Personality stability and change: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies

Personality Functioning, Problems in Living, and Personality Traits

The publication of the Alternative Model of Personality Disorder (AMPD) was a signpost achievement in the personality assessment. However, research on the AMPD has generally not led to either a deeper understanding of personality disorder or personality assessment or new ideas about how to provide better care for people with personality disorder diagnoses. A significant portion of research has focused on narrow issues and appears to be driven in part by ideological differences between scholars who prefer Criterion A (personality functioning) or Criterion B (maladaptive traits). I trace these issues to ambiguity about the concept of personality functioning as defined in the AMPD and its conceptual distinction from personality traits and problems in living. In this paper, I reground these concepts in coherent and distinct definitions, elaborate upon the implications of their differences, and show how these differences can help clarify and reorient AMPD research to focus on generating clinically useful models for personality pathology and personality assessment.

Chinese college students' mental health during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic: the protective role of family functioning

Background

Various psychological theories suggest that a supportive family environment protects the mental health of young adults during stressful life events. However, evidence is limited regarding the protective role of family support during a major public health crisis.

Objective

To examine the role of family functioning on mental health among Chinese college students during first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Between January-March 2020, 1,555 college students (44% female, on average 19 years old) from five Chinese universities participated. Participants rated their family functioning on the Family APGAR Index and their mental health on the Psychological Questionnaires for Emergent Events of Public Health, measuring depression, neurasthenia, fear, obsessive-anxiety and hypochondriasis.

Results

Better family functioning was associated with having fewer psychological symptoms. In addition, we identified three mental health profiles related to the severity across the psychological symptoms: Low-level, medium-level and high-level symptom clusters. Latent profile analysis showed that as family function improved, students were, respectively, 16 to 24% more likely to be in the low-level symptom group, compared to being in the medium symptom group or the high-level symptom group.

Conclusion

These results support the notion that family support may act as a psychological buffer for young adults during a large-scale public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily associations between global self-esteem and self-concept clarity and their relationships with subjective well-being in a sample of adult workers

OBJECTIVES

The present pre-registered study examined the reciprocal day-to-day associations between global self-esteem and self-concept clarity and their incremental validity with respect to daily life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect.

METHODS

We used intensive longitudinal data from 153 adult workers (45.1% women), over a period of 31 days. Data were analyzed using dynamic structural equation modeling.

RESULTS

Results attested higher global self-esteem and self-concept clarity mean levels for older vs. younger participants, and lower global self-esteem and self-concept clarity variability for older vs. younger participants. Furthermore, global self-esteem and self-concept clarity were correlated at a cross-sectional daily level, yet only self-concept clarity states positively predicted subsequent global self-esteem states, while global self-esteem states did not predict subsequent self-concept clarity states. Daily global self-esteem and daily self-concept clarity further predicted subsequent daily higher life satisfaction and positive affect, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Overall, our findings shed light on the short-term relationships linking global self-esteem and self-concept clarity, pointing to their discriminant validity in predicting individuals' subjective well-being.

Effects of Reference Group Instructions on Big Five Trait Scores

People responding to personality questionnaires rate themselves by comparing themselves to some reference group, but this reference group is typically not specified. In this study, we examined the differences between Big Five trait scores when people responded to trait questionnaires without a specified reference group, as is typical in personality assessment, and when they were asked to compare themselves to people in general, close others, people their age, people their same gender, their ideal self, or their past self. We found that personality scores tended to be more adaptive for between-person comparisons than for within-person comparisons. We also found that unprompted instructions produced mildly higher scores across all traits. There were few differences among between-person reference group conditions. Men rated themselves as slightly more agreeable when comparing themselves to other men. Implications for basic and applied personality assessment are discussed.

Longitudinal relationship between psychological distress and personality traits

Personality traits are typically assumed to predict psychological distress, with little attention paid to the potential influence of psychological distress on personality traits. Recent empirical findings, however, challenge this prevailing view by demonstrating the potential for personality traits to change and suggesting the plausible influence of chronic distress on these traits. This study aimed to examine the mutual within-person associations between psychological distress and the Big Five personality traits. The primary research question was whether a change in psychological distress is associated with a change in personality traits (and vice versa) after approximately 4 years. A nationally representative sample from Australia (N = 22,837), collected at four time points over 13 years, was used. The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to partition variance into between-person and within-person components. Results showed that there was no temporal within-person association between openness and distress. Extraversion and conscientiousness were found to have bidirectional within-person relationships with distress, suggesting that increases in extraversion and conscientiousness are associated with decreases in distress over time and vice versa. Emotional stability and agreeableness showed unidirectional relationships with distress, with increased distress predicting decreased emotional stability and increased agreeableness predicting decreased distress. Therefore, except for openness, the other traits had at least one significant within-person link to psychological distress. These findings unveil a reciprocal longitudinal linkage between personality traits and psychological distress, highlighting the potential negative impact of prolonged psychological distress on the developmental trajectory of personality traits.

