Comprehensive Notes on Personality Stability, Change, and Coherence (LO 5.x)

Mean Level Changes in the Big Five Across the Lifespan

• Age-related mean-level trends (Big Five) across adulthood
  • Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism tend to gradually decline with increasing age until around $50$; Conscientiousness and Agreeableness tend to increase over time. Effects are small in magnitude but consistent across samples (Switzerland, Germany, USA) (Anusic, Lucas, & Donnellan, 2012; Specht, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2011).
  • The most robust mean-level change is a decline in Neuroticism (i.e., increased emotional stability) with age.
  • University years: neuroticism decreases by roughly a half standard deviation, $d = -0.49$ (Robins et al., 2001).
  • Associated changes in affect: less negative affect and more positive affect over time (Vaidya et al., 2002).
  • Adolescence to midlife: less anxiety, distress, and irritability as people move into midlife (McCrae et al., 2002).
  • Emotional stability increases from middle adulthood ($42-46$) to older age ($60-64$) (Allemand, Zimprich, & Hertzog, 2007).
  • Longitudinal study of 2,804 individuals over 23 years: negative affect decreases consistently with age (Charles, Reynolds, & Gatz, 2001).
  • A meta-analysis of $92$ samples: both women and men become more emotionally stable with age; largest changes $22-40$ years (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006).
  • Men who married show above-average increases in emotional stability versus bachelor peers (Mroczek & Spiro, 2003).
  • Overall: most people become less emotionally volatile, less anxious, and less neurotic with maturity—often framed as the maturation process.
• Perceived vs actual change in personality
  • Longitudinal study: university entrants measured on Big Five; 4 years later re-assessed and asked to rate perceived change (Robins et al., 2005).
  • Perceptions of change show moderate correspondence with actual change.
  • Specific mean-level changes (perceived vs actual): Neuroticism and negative affect decline with age; Agreeableness and Conscientiousness increase with age.
  • Magnitude of change (actual) for increases with age: Agreeableness increase ≈ $d = +0.44$; Conscientiousness increase ≈ $d = +0.27$ (Robins et al., 2001).
  • Facets contributing to Conscientiousness increases: Industriousness, impulse control, reliability (Jackson et al., 2009).
  • Additional studies: University students become more agreeable, extraverted, and conscientious from first year to ~2.5 years later (Vaidya et al., 2002); Agreeableness and Conscientiousness increase through early and middle adulthood (Srivastava et al., 2003); Positive affect increases from late teens through early fifties (Charles et al., 2001).
  • Openness changes with age are less robust; some studies report increases, including adolescence to young adulthood (Pullman, Raudsepp, & Allik, 2006) and women-specific effects in a related study (Branje, van Lieshout, & Geris, 2006).
  • Summary by longitudinal researchers: growth toward greater maturity—adolescents become more controlled, socially confident, less angry/alienated (Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2001).
  • Maturity principle (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005).
• Change through therapy and targeted interventions
  • Ralph Piedmont (2001) evaluated an outpatient drug-rehabilitation program; 138 participants assessed on Big Five dispositions.
  • Findings: decreases in Neuroticism; increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (d = $0.38$). Follow-up 15 months later still showed changes, though reduced in magnitude (d = $0.28$).
  • Takeaway: Big Five dispositions can be changeable through therapy; magnitude and maintenance of change vary by individual and context.

Personality Stability and Research: Foundational Concepts and Key Studies

• LO 5.4 overview: Stability over time and its limits
  • Global measures (Big Five) suggest change is possible, but empirical work on lifelong stability is sparse and nuanced.
  • Potential biases against studying change (Helson & Stewart, 1994); language around stability (Block, 1971) can reflect evaluative judgments about stability vs change.
• Self-esteem as a domain of change, from adolescence to adulthood
  • Block & Robbins (1993): self-esteem measured as discrepancy between current self-description and ideal self; assessed ages ~$14$ and $23$.
  • Overall, no mean change in self-esteem across the sample, but gender differences emerged: men ↑ self-esteem by ~$0.2$ SD; women ↓ self-esteem by ~$1.0$ SD.
  • This is an example of group-level personality change where subgroups move in different directions over time.
  • In older adulthood, Liu et al. (2014) linked declines in self-esteem to elevated cortisol in psychologically distressed older adults; increases in self-esteem may improve health.
• Mean Level Stability vs Rank-Order Stability vs Coherence
  • Mean level stability: consistency in average trait levels over time; otherwise, mean-level change occurs (e.g., political orientation shifts in a population).
  • Rank-order stability: stability of individuals’ relative positions within a group over time, assessed via test-retest correlations.
  • Coherence: stability in underlying trait with changing manifest expressions across time or contexts (e.g., dominance at age 8 vs 20; different behaviors but same underlying trait level).
  • Gandhi as a case: despite social upheaval, Gandhi’s core personality remained remarkably stable while outward expressions changed with contexts.
• Concept of personality coherence
  • Coherence combines stability in the underlying trait with change in outward manifestations of that trait over time.
  • Example: Dominance manifests as rough-and-tumble play in childhood but as persuasive leadership in adulthood; both reflect enduring dominance, but expressions differ.
• Velocities and mechanisms of change
  • Some evidence that personality can continue to change in older age (Small et al., 2003; Victoria Longitudinal Study findings): overall mean-level stability high, but with individual differences in change; older age associated with certain direction changes (e.g., increased Neuroticism, increased Agreeableness in women; lower Extraversion with age; higher Education linked to higher Agreeableness).
  • Overall, mean-level stability in the Big Five is high after $50$, but non-trivial changes can occur in older age.

