W10: Personality change Flashcards
Implications of Personality stability
Psychological practice
Criminology
Clinical Psychology
Employee selection
Attitudes towards self-improvement
Making good decisions in life
Will you be ‘the same’ in 2o years?
Will someone you want to marry be ‘the same’ in 20 years?
different type of stability
S5
Rank-order stability:
moderate-high and increases over the lifespan
- genetic n environmental effects
mean-level change:
occurs throughout the lifespan
-Differs by trait
-Changes appear to approach -‘psychosocial maturity’
-Evidence for genetic/ universal maturation factors
-Also, environment effects (e.g., life transitions)
Individual change:
- Significant, unique events/experiences
- People don’t expect to change, but do
- Evidence of anticipatory change
- People can volitionally decide change their personalities
Rank-order stability
Costa & McCrae (1994)
Test-retest correlations ~ 0.65 for the big five traits over multiple studies (up to 30 year periods)
Indicates that, if one is above average on a trait at 30, the probability of being so at 50 is 83% (5:1 odds)
Rank order stability
Roberts & DelVecchio (2000)
Test-retest correlations indicating rank-order stability :
1) Are relatively high
2) Increase with age ( ~ 0.41 in childhood to ~ 0.55 at age 30, to ~ 0.70 between ages 50 and 70).
3)Decrease as the test-retest interval increases:
~.55 over a 1 year period, ~.25 over a 40 year period
4) Trait general, i.e., do not vary across:
- Big Five traits
- Assessment method
- Gender
What influences stability (3)
Genetic influences:
Probabilistic influences of genes on behaviour/experience
Environmental channeling:
‘Settling down’: increased stability in environment, friends, routine etc
Environmental selection:
We seek environments that match, support, and maintain our traits
Influences on stability:
Genetics
Longitudinal twin studies
McGue et al., 2003
70-90% of stability owing to genetic factors
70% of change owing to environmental factors
environment also contributes to stability:
Kandler et al. (2010)
Genetic effect on stability ~ .95
Environmental effect on stability ~ .50
Influences on stability:
Environmental channelling…
Caspi & Herbener (1990)
126 continuously married couples given personality assessments in 1970 and 1981
Rank order stability was higher for couples with more similar personalities
.41 vs .58
Influences on stability:
Environmental selection…
(3) choose
Assortive mating—
Trait correlations between romantic partners and friends, up to r = .35
May be under-estimated due to the ‘reference group effect’
Migration:
People prefer to live among people with similar personalities, values, interests.
Vocational choice:
People gravitate toward educational and vocational career paths that ‘fit’ their personality
Mean level personality change
Costa & McCrae (1994)
Big 5
O, E & N drop over adult years
A and C rise over adult years
There is therefore a general tendency for people to become nicer, more responsible, more set in their ways, less outgoing, and more stable…
Mean level personality change
Roberts et al. (2006) summary:
Extraversion components show different change trajectories
Social Vitality slowly declines
Social Dominance rises until ~40
Agreeableness and Conscientiousness rise steadily
Emotional Stability shows decelerating rises
Openness plateaus in early adulthood and declines gently in later adulthood
Change tends to be positive: “Psychosocial Maturity”
Robins & Mroczek (2009)
Uni students (4 years) Negative affect drops and positive affect rises through adulthood
Change tends to be positive: “Psychosocial Maturity”
What influences mean-level change?
1) Genetic influences
2) Environmental effects
Genetic influences Evolved ‘maturation processes’ “Developmental tasks” - E and O more helpful around reproductive age - C more helpful during parenting
Environmental effects
- Major life transitions / stages / role shifts
- Historical events
What influences mean-level change?
1) Genetic influences
Loehlin (1993)
Personality change scores correlated higer for MZ twins.
Genetic ‘switches’ may be partially responsible for systematic patterns of change
However, Hopwood et al., (2011):
For conscientiousness: genetic effect > environment effect
For neuroticism: only a significant environment effect
(Minimal change observed for other traits)
What influences mean-level change?
2) Environmental effects
Cross-cultural comparisons
McCrae et al. 1999
If environments drive mean-level change, then change patterns should differ across markedly different environments
McCrae et al. 1999
Key conclusions
E, A, O, C very similar to US samples
N a bit inconsistent – decreased only in Germany and South Korea
Data are suggestive of Universal Maturation
there might be evidence of cross-species Universal Maturation
mean-level change
Major life transitions: Transition to work
Major life transitions: Transition to work
Roberts, 1997:
Greater participation in the workforce associated with increases in ‘agency’ (part of E: social dominance)
Potentially contributes toward typical mean level changes