Short-term personality development and early career success: Two longitudinal studies during the post-graduation transition

OBJECTIVE

Investigate short-term personality development during the post-graduation transition.

BACKGROUND

Prior research indicates that long-term personality development matters for employment outcomes. However, this evidence is primarily limited to multi-year longitudinal studies. This research switches the focus to personality changes during a shorter, impactful life transition.

METHOD

We examined how short-term personality development during the 14-month post-graduation transition relates to early career outcomes among two diverse samples of graduates from universities (N = 816) and community colleges (N = 567). We used latent growth curve models to examine associations between career outcomes measured 14 months after graduation with initial personality levels and personality changes.

RESULTS

Results revealed that mean-level changes in personality were small and mostly negative. Moreover, individual differences in personality changes were not associated with career outcomes. However, initial levels of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and extraversion positively related to both subjective and objective career success. Initial levels of agreeableness were also positively related to subjective (but not objective) success.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate that individual differences in personality trait levels at graduation are stronger predictors of early career success compared to short-term personality changes during the post-graduation transition. Taken together, these results help define the time sequence through which personality changes relate to career outcomes.

A Longitudinal Network of Borderline-Related Trait Vulnerabilities from Childhood to Adolescence

Early maladaptive traits are predictive of later borderline personality pathology (BPP), but little is known about their dynamic interplay over time. This is an important issue to address, however, as significant differences in the 'clinical weight' of various traits constituting the early BPP trait phenotype may inform the field on important target constructs from an early intervention perspective. Therefore, the current study aims to uncover the complex dependencies between BPP traits across the crucial developmental period of childhood and adolescence, by using longitudinal network analysis. Both between- and within-person networks were constructed to identify how early mother-reported borderline-related traits are connected across a timespan of six years (ntime 1 = 718, Mtime1 = 10.73 years, SDtime1 = 1.39, 55.1% girls). Overall, the temporal network suggested various trait interdependencies, with internalizing traits being particularly influential in the development of the BPP trait network structure. At the same time, externalizing traits likely inhibit the negative effects of these core traits. In addition, results also revealed that internalizing and externalizing clusters of early borderline-related traits are linked through emotional lability. Implications of these findings are discussed in view of the change mechanisms at play and potential targets for early intervention.

Explicating narrow and broad conceptualizations of environmental influences on personality

BACKGROUND

A surge of studies aims to identify environmental factors that explain individual differences, personality stability, and personality development. This special issue builds on this large interest and solicited articles on broad and narrow environmental factors of personality.

OBJECTIVE

We provide an overview of the motivations behind the special issue, review each of the articles, and present data on researchers' perceptions of environmental factors contributing to personality expression and development.

METHOD

We review 16 special issue articles, thematically grouped into seven topics-culture and race, genes and environment, geography and habitat, major/minor life events, social relationships, socioeconomic status and economic inequality, and work. We also present data on researchers' (N = 223) responses and ratings of environmental influences on personality expression and development.

RESULTS

In the open-ended responses, the most important environmental influences were family, culture, peers, relationships, and trauma. Among the least important were weather, birth order, geography, climate, and shared environment. Nearly all the environmental influences featured in this special issue were considered at least somewhat important; however, there was considerable heterogeneity in how important researchers found each topic.

CONCLUSIONS

There is no perfect consensus among researchers as to which environmental factors contribute most to personality expression and development. We hope that there is a larger surge of studies on personality constructs beyond traits, that contextualize concepts within a cultural and historical framework and develop more stringent theories to hypothesize about the environmental influences on personality.

The effects of socioeconomic status on personality development in adulthood and aging

INTRO

The current study examined the effects of adulthood socioeconomic status (SES) on levels of and changes in the Big Five personality traits domains and nuances in adulthood and during aging. We also tested whether the relations between adulthood SES and personality traits differed by childhood SES and age.

METHODS

Data were drawn from three longitudinal studies: the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA, N = 2000), the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS, N = 6428), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS, N = 23,238).