Stability Across Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence: Temperament and Early Stability

• Temperament as early-indicator of stability
  • Rothbart (1981) identified six temperament factors rated by caregivers in infancy: Activity Level (AL), Smiling & Laughter (SL), Fear (FR), Distress to Limitations (DL), Soothability (SO), Duration of Orienting (DO).
  • Cross-time correlations (Table 5.1): stability coefficients across time intervals show positive stability for most traits; higher later in infancy (9–12 months) vs earlier (3–6 months).
  • Example stability values:
    • AL (Activity Level): 3–6 mo: $0.58$; 3–9 mo: $0.48$; 3–12 mo: $0.48$; 6–9 mo: $0.56$; 6–12 mo: $0.60$; 9–12 mo: $0.68$.
    • SO (Soothability): 3–6 mo: $0.30^<em>$; 3–9 mo: $0.37^</em>$; 3–12 mo: $0.41$; 6–9 mo: $0.50$; 6–12 mo: $0.39$; 9–12 mo: $0.29$.
    • DO (Duration of Orienting): 3–6 mo: $0.36^<em>$; 3–9 mo: $0.35^</em>$; 3–12 mo: $0.11$; 6–9 mo: $0.62$; 6–12 mo: $0.34$; 9–12 mo: $0.64$.
  • Notes: Stability tends to be higher for longer intervals between measurements in early infancy, and generally increases as infants mature (Goldsmith & Rothbart, 1991; Rothbart & Hwang, 2005).
  • Table 5.2 (activity level correlations across ages 3, 4, 7) shows cross-time and cross-measure correlations among actometer and judge-based assessments; stability is modest but significant; correlations tend to be higher for same-age measures and decrease as the interval increases.
  • Olweus (1979): aggression stability across childhood shows that stability is higher for short intervals and declines for longer intervals.
• Key takeaways from infancy/childhood stability research
  • Stable individual differences in temperament appear very early in life and can be observed via observers (not just self-report).
  • Stability is moderate across early childhood; it increases with age and with shorter test intervals.
  • Early indicators (e.g., 3-year-old aggression) predict later outcomes (e.g., midlife aggression, delinquency) and help explain continuity across life.

Adulthood: Rank-Order Stability, Mean-Level Stability, and Cross-Study Comparisons

• Rank-order stability across adulthood (three levels of analysis)
  • Across adult samples, Big Five traits show moderate-to-high rank-order stability over time, with average correlations around r ext{(mean)}
    ightarrow 0.65 across traits and intervals (Costa & McCrae, 1994). A large British sample replicated this general pattern (Furnham & Cheng, 2019).
  • Stability coefficients by trait (Table 5.4 excerpts):
  • Neuroticism: across intervals, e.g., 6 months $r = 0.83$; 18 months $r = 0.46$; median around $0.64$ across domains and intervals.
  • Extraversion: median around $0.64$.
  • Openness: median around $0.64$.
  • Agreeableness: median around $0.64$.
  • Finnish longitudinal data show stability ranging from $0.65$ to $0.97$ across five-factor traits over time.
• Mean-level stability in adulthood
  • After about $50$, mean levels of openness, extraversion, neuroticism show little change; agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to rise.
• Individual differences in stability across adult life
  • A set of studies using different data sources (self-, spouse-, peer-reports) show moderate-to-high stability in the Big Five: stability coefficients from spouse ratings: neuroticism $+0.83$; extraversion $+0.77$; openness $+0.80$ (Costa & McCrae, 1988).
  • Peer ratings: five-factor stability across a 7-year interval: coefficients ranged roughly from $+0.63$ to $+0.81$ (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
  • Self-esteem stability: large meta-analysis (Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2003) across 50 studies, stability correlations in the $0.50s$ to $0.70s$.
• Personality coherence, mean level stability, and life outcomes
  • Coherence in adulthood: early personality measures predict socially relevant outcomes later (e.g., neuroticism and impulsivity predicting marital dissatisfaction, divorce; early self-control predicting later occupational attainment; early aggression predicting later life outcomes).
  • Mean-level stability contrasts with change: as a general rule, Big Five shows stable rank-order but mean-level changes occur with age across the population.

