Personality Stability, Development, & Change 1

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Set like a plaster? - The Plaster Hypothesis

Personality is entierly determined through biology, compleate by age 30 and unchangable. Traits become resistant to change and uninfluenced in late life. 

Persistent plasticity

personality develops and changes throughout the lifespan.

Cross-Sectional data

Different people of different ages surveyed at the same time . Cheap and fast, but potentially biased by cohort effect (influence of a shared historical and social context).

Longitudinal Data

same people being surveyed at different times over the years. Tracks real within-person change, but it’s expensive and slow. 

Absolute stability/mean-level stability

consistency in the level or amount of a personality attribute over time. 

Differential stability/ rank-order stability

consistency in the rank-order of personality across two it more measurement occasions over time.

Homotypic stability

A trait manifests the same way across the lifespan

Heretotypic stability

The trait is the same but it manifests differently across different life stages. 

eg. agression. 

Mean-level change

standardized mean-level difference across time or age groups -reflects the degree to which trait levels decrease or increase among all people in a population (on average)

The disruption hypothesis

recurrent pattern in adolescence, temporary dip in socially relevant trait & increase in more resistant, neurotic and impulsive traits. 

the maturity principle

occuring in early adulthood. Increase in grater psychological maturity traits. 

Social Investment theory

Personality maturation as a response to requirements of age-graded social roles.

Old age?

Not many changes, not much data.

decreases in openness, a, e, c. because of lack of control about environment.

Paradox of Ageing

Despite objective losses, older people often show greater well-being than younger people due to wiser goal pursuit and better emotional self-regulation. 

Mechanisms of Stability

genetics - physical and stable environmental factors.

person-environment-transactions (you will shape your environment to your traits based on the feedback you receive)

Mechanisms of change

hormonal changes, physical development, social and cultural norms, social role demands, formative experiences, live events 

The impact of life events 

robust & specific, but relatively small:

• Entering a new relationship -> more Conscientiousness, more life satisfaction

• Marriage -> lower Openness, more life satisfaction

• Childbirth -> lower Extraversion

• First job -> more Conscientiousness, more self-esteem, more life satisfaction

• Unemployment -> less Neuroticism, less Conscientiousness

gain- based more impactful than loss-basesed

work life > love life