hyperbolic and the activation function of output neurons: identical.

Results.We examined separately the influence of personal resources and personality types on the index of biological aging in women (Tables 1-2) and in men (Tables 3-4).

Table 1: The influence of personal resources on the index of biological aging of women.

As can be seen from the table, in middle-aged women, the use of personal resources significantly affects the index of biological aging.   For most resources, their impact is generally favorable. The aging index decreases with the use of resources: achievements, communication, kindness, needlework, intelligence (in relation to the lack of use (to 0 points)). For the resources of creativity, spirituality and humor, the aging index decreases only with significant use of them (at least 3-5 points).  Some other resources are characterized by U-shaped patterns.For a resource, the order of the aging index decreases with its complete absence and with maximum use, and for resources, optimism and sports decrease, on the contrary, with their average use. Nature and risk resources are characterized by a very complex, quasi-periodic dynamics. At some frequency of their use, the aging index decreases, at another, it rises.  

Along with the use of personal resources, the aging index is also influenced by socio-biographical and individual typological traits (personality types).

Table 2. Influence of women's personality types on the biological aging index.

As can be seen from the table, belonging to a certain type of personality affects the index of biological aging. Women are influenced mainly by belonging to socio-biographical (having a family, profession, place of residence)  and anthropological (body types, functional asymmetry) types.   The lowest aging index is observed in representatives of the intellectual type of professions, single, left-handed, with athletic or asthenic physique, living in urban and rural areas (but not in the capital).  Psychological types (in terms of interaction, emotionality) and a number of others (the presence of children) do not have an impact.

Table 3: The influence of personal resources on the index of biological aging of men.

As can be seen from the table, the influence of personal resources   the aging index in men is also significantly affected, but their influence is more complex and not always positive.  Also note that men do not always use resources to the fullest.  For some resources, their impact is generally favorable: the aging index decreases with the use of resources: (in relation to the lack of use (to 0 points)). These are resources: sports, intelligence, needlework, kindness. For other resources, the pattern of influence is more complicated.  U-shaped dependencies were found. The aging index decreases only at the average level of use for resources: creativity (3 points), spirituality (2-3 points), risk (2-4 points), nature (2-4 points), and optimism (3-4 points), achievements (2-3 points).  When using humor, on the contrary, the aging index increases with an average level of use (2 points), and decreases with high (4-5 points) and low (0-1 points).  For the resources of communication and order, a quasi-periodic dependence has manifested itself.

Such complex connections between the use of personal resources and the aging index can be mediated by a number of conditions. One of these conditions may be the individual characteristics of the men themselves, and others – belonging to certain types. In men, unlike women, all typologies have a significant effect on the aging index.

Table 4. The influence of male personality types on the biological aging index.

As can be seen from the table, belonging to a certain type in all typologies has a significant effect on the aging index.  The lowest aging index is for men of artistic type of professions, without children, divorced, ambidextrous, athletic build, suggesting a style of cooperation, living in urban and rural areas (but not in the capital). In general, the influence of individual typological qualities on the aging index in men is greater than in women.

In order to assess the cumulative impact of personality types and personal resources on the aging index of men and women, we trained neural networks. The result is presented below in the form of a table with weights of all indicators. Based on the data obtained, a number of favorable personal indicators (from more to less) for a person was compiled. The weight of the indicator is shown in relation to the output target variable: the biological aging index. Negative weight indicates anti-aging, and positive weight indicates accelerated aging.

Table 5. Contribution (weight) of personal resources and personality types to the biological aging index.

As can be seen from the table, the favorability series of men and women constructed by the neural network differ. For women, the most favorable resources are: sport kindness, needlework, humor, communication, and the most favorable personal characteristics are: artistic type of professions, type of asymmetry of ambidextrous, athletic and asthenic body type, living in an urban area and intellectual emotionality. For men, the most favorable personal resources are: kindness, risk, creativity, spirituality, needlework, sports and communication, and the most favorable personal characteristics are: office and research types of professions, the type of asymmetry of ambidextrous, having a family, an indefinite body type.  

Discussion of the results.