RESULTS

Using the latent growth models, across samples, we found associations between high SES and low levels of neuroticism and high levels of extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness. The effects of SES on changes in personality traits were mainly observed in the aging sample of HRS. In general, a similar pattern was observed at the nuance level. Analyses of the moderating effects of age suggested some evidence for the increasingly important role of SES in levels of and changes in personality traits in older ages.

CONCLUSION

The findings support SES as a source that partially accounts for individual differences in personality traits level. Some evidence was found for the relations between SES and changes in personality traits in old age.

Job characteristics and personality change in young adulthood: A 12-year longitudinal study and replication

OBJECTIVE

Personality changes are related to successfully performing adult occupational roles which require teamwork, duty, and managing stress. However, it is unclear how personality development relates to specific job characteristics that vary across occupations.

METHOD

We investigated whether 151 objective job characteristics, derived from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), were associated with personality levels and changes in a 12-year longitudinal sample followed over the school to work transition. Using cross-validated regularized modeling, we combined two Icelandic longitudinal datasets (total N = 1054) and constructed an individual-level, aggregated job characteristics score that maximized prediction of personality levels at baseline and change over time.

RESULTS

The strongest association was found for level of openness (0.25), followed by conscientiousness (0.16) and extraversion (0.14). Overall, aggregated job characteristics had a stronger prediction for personality intercepts (0.14) than slopes (0.10). These results were subsequently replicated in a U.S. sample using levels of the Big Five as the dependent variable. This indicates that associations between job characteristics and personality are generalizable across life stages and nations.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that job titles are a valuable resource that can be linked to personality to better understand factors that influence psychological development. Further work is needed to document the prospective validity of job characteristics across a wider range of occupations and age.

Personality maturation through sense of mastery? Longitudinal evidence from two education-to-work transition studies

OBJECTIVE

Why personality changes in young adulthood remains a critical theoretical and empirical question. We studied personality change during the education-to-work transition, including mean-level personality change and its specific timing, the degree of individual variability in change, and the link between sense of mastery and personality change.

METHODS

We used two intensive longitudinal studies. Study 1 included 5 waves of data across 2 years during the university-to-work transition (N = 309; mean-aged 25). Study 2 included 3 waves of data across 8 months during an internship-heavy teacher education program (N = 317; mean-aged 22). We measured personality traits and work-related mastery with questionnaires and personality states and general mastery with the experience sampling method.

RESULTS

First, we found no evidence for mean-level personality maturation but decreases in trait Conscientiousness. Second, young adults differed significantly in personality trait and state change. Third, young adults with higher levels of work-related sense of mastery showed more positive changes in trait Conscientiousness. Decreases in general sense of mastery predicted later decreases in state Emotional Stability and vice versa. Change in general sense of mastery correlated with personality state change.

CONCLUSIONS

Sense of mastery seems to be part of a dynamic short-term process underlying personality change in young adulthood.

Basic or Adaptation: The Assessment and Heritability of a Brief Measure of Agency

The interpersonal circumplex describes two major axes of personality that guide much of social behavior. Agency, one half of the interpersonal circumplex, refers to relatively stable behavioral patterns that center on self-focused dominance and assertiveness. Past empirical work on agency tends to treat the dimension as a characteristic adaptation, rather than a basic component of personality, in part due to the relatively large gender difference in agency with masculine individuals tending to behave more agentic. However, the psychometric overlap between agency and the most closely linked big five dimension, extraversion, is not well-established, and no behavior genetic work has documented evidence concerning the role of genetic and environmental influences. It is unclear whether agency is more similar to a personality trait, with no evidence of shared environmental influence and moderate heritability, or a characteristic adaptation, with some evidence for shared environmental influence and possibly lower heritability. We used the Midlife Development in the United States study to examine agency, big five, and generativity with replication and robustness check (Nnon-twins = 5,194; Ntwins = 1,914; NMilwaukee = 592). Results indicated that agency was higher in men (d = -.24), moderately heritable (44.4%), strongly correlated with extraversion (r = .51), moderately correlated with generativity (r = .36), and that approximately 40% of the variance in agency was shared with the big five. Agency also changed strongly with extraversion and openness, but less so generativity. Altogether, these results indicate that agency functions similar to other basic personality dimensions but is not clearly a dispositional trait.

