Personality dispositions over time Flashcards
What is personality development?
The study of continuities, consistencies, and stabilities in people over time and the ways in which people change over time.
What are the three major forms of personality stability?
Rank order stability, mean level stability, and personality coherence.
What is rank order stability?
Maintenance of an individual’s position within a group over time.
What does mean level stability refer to?
The constancy of the average level of a trait in a population over time.
Define personality coherence.
The continuity in the underlying trait but changes in its outward behavioral manifestations.
What are the two criteria for personality change to be considered development?
It must be internal to the person and relatively enduring over time.
What are the three levels of personality analysis over time?
Population level, group differences level, and individual differences level.
What does the population level of analysis examine?
Trends and changes that apply to nearly everyone (e.g., increases in risk-taking in teens).
Give an example of a group difference in personality development.
Women tend to develop more empathy than men during adolescence.
What are individual differences in personality development?
Differences in how individuals change or remain stable over time.
What is temperament?
Personality characteristics that appear early in life, are heritable, and involve emotionality or arousability.
List the six factors of infant temperament measured by Rothbart.
Activity level, smiling and laughter, fear, distress to limitations, soothability, duration of orienting.
What did Rothbart’s studies on infant temperament reveal about stability?
Stability is higher over short intervals and increases as infants mature.
What is a stability coefficient?
The correlation between the same measure obtained at two different times.
What is a validity coefficient?
The correlation between different measures of the same trait at the same time.
What did the Block and Block longitudinal study show about activity level?
Activity level in early childhood shows moderate stability into later childhood.
What is the general trend in stability coefficients over time?
They tend to decrease as the interval between measurements increases.
At what age do individual differences in aggression typically emerge?
By age 3.
What did longitudinal studies find about childhood aggression?
Aggression shows moderate rank order stability over time.
What was the long-term outcome of childhood bullies according to Olweus?
65% had felony convictions by age 24.
What traits were associated with bullies?
High extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
How stable are the Big Five traits in adulthood?
They show moderate to high stability; median correlation is around +.65.
When does personality consistency peak according to Roberts & DelVecchio (2000)?
Around age 50.
What is mean level change in adulthood?
Slight, predictable shifts in trait levels with age.
