Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Highlighting and Reducing the Impact of Negative Aging Stereotypes During Older Adults' Cognitive Testing
Published on: January 24, 2020
Personality and defense mechanisms in late adulthood
Yong Yu1, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Shuji Honjo
1Graduate School of Education and Human Development, University of Nagoya, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan. yuyong17@hotmail.com
Objective:
Current understanding of the use of psychological defense mechanisms (DMs) in older adults is limited. This study set out to examine individual differences in DMs and Cloninger's biosocial model of personality in two age groups (50-64, 65-93), as well as their influence on health.
Methods:
A Japanese community sample (N = 330) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-125), the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28).
Results:
Across age groups, psychological well-being was related to lower levels of harm avoidance and higher levels of self-directedness. In addition, older age was related to decreases in reward dependence, cooperativeness, and increases in self-transcendence, DMs of isolation, denial, and splitting.
Discussion:
An Age X Gender interaction revealed that men and women varied in their pattern of age differences for some specific DMs. Results further suggest that image-distortion defense may function to compensate resource loss.
Related Concept Videos
Cognitive Development During Adulthood
Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Adulthood
Intimacy Versus Isolation in Early Adulthood
Individuals in early adulthood, from the 20s...
Psychodynamic Perspectives on Personality
Psychodynamic theorists argue that unconscious...
Personality Disorders: Paranoid and Schizoid
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Paranoid personality disorder is...
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Genital
Horney's Sociocultural Approach

