Psychosocial specificity in biological aging: selective associations of telomere length with stress, life evaluation,...

Telomere length is a key biomarker of biological aging, yet it remains unclear whether psychosocial influences are broadly distributed across psychological functioning or concentrated within specific processes related to stress appraisal, emotional functioning, life evaluation, and decision-making.

To examine how specific psychosocial factors (e.g., mood, well-being, impulsivity, emotional intelligence, personality traits, and moral decision-making) are associated with telomere length in midlife adults.

We examined links between telomere length and psychosocial factors (mood, well-being, impulsivity, emotional intelligence, personality, and decision-making) in 84 midlife adults (50.9 ± 7.4 years). Telomere length was measured using high-throughput quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (HT Q-FISH), assessing both median telomere length and short telomere length (20th percentile).

Age- and sex-adjusted regression analyses suggested selective associations between psychosocial factors and telomere length. Higher perceived stress, material satisfaction, and non-utilitarian decision-making were associated with shorter telomeres, whereas calmness and emotion utilization showed positive associations in primary models. Most cognitive, personality, and well-being measures showed small, non-significant associations.

Telomere length was primarily associated with perceived stress, material satisfaction, emotional utilization, and decision-making tendencies, whereas personality traits, cognitive abilities, self-esteem, impulsivity, and most emotional characteristics showed little evidence of association. These findings suggest that biological aging may be more closely linked to how individuals evaluate, emotionally process, and respond to everyday life experiences than to broad psychological dispositions.