Individual and context-evoked antecedents of exploration-exploitation performance

A central issue within the Carnegie approach is the exploration-exploitation tension that lies behind organizational adaptation. After decades of research, there is still little understanding of how the combination of individual and context-evoked differences affects exploration-exploitation performance. To address that issue, we build on recent psychological and neuroscientific studies to develop and test an integrative model. The model considers two individual antecedents (personality and cognitive flexibility) and three context-evoked antecedents that take place along different time horizons (recent stress, present emotional states, and present task motivation). We rely on a lab-in-the-field study of 282 leaders within the Swiss Armed Forces-an organization that exhibits the exploration-exploitation tension in an accentuated form. Using structural equation modeling, we conduct a multiple-mediation path analysis aimed at testing complex interactions between multiple variables. Our findings highlight the need to take an integrative approach; cognitive flexibility mediates the positive effect of the personality trait of emotional stability on exploration-exploitation performance, however, both cognitive flexibility and emotional stability play unique, underlying roles in explaining how organizational leaders interpret the context. Emotional stability decreases the negative effect of recent stress on a leader's cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility, in turn, mediates the effect of the present positive affective signals of task motivation on exploration-exploitation performance. These findings shed new light on our understanding of how adaptive leaders leverage positive and negative context-evoked antecedents that, in turn, affect cognitive flexibility and exploration-exploitation.

Stability of DNA-Methylation Profiles of Biological Aging in Children and Adolescents

Background and Objectives

Methylation profile scores (MPSs) index biological aging and aging-related disease in adults and are cross-sectionally associated with social determinants of health in childhood. MPSs thus provide an opportunity to trace how aging-related biology responds to environmental changes in early life. Information regarding the stability of MPSs in early life is currently lacking.

Method

We use longitudinal data from children and adolescents ages 8-18 (N = 428, M age = 12.15 years) from the Texas Twin Project. Participants contributed two waves of salivary DNA-methylation data (mean lag = 3.94 years), which were used to construct four MPSs reflecting multi-system physiological decline and mortality risk (PhenoAgeAccel and GrimAgeAccel), pace of biological aging (DunedinPACE), and cognitive function (Epigenetic-g). Furthermore, we exploit variation among participants in whether they were exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic during the course of study participation, in order to test how a historical period characterized by environmental disruption might affect children's aging-related MPSs.

Results

All MPSs showed moderate longitudinal stability (test-retest rs = 0.42, 0.44, 0.46, 0.51 for PhenoAgeAccel, GrimAgeAccel, and Epigenetic-g, and DunedinPACE, respectively). No differences in the stability of MPSs were apparent between those whose second assessment took place after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic vs. those for whom both assessments took place prior to the pandemic.

Conclusions

Aging-related DNA-methylation patterns are less stable in childhood than has been previously observed in adulthood. Further developmental research on the methylome is necessary to understand which environmental perturbations in childhood impact trajectories of biological aging and when children are most sensitive to those impacts.

Personality traits and peritoneal dialysis patients' prognosis

Objective: Peritoneal dialysis (PD) requires high patient conscientiousness. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the relationship between conscientiousness score and prognosis in PD patients.Methods: The ten-item Big Five Personality Inventory's Chinese version was used to assess the conscientiousness score. Basic clinical information, prior medical history, hematological examination results, the occurrence of the first peritonitis and catheter-related infection, the start of hemodialysis, and the time of renal transplantation were collected. The patients were split into two groups, high and low conscientiousness groups, based on the mean value of the conscientiousness score. The differences in prognostic indicators were compared between groups, and the association between conscientiousness score and prognostic indicators in PD patients was assessed.Results: Enrolled PD patients were divided into low conscientiousness group 103 and high conscientiousness group 98. There were significant differences in serum albumin (p = 0.021) and iPTH (p = 0.045) between the two groups. Multivariate Cox regression analysis identified conscientiousness score as an independent risk factor for the development of first peritonitis (HR = 0.558, 95% CI 0.400-0.779, p = 0.001) and first catheter-related infection (HR = 0.544, 95% CI 0.308-0.962, p = 0.036) in PD patients. Conscientiousness score (HR = 2.377, 95% CI 1.109-5.095, p = 0.026) was independently associated with renal transplantation.Conclusion: Conscientiousness personality is closely related to the prognosis of PD patients.

Psychological change before and after religious conversion and deconversion

OBJECTIVE

Theory and anecdotal evidence suggest that people undergo psychological changes before and after religious conversion and deconversion. Yet, existing research provided inconclusive evidence. Here, we examined psychological change before, during, and after institutional conversion and deconversion in a large-scale longitudinal study.

METHOD

We used 11-wave longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of Dutch adults (N ~ 20,000) to assess changes in religious beliefs and practices, personality traits, and well-being before, during, and after conversion to and deconversion from Christianity.

