The relationship between tourists' agreeableness and openness to experience with coronary heart disease mortality.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined relationships between tourists' agreeableness and openness to experience (AOE) and rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in an international context.


METHODS
AOE was obtained from the "Expedia Tourist Survey" (2002), which asked tourist office staff in 17 places around the world to nominate the two countries with the "best" and two with the "worst" tourists. AOE reflected tourists' behaviour, politeness, interest in other countries' language and foods, and spending money. Rates of CHD mortality were obtained for 22 of the countries, from published epidemiological studies.


RESULTS
Controlling for alcohol consumption and national health budget, countries with low AOE had higher rates of CHD mortality than countries with high AOE. This was found in both men and women.


CONCLUSIONS
AOE may be a risk factor of CHD mortality, a concept that is the antonym of hostility. If replicated with standardized AOE measures, these findings may have relevance to preventing CHD mortality.
Gidron
Yori
Y
Department of Psychology, Southampton University, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. y.gidron@soton.ac.uk
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014195:Travel