In this article, we have proposed our own interpretation of the concept of "personal resources".   We propose to consider personal resources as compensatory formations, as additional to a person's daily life (family and work).  Above, we defined personal resources as features of the psyche or behavior that contribute to slowing down biological age. We assumed that personal resources influence biological aging depending on individual typological characteristics of a person. In general, our hypothesis was confirmed.  The personal resources studied by us (sports, order, creativity, intelligence, needlework, kindness, humor, spirituality, risk, communication, nature, achievements, optimism) really reduce the index of biological aging.  This applies to all resources, if we compare the biological aging index in groups of subjects who did not use this resource at all (0 points), and those who constantly used it, then the latter have a lower aging index. In general, this coincides with the data of other researchers who have shown the effectiveness of these resources for health or life expectancy (an overview of resources can be found here ^[13]). 

However, the study showed that the problem of selecting personal resources favorable for adult men and women of the most able-bodied age (36-55 women and 36-60 men)  not so unambiguous.

On the one hand, we have shown a significant effect on the index of biological aging of personal resources.  On the other hand, we not only gave a general assessment of the presence of the influence of a personal resource, but also assessed the contribution of each level of resource use.   And here we are faced with the problem of ambiguity of influence.  If the majority of resources are favorable for women, i.e., when they are used, the biological aging index decreases or remains unchanged, then this is not quite the case for men.    For some resources, their use is not always favorable. For example, consider the dynamics of the aging index in men when they use the humor resource. The complete disregard of this resource by mature men turns out to be favorable (they do not joke, do not tell jokes, do not attend comedies and humorous concerts); the index of biological aging in such men is negative.  When using this resource for 1-2 points – single visits to humorous events or rare jokes - the aging index only increases.  However, with frequent use of the resource (4-5 points), it becomes favorable again. We can offer the following interpretation, the rare use of the resource is most likely caused by external reasons: the need to participate in corporate events, the requirement to visit the theater together, etc., while frequent use of the resource may be related to one's own interests and desires, it is difficult to make a person constantly joke and attend humorous programs. Probably, personal resources activated under duress do not have healing power, as it is shown for the resource "altruism" in terms of its impact on the success of activities ^[33].   It is more difficult to explain the effect of the nature resource on women. A complete rejection of this resource (0 points) gives a decrease in the aging index, a single use increases this index, a partial one reduces it again, a frequent one increases it, and a constant one lowers it again. First of all, let's explain why sometimes the rejection of some resource can be beneficial, and a small use of it, on the contrary, accelerates aging. Most likely, we are faced with the action of another resource: the resource of free time.  People who have refused to use one resource (most likely, it is not very suitable for them), free up time to use another resource that is more useful for them. Some people intuitively feel what suits them and what doesn't.

But this does not apply to the constant use of a resource, we assume that the constant use of a resource is likely to happen if this resource really suits a person. It is difficult to force yourself to constantly do things that are not suitable for the body, especially since within the framework of our understanding of personal resources, we are talking about hobbies and interests. In general, this suggests that the choice of a favorable personal resource, along with general patterns, is also influenced by individual preferences.

But, in addition to general patterns, personal preferences, the choice of a favorable resource is also determined by the typological characteristics of the person himself: body type, emotionality, family, children, profession, etc. This corresponds to the data of other researchers who have shown that the positive, negative or neutral influence of personal resources depends on many conditions: age, gender, education ^{[31] [10],[26]}.  We have shown that for men, typological patterns have a greater impact than general ones. In women, the aging index is significantly influenced by anthropological types and socio-biographical features, and in men, in addition, their psychological types also influence.   Within each typology, it is possible to distinguish the types that influence favorably and which are unfavorable (Tables 2 and 4). In general, this coincides with the patterns highlighted earlier by us and other researchers. Increased workload, heavy types of activity, energy-consuming lead to accelerated aging ^[34]. It also turned out that increased aging is observed in women who have difficult professions, are engaged in business (enterprising type), have a picnicking physique and live in the capital.   In men, increased aging is also observed in difficult professions, doing business, having children.

We tried to combine the impact of all factors (both personal resources and individual typological ones) and study their cumulative impact. To do this, we used the method of training automatic neural networks. The neural network analyzed the data we have and calculated the contribution (weight) of each of the indicators to the aging index, while we set individual typological features as categorical variables, and personal resources as continuous.  The result obtained partially confirmed the previously noted patterns, and partially identified new ones, refuting some of those that were obtained earlier.  Above, we analyzed mainly those patterns that were confirmed by any analysis. And now let's talk about those that have changed. For example, artistically, the type of professions, when analyzing the influence of only the types of professions, reduced the aging index in men (F-criterion).  And when assessing the cumulative impact (neural network), its contribution to the aging index turned out to be the highest. We believe that the reason for this is the smallness of the selected group.  There were only a few representatives of the artistic type of professions among the men we studied. The F-criterion identified this type (since it evaluated the influence of categorical predictors) and showed mainly that this typology affects the aging index. This happens when the analysis is detailed and without taking into account additional factors.   The small number of the subgroup was taken into account by the neural network, apparently, this had its effect when studying the action of all factors.  Belonging to small subgroups when analyzed using neural networks often turns out to be a factor that increases the aging index (for example, belonging to lefties for men and women). 

