Chapter: Personality Stability, Development, and Change

Question 1

What is rank-order consistency?

Answer 1

People change but maintain the way they are different from other people the same age
(introverted younger & older)
*Personality stability

Question 2

What is the evidence for personality stability?

Answer 2

• Over ten years personality stayed stable: r = 0.60-0.90
• Successful predictions of life outcomes/adult behavior from childhood personality
• Stable personality disorders

Question 3

What causes personality stability?

Answer 3

Temperament, heterotopic continuum, physical attributes, environment, adverse childhood events, birth order, person-environment transactions, environment maturity, psychological maturity

Question 4

What is temperament? What determines it?

Answer 4

personality in infant, mostly determined by genetics

Question 5

How does birth order effect personality?

Answer 5

• supposedly small effects
• People often think that birth order affects how children are treated
• research debates this

Question 6

How do adverse childhood events affect personality?

Answer 6

• Consequences from ACEs persist especially in sensitive/vulnerable children
• affect tendency to develop illnesses and diseases
• rejection of parents leads to difficulty building relationships
• many parents create good outcomes: highly educated, cognitively stimulating, feel good about selves

Question 7

What are person-environment transactions?

Answer 7

People tend to seek or create environments they are compatible with
- Active: seek out environment
- Reactive: react to same environment differently
- Evocative: change the environment to personality

Question 8

Why does environment and psychological maturity affect personality?

Answer 8

The longer something is around the more stable it becomes

Question 9

What is personality development?

Answer 9

Consistent change in the mean level of a trait overtime

Question 10

How do the five traits develop according to a cross-sectional study?

Answer 10

A, O, & C dip between 10 & 20 and then recover
- N increases then decreases
- E dips then decreases

Question 11

What is the cohort effect?

Answer 11

The cross-sectional study of the five traits is not accurate because they indicate people that have similar life experiences not similar age

Question 12

How do the five change according to longitudinal studies?

Answer 12

Increase social dominance, A, C and emotionally stability, self-esteem, and ego development from adolescence to 50 then decrease
- possibly do to need for adult performance, confirms “maturity principle”

Question 13

What causes personality development?

Answer 13

Changes in
- intelligence
- linguistics
- hormones
- physical strength
- social roles

Question 14

What is the social clock?

Answer 14

The idea that people are pressured to accomplish certain things by certain ages by society

Question 15

What is narrative identity?

Answer 15

• three aspects: actor (skills), agent (guided by goals & values), author (own story)
• how person views their life and how its trajectory fits goals & dreams
• themes differ by culture
• related with personality: agency (challenge and accomplishment of goal) and conscientiousness
• Redemption: turn out for best

Question 16

How do goals influence personality development?

Answer 16

• they change in perspective of time
• leads young to focus on exploration and achievement
• leads older to focus on emotional well being and lasting ties

Question 17

What is the desire for personality change? What are the four methods?

Answer 17

Most people desire to change their personality regardless of age in the socially desirable way to make life better
- Psychotherapy
- General interventions
- Targeted interventions
- Behaviors and Life Experiences

Question 18

How does psychotherapy influence personality change?

Answer 18

effective especially with drugs but not equally available and drugs have side effects

Question 19

How do general interventions influence personality change?

Answer 19

Expensive and directed at outcome change, maybe only effective in the younger population

Question 20

How do targeted interventions influence personality change?

Answer 20

activities that target changing a trait–set goals, monitor, and stick with it

Question 21

How do behaviors and life experiences influence personality change?

Answer 21

changing a behavior (exercising) or having an experience changes personality

Question 22

What are obstacles to change?

Answer 22

• not seeing reason/benefit, blame external factors, like life consistent and predictable
• Most see desirable and possible

Question 23

What are the principles of personality continuity and change?

Answer 23

• cumulative continuity (increase consistency with age)
• maturity (increased equipment for life)
• plasticity: (change is always possible but not necessarily easy)
• role continuity (choose role)
• identity development (construct who I am)
• social investment (affect of structures and institutions)
• corrosive principle (life experiences magnify and establish)

Question 24

Is personality change good or bad?

Answer 24

Both
- Instability and inconsistency can cause problems
- Most change is adaptive but slow
- Who do you want to be, and what can you do to make this happen?