Come to think of it, it must be known how conscientiousness as a character trait measured in children who are not necessarily gifted correlates with long-term outcomes. It's not known by me and I don't have time to look it up right now, though!
Here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8355139/is a paper saying that conscientiousness is correlated to long life, and cheerfulness to short, in the general population.
As a hyperconscientious and not especially cheerful person, I guess I should be pleased :-)