RESULTS

Converts (N = 181) increased in service attendance and prayer, but not in their belief in God, as they approached conversion. Deconverts (N = 450) declined in religious beliefs and practices before, during, and after deconversion. In terms of personality, converts displayed small, unexpected declines in emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness at time of conversion. Deconverts declined in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness at time of deconversion. Neither group showed changes in their well-being.

CONCLUSION

The present findings suggest that psychological changes during religious conversion and deconversion are generally small and mostly manifest as changes in people's religious beliefs and practices. Findings are discussed in the context of person-religion fit, meaning-making, and sociocultural motive perspectives on religious change.

The associations between personality traits and quality of life, satisfaction with life, and well-being over time in people with dementia and their caregivers: findings from the IDEAL programme

BACKGROUND

Cross-sectional evidence indicates that certain personality traits may influence how well people with dementia and their caregivers are able to live alongside the condition. However, no studies to date have explored these associations longitudinally. The present study aimed to explore whether each of the Five-Factor personality traits were associated with change over two years in perceptions of 'living well' for people with dementia and their caregivers. 'Living well' was conceptualized as a composite of quality of life, satisfaction with life, and subjective well-being.

METHODS

Data were analyzed from 1487 people with dementia and 1234 caregivers who took part in the IDEAL cohort. Participants were categorized into low, medium, and high groups for each trait using stanine scores. Latent growth curve models investigated associations between these groups and 'living well' scores for each trait at baseline and at 12 and 24 months. Covariates included cognition in people with dementia and stress in caregivers. A Reliable Change Index was calculated against which to evaluate changes in 'living well' scores over time.

RESULTS

At baseline, neuroticism was negatively associated with 'living well' scores for people with dementia, while conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness were positively associated. For caregivers, neuroticism was negatively associated with 'living well' scores at baseline while conscientiousness and extraversion were positively associated. 'Living well' scores were mostly stable over time with no influence of personality traits on observed changes.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that personality traits, particularly neuroticism, have a meaningful impact on how people with dementia and caregivers rate their capability to 'live well' at baseline. Over time 'living well' scores for each personality trait group were largely stable. Studies utilizing longer follow-up periods and more appropriate measures of personality are needed to corroborate and extend the findings of the present study.

Breed, age, and social environment are associated with personality traits in dogs

Personality in pets and other domesticated animals is important for their well-being and it can also influence human-animal relationships. Genetic and environmental factors influencing unwanted behavior in dogs are somewhat well known, but the factors influencing dog personality remain understudied. Here we examined environmental and demographic factors associated with seven broad personality traits in a survey of over 11,000 dogs. We utilized linear models and extensive model validation to examine the factors that have the most significant influences on personality and calculated effect sizes to assess the importance of these variables. Breed and age had the strongest associations with dog personality traits. Some environmental factors, especially puppyhood socialization, were also associated with personality. All factors had small effect sizes, highlighting that a lot of variation in personality remains unexplained. Our results indicate that personality traits are complex and strikingly similar in dogs, humans, and other nonhuman animals.

Individual differences and personality traits across situations

BACKGROUND

According to the Big Five theory, personality can be classified into five traits (i.e., extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness), and past research showed that situations impact personality. In the present study, (1) we measured which of these five personality traits changed according to different situations and (2) tested whether the across-situation variability (ASV; i.e., a continuous variable showing how much people change their personality traits according to situations) was significantly connected with specific personality domains, revealing a potential marker of personality disturbance.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

We recruited 80 participants (40 women) to complete the five situation-version (family, work, friends, romantic partner, and hobbies/leisure) of the Big Five Inventory to measure whether personality traits significantly changed across these situations. In addition, we ran a network analysis to reveal how the ASV is related to personality traits.

RESULTS

The findings showed that all traits significantly changed across the situations, except openness, which remained stable. The network analysis revealed that the ASV variable was especially connected with conscientiousness (in romantic partner and family situations).

CONCLUSIONS

Most personality traits were flexible, showing how important it is to consider the role of situations in the study of personality. Openness appeared to be particularly stable and understanding its nature represents a challenge for future studies. Finally, the network analysis demonstrated that the ASV shows specific connections with conscientiousness and might be a potential psychopathology marker.

