Personality and affective predictors of compensation and implications for intervention recommendations

Participants with higher scores in Anger and Openness had increased compensation after accounting for cognitive status. A higher degree of Openness indicates a person is willing to try new things, which may result in an increased likelihood of trying compensatory strategies. While it is somewhat counterintuitive that greater negative emotion was associated with more compensation, anger is an activating and externalizing emotion which could facilitate compensation in response to worry about cognitive change. Results suggest that interventions should focus on ways to improve openness and activation to enhance compensation.