Trait Approach: Personality Stability and Change

Assumptions of trait approach: Stable over time

People who are friendly in high school tend to be friendly in college, and later in life

• doesn’t mean absolutely no change in trait, just means that there is consistency

History of personality and changes

• William James: in most of us, by 30, the character has set like plaster and will never soften again

• View persisted for 100 years

• Since 1990’s, hundreds of studies have shown otherwise

Temperament

• roots of personality (visible by 3-6 months)

• Partially biologically based

• Individual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

• Often studied among infants, children, and adolescents

• 3 primary dimensions

Personality

• partially biologically based

• Individual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

• Often studied among adolescents, adults, older adults

• 5 primary dimensions

Temperament —> personality

• negative emotionality —> neuroticism

• Positive emotionality —> extraversion, agreeableness, openness

• Effortful control —> conscientiousness

Negative emotionality

Fear, frustration, depression, aggression

Positive emotionality

Affiliation, positive affect, high intensity pleasure, perceptual sensitivity

Effortful control

Inhibitory control, activation control, attention control

Personality development

• rank order stability

• Cumulative continuity principle

• Mean level change

• Maturity principle

Rank order stability

The degree to which the relative ordering of individuals on a given trait is consistent over time

• basically a trait is consistent over time

Cumulative continuity principle

Rank order stability increases with age

• traits change slower/less as we age

• Graphs look at overall stability of trait

• Accounts for level of trait over time

Mean level change

The average degree and direction of change on a given trait with age

• These graphs accounts for curvatures, change over time

Maturity principle

On average, people become better equipped to deal with the demands of life as they acquire experience and skills

Life experiences that affect the development of our personality

• early trauma

• Parenting practices and family

• Resources (ex. Socioeconomic)

• Physical characteristics (ex. Skin color, height)

• Life events (ex. Getting married)

• Health

Social investment theory (Important slide)

Certain situations in your life in which you are forced to develop new traits