Personality and Real-World Outcomes (Coherence and Health/Longevity)

• Health and longevity outcomes linked to personality
  • Longevity predictors: high conscientiousness, high positive affectivity (extraversion), low hostility, and low neuroticism predict longer life. Conscientiousness and emotional stability are the strongest predictors of longevity (Jokela et al., 2020).
  • Mechanisms linking personality to health across the lifespan:
  • Conscientious individuals engage in health-promoting behaviors (diet, exercise) and avoid harmful behaviors (smoking).
    • Example: Conscientious children end up smoking less and drinking less alcohol 40 years later (Hampson et al., 2006).
    • Age 17 conscientiousness predicts avoidance of nicotine/alcohol and illegal drug use 3 years later (Elkins et al., 2006).
  • Extraversion supports larger social networks and social support, buffering health risks.
  • Low hostility (a component of Neuroticism) reduces stress on cardiovascular systems; high Neuroticism linked to poorer health behaviors and retirement challenges, and potential mortality risk (Mroczek et al., 2009).
  • Overall, conscientiousness and emotional stability robustly predict longevity and healthier aging trajectories.
• Life outcomes tied to personality coherence
  • Marital stability, satisfaction, and divorce: Kelly & Conley (1987) longitudinal study of couples beginning in the 1930s; outcomes tracked to the 1980s.
  • Baseline predictors: husbands’ Neuroticism; husbands’ lack of impulse control; wives’ Neuroticism. These three dimensions account for more than half of predictable variance in divorce outcomes.
  • Couples with stable, satisfying marriages had Neuroticism about half a standard deviation lower than couples who divorced.
• Other socially relevant outcomes linked to early traits
  • Alcoholism, drug use, and emotional disturbance: high Neuroticism and impulsivity (low impulse control) in early life predict later alcoholism and emotional disturbances; high impulsivity linked to higher risk-taking and substance use in mid-life (Cooper et al., 2003; Hampson et al., 2001; Markey, Markey, & Tinsley, 2003; Ruchkin et al., 2002).
  • Education and academic achievement: impulsivity in adolescence negatively predicts academic achievement outcomes in early adulthood; self-control at age 18 predicts higher occupational attainment and financial security at age 26 (Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2003).
  • Executive work outcomes: high occupational status at age 26 associated with greater happiness, self-confidence, and lower anxiety since age 18; work satisfaction also linked to reduced anxiety and stress in the transition to adulthood.
• Volitional personality change: Can people intentionally change their personalities?
  • Hudson & Fraley (2015): two experiments with undergraduates; participants set intentions to change Big Five traits and received coaching with daily goals; those who set practical goals tended to show actual increases in targeted traits over 16 weeks (self-reports and daily behaviors).
  • Implications: self-improvement may be possible to some extent for some traits, but the magnitude and durability of changes vary by individual and trait. Some studies suggest that, without clinical or experimental intervention, volitional personality change can be difficult for the average person (Baranski et al., 2020).

Cohort and Cultural Influences on Personality Change

• Cohort effects on personality
  • Twenge (2000, 2001a, 2001b) argues that sociocultural shifts shape mean-level traits, e.g., women’s assertiveness/dominance changing across cohorts: high after 1930s, dip in 1950s–1960s, rise again 1968–1993 (California Psychological Inventory Dominance scale: women up by about $+0.31$ SD from 1968 to 1993).
  • Men show fewer cohort changes in assertiveness/dominance.
  • Some researchers criticize: some evidence for narcissism increases across cohorts (Twenge et al., 2008); others find little or no epidemic (Donnellan et al., 2009).
• Sociocultural conditions and narcissism
  • West vs East Germany: Vater, Moritz, & Roepke (2018) found higher Grandiose Narcissism in West German adults who grew up in West Germany pre-reunification vs East Germany; no cohort difference for those entering school after reunification.
  • China: Cai, Kwan, & Sedikides (2012) reported rising individualism associated with higher narcissism; higher SES and urban dwellers displayed higher narcissism than those of lower SES and rural areas.
• Volitional change and social-context factors
  • People actively attempt to change personality traits to align with societal expectations (Baranski et al., 2021; Hudson & Fraley, 2015).
  • Experimental evidence suggests that intentional, goal-driven change can yield modest trait gains, especially with structured coaching and daily goal setting; long-term durability remains a question.

