Do Stubborn People Live Longer? What the Cilento Study Found

Originally published 2017-12-21.

Do stubborn people live longer? A small 2017 study of very old villagers in southern Italy is often quoted as proof that they do. What the researchers actually found is more interesting and more modest: among 29 people aged 90 to 101, stubbornness showed up alongside positivity, hard work and strong ties to family, faith and land. The study describes traits that long-lived people share. It does not show that being stubborn makes anyone live longer.

Here is what the research did, what it found, how it fits with larger studies on personality and lifespan, and what you can reasonably take from it.

The Cilento study in brief

The study was published in the journal International Psychogeriatrics in December 2017. Its lead author was psychiatrist Anna Scelzo of the mental health department in Chiavari, Italy, and its senior author was Dilip V. Jeste, a professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at UC San Diego who studies healthy ageing. Researchers from the University of Rome La Sapienza also took part.

The team recruited 29 people aged 90 to 101 from nine villages in the Cilento region, a stretch of southern Italy between the Mediterranean and the mountains. Many older residents there still work in their homes or on the land well into old age.

How the researchers studied 90- to 101-year-olds

The project used a mixed-methods design, which means it combined numbers with stories.

• Rating scales measured mental and physical health, including mood, anxiety and well-being.
• Long interviews collected life histories covering migration, hardship, traumatic events and personal beliefs.
• A comparison group of younger relatives, aged 51 to 75, completed the same scales and described the personalities of their older family members.

Asking relatives for their view gave the researchers a second angle on character traits, rather than relying only on how the elderly participants saw themselves.

What they found: positivity, grit and a "paradox of aging"

The oldest participants had worse physical health than their children and other younger relatives, which is no surprise. More striking, they reported better mental well-being. The researchers called this a paradox: in this group, contentment and wisdom seemed to grow even as bodies declined. Jeste summed it up as the idea that "well-being and wisdom increase with aging."

When the team looked for common themes in the interviews, Jeste listed them as "positivity, work ethic, stubbornness and a strong bond with family, religion and land."

The participants were described as self-confident, decisive, even domineering and keen to stay in control. The researchers read this as a form of grit, balanced by a willingness to adapt as circumstances changed. Attachment to place mattered too. As Scelzo put it, "The group's love of their land is a common theme and gives them a purpose in life."

What the study cannot tell us

Headlines turned these findings into "stubborn people live longer." That goes well beyond the evidence, for several reasons.

• It was tiny. Twenty-nine people from one region cannot represent older adults in general.
• It looked only at survivors. There was no group of villagers who died younger, so we cannot know whether they were any less stubborn or positive.
• It was a snapshot. Traits were measured at the end of life. Someone may have become more strong-willed with age, or the trait may simply be how relatives describe a parent who stayed independent.
• "Stubborn" is a loose label. Persistence, independence and refusing advice are very different behaviours. The researchers meant something close to determination, not a habit of ignoring others.

The authors themselves planned follow-up work, tracking participants over time and comparing biological measures with physical and mental health. That kind of longitudinal research is what is needed before talking about cause and effect.

What larger research says about personality and lifespan

Bigger studies offer a firmer picture, and some of it points in the same direction as the Cilento findings.

Conscientiousness

The personality trait most consistently linked to a longer life is conscientiousness: being organised, dependable and persistent. Long-running research, including follow-ups of the Terman study that began tracking Californian children in the 1920s, found that conscientious people tended to live longer, partly because they took fewer risks and looked after their health. The Cilento villagers' work ethic fits this pattern far better than "stubbornness" as such.

Optimism

A 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, using data from tens of thousands of American women and men, found that the most optimistic participants tended to live longer and were more likely to reach 85 than the least optimistic. Again, this is an association, but it echoes the positivity seen in Cilento.

Connection and purpose

Strong social relationships are among the best-supported predictors of healthy ageing, and a sense of purpose has been linked to lower mortality in several cohort studies. The villagers' ties to family, church and land are a vivid local example of both.

Practical takeaways for ageing well

You cannot copy someone else's genes or village, but some of the habits described in this study are open to anyone:

• Stay useful. Keep a role that matters, whether paid work, a garden, caring for family or volunteering.
• Keep people close. Regular contact with family and friends is protective at every age.
• Hold on to independence, flexibly. The determination the researchers admired came paired with adaptability, not a refusal to change.
• Practise a hopeful outlook. Optimism is partly temperament, but habits such as gratitude and realistic planning can strengthen it.
• Look after the basics. Activity, sleep and regular health check-ups still matter. For questions about your own health, talk to a doctor.

Read fairly, the Cilento study is less a recipe for long life than a portrait of people who aged with spirit. Their stubbornness may be best understood as grit: a firm sense of who they are, held alongside the people and places that give life meaning.

Sources: UC San Diego Today: Researchers find common psychological traits in group of Italians aged 90 to 101; Scelzo A., Di Somma S., Antonini P., Montross L.P., Schork N., Brenner D., Jeste D.V., "Mixed-methods quantitative-qualitative study of 29 nonagenarians and centenarians in rural Southern Italy", International Psychogeriatrics, 2017.