Relationship between personality, memory complaints and episodic memory in young, middle-aged and older adults

Our study aimed to investigate the relationship between episodic memory, memory complaints, and personality traits (openness to experience and neuroticism) as a function of age. Using a cross-sectional design with a multimodal assessment of episodic memory, we compared three groups of adults (young, middle-aged, and older). We examined age effects on both objective and subjective measures of memory, as well as on openness and neuroticism. Our results revealed an age effect only on the objective measures. Furthermore, associations between memory and personality differed by age group. In young adults, memory complaints were consistent with actual memory performance. Among middle-aged adults, memory complaints were more correlated with the level of neuroticism. The higher the level of neuroticism, the higher the memory complaints. In contrast, a high level of openness was associated with better performance and lower memory complaints. Finally, among older adults, high level of openness was associated with better performance, whereas high levels of neuroticism were linked to a great number of errors. In this group, the level of complaints was not linked to performance or personality. These results support the use of multimodal paradigms to investigate the dynamic relationships between episodic memory, memory complaints and personality in the context of normal cognitive aging.