    As for personal resources, we set them as continuous variables.  Most of the resources in the study of the cumulative effect of all factors make a negative contribution to the aging index, and are favorable. However, we believe that in terms of practical application, for a qualitative selection of resources, it is necessary to take into account the contribution of all variables for a particular person, and not be limited to taking into account general patterns (whether they are obtained using variance analysis or neural networks). And automatic neural networks provide such an opportunity, since they include a prediction function. You can set specific typological characteristics of an individual and select personal resources specifically for him, leading to a maximum decrease in the aging index. You can also take into account the current level of personal resource usage and consider options for reducing and increasing the degree of resource usage.  Based on the need to implement these goals, we have saved the neural networks we have trained for future use.

The prospects of the research are related to the development of a program for the individual selection of personal resources for each person, taking into account the peculiarities of his personality.

Limitations of the results obtained. The methods of personal resources research have been developed by us on the basis of our concept of personal resources.  We call personal resources activities that are additional to the respondent's daily life, which are amenable to training and development (mainly diverse interests and hobbies).  For example, under the name of the resource "intelligence" we understood the number of intellectual hobbies, and not the IQ coefficient. Our conclusions relate only to the proposed understanding of personal resources. Their expansion is possible after additional research. 

Conclusion.We propose to consider personal anti-aging resources 

as compensatory formations, as types of activity. in addition to the daily life of a person (family, professional), these activities provide a reduction in biological age, improve health, and contribute to an increase in life expectancy. Criteria for the allocation of personal resources were proposed: 1) resources should be amenable to development and training according to the decision of the individual, 2) the development of these resources complements the life path of the individual, and does not change it entirely, 3) there is empirical evidence in the scientific literature of the effectiveness of each resource.   We have studied 13 groups of personal resources (sports, order, creativity, intelligence, needlework, kindness, humor, spirituality, risk, communication, nature, achievements, optimism) with proven effectiveness based on the materials of scientific literature.

As our research has shown, the influence of a single personal resource under consideration differs from the assessment of the influence of the same resource, but taking into account the type of its individuality. The analysis of variance confirmed the significant impact of all allocated resources on the aging index of men and women. In general, the impact of all resources is positive. For women, completely positive resources are: achievements, communication, kindness, needlework, intelligence, sports creativity, spirituality and humor; for men: sports, needlework, kindness.  The impact of other resources is more complex and depends on the degree of their use. There is often a U–shaped dependence (creativity and spirituality in men) or an inverse U-shaped dependence (order – in women). For some resources, using them sparsely is less useful than completely ignoring them. We explain this by the fact that rare use is often forced (coercion by family members or work colleagues), and it is not useful.   The use of non-useful resources also takes time away from activities that could be truly effective for a person.

In men, the influence of personal resources is more complicated than in women, U-shaped and quasi-periodic dependencies are more common. In general, there are 3 patterns in the use of personal resources. Firstly, the use of personal resources affects the aging index, generally lowering it. Secondly, for some personal resources, the aging index decreases only with frequent use, rare ones are not effective, on the contrary, they can take up free time and distract a person from more important activities.    Thirdly, for other resources, on the contrary, the aging index decreases with an average level of use, very often it turns out not to be effective, as well as its complete absence.

Based on the combined influence of all factors carried out with the help of a specially trained neural network, we found that the human aging index is influenced by general psychological, typological and individual characteristics. In women at the age of middle maturity (36-55 years) the aging index is more influenced by general psychological patterns, such as the use of personal resources generally favorable for women, less influenced by typological features.  In men at the age of middle maturity (36-60 years), general psychological patterns are less significant, typological features are more important, personal resources are better selected taking into account the types of individuality.    

Thanks: We are grateful to: Albina Zimina, Georgy Fatyanov, Yulia Faskhutdinova, Azalia Zinatullina for their help in collecting data.