Young adults who show hostile and aggressive attitudes and who have difficulty dealing with daily stress may experience memory problems in adulthood , according to the latest study conducted by scientists from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (USA). UU.) And collected by the journal Neurology.
There is evidence that a hostile attitude, for example, can lower the activation threshold of the stress response. Now, this research delves into it, stating that it could also have an impact on cognitive function and vascular risk profiles associated with cognitive decline.
The researchers examined a sample of 3,126 people at two different stages of their life: first at age 25 and then at 50. At both times, the volunteers answered a questionnaire about their personality, attitude, ability to manage stress , and carried out tests on their cognitive and memory abilities.
The data about their personality was used to measure the levels of hostility of the participants, since the questions were designed to assess mistrust, tools to control stress, aggressive behavior or negative feelings associated with social relationships. Thus, the volunteers were divided into four groups from highest to lowest level of hostility, according to the results of the questionnaire.
The analysis of the cognitive tests when the volunteers had an average age of 50 years, showed that the people with the highest levels of aggressiveness and hostility were the ones that obtained the worst marks in all the tests , compared with their previous results when they were 25 years.
“ We cannot think that our personality traits have any direct relationship with how well we think or remember things, but we did find that the effect of having a hostile attitude and poor coping skills were similar to the effect of more than one decade of aging, ”explains Lenore J. Launer, study leader.
According to the expert, these results do not prove that hostile attitudes cause impaired memory and thinking, but they do indicate an association .
