Depressive symptom change around widowhood in later life: Big Five personality heterogeneity among U.S. older adults

This study examined within-person depressive symptom change around widowhood in later life and assessed whether baseline Big Five personality traits condition heterogeneity in this change among U.S. older adults.

Using biennial panel data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (2006-2020), I estimated fixed-effects event-study models centered on the first observed widowhood onset. Depressive symptoms were measured with the CESD-8, and event-time coefficients were defined relative to the interview immediately preceding widowhood. Baseline Big Five traits measured before widowhood onset were entered jointly to estimate trait-specific moderation while accounting for correlations across traits. Of the analytic sample (11,482 respondents; 61,313 person-wave observations), 1,375 experienced a first observed widowhood onset during follow-up, and 10,107 remained continuously married.

Average depressive symptoms followed a time-structured pattern around widowhood onset. Already elevated in the interview immediately preceding the first observed widowhood compared with 2 waves earlier, symptoms increased further at the onset of the interview, attenuating over subsequent interviews. In the joint model including all 5 traits, neuroticism showed the most consistent evidence of moderation across post-onset interviews. Differences by extraversion and openness were concentrated in the early post-onset period, with higher extraversion associated with a larger increase in depressive symptoms and higher openness associated with smaller deviations. Agreeableness and conscientiousness did not show robust moderation after adjustment for the other traits.

Depressive symptom change around widowhood is heterogeneous and varies across phases of the transition. Personality-related differences are concentrated in specific event-time periods, particularly for neuroticism, extraversion, and openness.