Examining individual differences in personality trait changes after negative life events

Personality traits can change throughout the entire life span, but people differ in their personality trait changes. To better understand individual differences in personality changes, we examined personal (personality functioning), environmental (environmental changes), and event-related moderators (e.g., perceived event characteristics) of personality trait changes. Therefore, we used a sample of 1069 participants who experienced a negative life event in the last 5 weeks and assessed their personality traits at five measurement occasions over 6 months. Employing preregistered multilevel lasso estimation, we did not find any significant effects. While exploratory analyses generally confirmed this conclusion, they also identified some effects that might being worth to be considered in future research (e.g., perceived impact and perceived social status changes were associated with changes in agreeableness after experiencing a relationship breakup). In total, our moderators explained less than 2% of variance in personality traits. Nonetheless, our study has several important implications for future research on individual differences in personality change. For example, future research should consider personal, environmental, and event-related moderators, use different analytical methods, and rely on highly powered samples to detect very small effects.

Reciprocal relationships between personality traits and psychological well-being

This study used an American sample collected over a period of approximately 2 decades (at 3 time points) to examine the temporal relationships between psychological well-being and personality traits (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience). The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to separate between-person and within-person sources of variation. Between-person correlations were comparable to those of previous studies. New insights were gained at the within-person level. There were reciprocal relationships between psychological well-being and openness and extraversion, suggesting the joint development of plasticity-related traits and well-being over time. The relationships between psychological well-being and conscientiousness and agreeableness were unidirectional, with psychological well-being preceding these traits. Despite a strong between-person association between neuroticism and psychological well-being, the two were not related at the within-person level.

Aging Out of Crime and Personality Development: A Review of the Research Examining the Role of Impulsiveness on Offending in Middle and Late Adulthood

Virtually everything we know about the relationship between impulsivity and offending is confined to adolescence and early adulthood. There is a paucity of research that examines impulsivity and offending in middle and late adulthood. What little is known is covered in this review. There are normative declines in offending, but it remains quite common in middle and late adulthood. This challenges the notion that the majority of offenders age out of crime by middle age. There are also normative declines in impulsivity, consistent with the maturity principle of personality development. While impulsivity is associated with offending (and other externalizing behaviors) in middle and late adulthood, preciously little evidence exists that speaks to whether the declines in impulsivity are causally related to decreases in offending. Various suggestions are offered for future research that can better address this notable void in the literature.

Does intelligence predict development of investment traits from mid to late adolescence? Evidence from a 3-year longitudinal study

INTRODUCTION

Investment theories have claimed reciprocal relations between intelligence and investment traits (i.e., personality traits related to seeking out, and dealing with, cognitive challenges). However, previous research has primarily addressed the effects of investment traits on intellectual development (environmental enrichment hypothesis) and often focused on either childhood or later adulthood. The present study investigated the effects of intelligence on investment traits (environmental success hypothesis) from mid to late adolescence.

METHOD

In a 3-year longitudinal survey (2008-2011) covering four measurement occasions, the predictive effects of both fluid and crystallized intelligence on intraindividual change in both the achievement motive (i.e., hope for success and fear of failure) and need for cognition were examined. Overall, 476 adolescents (t₁ : M_age  = 16.43, SD = 0.55; 51.3% girls) from Germany participated.

RESULTS

Second-order latent growth models indicated that fluid intelligence predicted a steeper growth in hope for success (β = .40), but was unrelated to change in the other investment traits. Crystallized intelligence had no effects on the investment traits under study.

CONCLUSIONS

The results contribute to the research on the bidirectionality of intelligence and investment traits and add to our understanding of personality development from mid to late adolescence. Specifically, they underline the importance of nurturing hope for success especially in individuals with lower intelligence, but also show that support for the environmental success hypothesis seems to be limited to certain investment traits.

Personality Development Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood: The Role of Life Transitions and Self-Concept Clarity

Personality develops across the lifespan, but most development occurs in adolescence and young adulthood. Life transitions to new social roles may be important drivers of mean-level personality development. The present study examined mean-level personality development in adolescence and young adulthood, and the role of the transition to tertiary education and working life therein in a sample of Dutch young people that were followed across 14 years ( N = 497, AgeW1 = 13.03 years). We explored whether young people’s self-concept clarity moderated these associations. Our hypotheses and analytical plan were pre-registered. Findings from Latent Growth Models showed support for maturation in personality across adolescence and young adulthood, but not a maturity dip. Having the role of employee was associated with higher conscientiousness, but no associations were found of the transition to tertiary education and the transition to work with mean-level development of any of the personality traits. Self-concept clarity did not moderate the role of transitions in mean-level personality development. Our findings suggest that socialization effects may not explain associations between life transitions and personality development in adolescence and young adulthood.