Personality Development

Two questions of personality development

How do we come to have the personalities we do?
1. Personality class provided various theoretical
perspectives
2. Genes and gene-environment transactions

What happens to personality across development?

Change
Stability
Person-environment transactions

How do we come to have the

personalities that we do?

Long thought to be due to parenting

and family influences

Examples:
parents that read to their children
Parents that are violent and aggressive in
punishments have children that are
aggressive
Etc.

Role of parenting

Most effects are correlational

Fail to recognize that parents also

share same genes as children

Twin studies have addressed this

problem

Twin Studies
MZ twins and DZ twins
Suggests heritability estimates of .5 for
personality traits
Shared environment = what siblings share,
parenting practices, neighborhood, family life
Nonshared environment is everything else.
More important than shared environment

Importance of nonshared
environment
Adult siblings personalities are about
equally correlated whether they grew up
together or apart.
Adoptive siblings are no more similar than
two random people from same culture
MZ twins are no more similar than effect
of shared genes

1.

2.

3.

Differences may be due to random events that

people experience

What happens to personality

across development?
Are traits stable as we develop or do
they change?
Is an issue of stability
Several ways that stability can be
studied

Types of Stability
1.

2.

Intraindividual differences in consistency how each

individual changes with time
Ipsative differences how the salience of attributes
changes within individuals over time
e.g. Block (1971) found a group of men for whom talkativeness and rebelliousness become
more important as they moved from teen-age years to young adulthood

3.

Mean-level consistency (population level) looks at

whether groups of people increase or decrease on trait
dimensions over time

4.

E.g. conscientiousness goes up in adulthood

Rank-order consistency (population level) relative

placement of individuals within a group. Do groups of
people retain the same rank ordering on trait dimensions
over time?

People get taller with age but percentile rank may remain stable

Levels of analysis
Population level those that apply to everyone

1.

Group differences level changes over time that

affect groups differently

2.

3.

Sexual interest increases at puberty for almost

everyone
Impulsiveness decreases with age

Male teen-agers are higher risk takers than females

White women more at risk for eating disorders

Individual differences level which individuals

change over time? Who will be at risk for
particular outcomes, etc.

Rank-Order Stability of
Personality
Roberts, B. & DelVecchio, W. (2000). The rankorder consistency of personality traits from Childhood to
old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies.
Psychological Bulletin, 126, 3-25.
Meta-analysis (combines multiple studies)
152 longitudinal studies
3,217 test-retest correlations
Organized according to Big Five

Rank order stability study

Interested in whether people retain

the same rank ordering on traits over
time

Other types of change may also occur,

but each methodological approach
addresses a different question

Relative Stability of
Personality

Meaning of previous

Trait consistency steadily increases

with age
Consistency peaked at 50-59 age
Lowest at ages 0 to 3

Relative Stability of
Personality

Relative Stability of
Personality

Relative Stability of
Personality

Analysis of previous data

Adult personality traits are more

consistent than childhood
temperament traits
Agreeableness & extraversion were
most consistent (but other Big Five
traits also consistent)
Some change DOES occur in adulthood
(in contrast to Costa & McCrae)

Relative Stability of
Personality
Important conclusions:
Trait consistency increases with age
0.31 in childhood
0.54 in college years
0.64 at age 30
Plateaus between 50 and 70 at .74

The longer the interval the lower the stability

Personality more stable than temperament
No differences among Big 5

Costa & McCrae

Personality is set like plaster by age 30

Some debate about this (ages 50 to 70 appear to

be more stable)

Certainly the 20s is an important time to look at

for personality development

People often gaining independence from families

Moving away
Going to college and/or joining workforce
Getting into committed relationships and having children

Example: Stability in
Children
McCrae, R.R., Costa,
P.T., Terracciano, A., Parker,
W.D., Mills, C.J., de Fruyt, P., & Mervielde, I. (2002).
Personality trait development from age 12 to age 18:
Longitudinal, cross-sectional, and cross-cultural analyses.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1456-1468.
Longitudinal study of intellectually gifted students
4 years: 12 to 16
N = 230
NEO-PI-R

Example: Stability in
Children

Example: Stability in
Children

Example: Stability in
Children

Example: Stability in
Children

Example: Stability in College

Students

Robins, R.W., Fraley, R.C., Roberts, B.W., &

Trzesniewski, K.H. (2001). A longitudinal study of personality
change in young adulthood. Journal of Personality, 69, 617640.
Longitudinal study of college students
N = 270
Assessed when first entered college and 4 years later
FFI

Example: Stability in College

Students

Example: Stability in College

Students

Mean-level Consistency of
Personality

Srivastava, S., John, O.P., Gosling, S.D., & Potter, J.

(2003). Development of personality in early and middle
adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1041-1053
Internet study
N = 132,515
Aged 21 to 60 (cross-sectional)
Completed BFI on-line

Aimed at countering C & Mno changes after 30

Mean-level Stability of
Personality

Mean-level Stability of
Personality

Mean-level Stability of
Personality

Summarize

Mechanisms of Continuity
Environmental stability
Three types of person-environment transactions
Reactive
Different individuals exposed to the same environment,
experience it, interpret it, and react to it differently
Example: schemas

Evocative
An individual's personality evokes distinctive responses
form others
Examples: coercive child, happy child

Proactive/Selective
Individuals select or create environments of their own