Three Levels of Analysis for Personality Change (LO 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5)

• Population level: general trends applicable to the whole population (e.g., population-wide mean changes across decades).
• Group differences level: variations between groups (e.g., gender, culture, ethnicity); e.g., sex differences in certain traits across adolescence and adulthood, cultural differences in externalizing/internalizing tendencies (Canada: European Canadian vs Asian Canadian differences in Extraversion and Antagonism).
• Individual differences level: how traits predict and relate to individual life outcomes; ability to predict midlife trajectories, risk for psychopathology, or change across time for a given person.
• Summary: There are three levels of analysis for stability and change; different questions require different levels of aggregation and inference.

Close Looks: Case Studies and Illustrative Examples

• Gandhi: holistic portrait of stable core personality across tumultuous social change; daily activities reflect personal stability (e.g., spinning thread, simple lifestyle) while public roles evolve.
• Bullies and their victims across development (Olweus; subsequent studies): early aggressors show continuity into delinquency/criminality; victims tend to show anxiety and social problems.
• Temper tantrums in childhood and later adult outcomes (Caspi et al., 1987; Caspi & Herbener, 1990): early temperamental factors predict later occupational attainment, stability, and relationship outcomes; partner similarity as a predictor of stability in adulthood (Caspi & Herbener, 1990).
• Day-to-day self-esteem fluctuations (Kernis et al., 1991, 1992): self-esteem variability interacts with life stress to predict depression; level and variability are independent constructs that together predict important life outcomes.

Key Takeaways and Practical Implications

• Stability is robust but not immutable
  • Rank-order stability: traits tend to stay in the same relative position over time (moderate-to-high across the lifespan; mean correlations around $0.65$ across adult samples).
  • Mean-level stability: average trait levels change slowly, with age; stable after $50$ for several traits, but some trends (e.g., increased Conscientiousness, Agreeableness; decreased Neuroticism) persist.
  • Coherence: the same underlying trait can manifest differently over time; changes in behavior can occur without changes in the underlying trait level.
• Predictive power of personality
  • Early personality traits predict later life outcomes (education, occupation, health, relationships, longevity).
  • Impulsivity and self-control in adolescence strongly predict later life outcomes (education, career attainment, health behaviors).
• Life events and environment matter
  • Major life events and social context (marriage, parenthood, career success, retirement) interact with stable dispositions to shape normative changes and path-dependent outcomes.
• Practical considerations for studying personality change
  • Research on change remains relatively sparse; cross-sectional findings can be confounded by cohort effects; long-term longitudinal designs are essential to disentangle age-related change from cohort differences.
  • It is important to distinguish level vs variability in self-esteem and other traits when predicting outcomes such as depression or health.

Conceptual and Practical Questions you should be able to answer (Concept Checks)

• Explain the three forms of personality stability: rank-order stability, mean-level stability, and personality coherence; provide examples for each.
• Describe the three levels of analysis (population, group differences, individual differences) and give an example of a question suitable for each level.
• Define personality coherence and provide an example showing how a trait can remain stable while its behavioral manifestations change across the lifespan.
• Summarize the evidence for mean-level stability in adulthood and the typical direction of mean-level changes across major traits.
• Discuss the idea of volitional personality change and the conditions under which intentional changes may occur and persist.
• Explain how sociocultural and cohort effects can shape personality in ways that mimic or obscure true developmental change.
• Outline how temperament in infancy relates to later personality and life outcomes, including stability patterns and predictive validity across development.
• Describe how personality relates to health, longevity, marital outcomes, and risk for substance use or emotional disturbances across the lifespan.
• Summarize the main empirical findings on stability and change from infancy to old age, including notable meta-analytic results and representative longitudinal studies.

Notes on Figures, Tables, and Key Figures to Review

• Figure 5.2: Mean-level stability across five traits; small age-related trends: decline in Openness, Extraversion, Neuroticism; rise in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness; notable stability after $50$.
• Figure 5.3: Autonomy changes in male managerial candidates; both groups (with and without postsecondary education) tend to become more autonomous with age, despite variations in ambition.
• Table 5.1: Stability correlations for temperament scales in infancy (Activity Level, Smiling, Fear, Distress to Limitations, Soothability, Duration of Orienting) across multiple month intervals; notable high stability for AL and SL; weaker stability for FR and DO in early intervals.
• Table 5.2: Intercorrelations among activity measures across ages 3, 4, and 7; cross-measure validity and stability patterns; longer time gaps reduce stability coefficients.
• Table 5.4: Stability Coefficients for Selected Personality Scales in Adult Samples; Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness show median stability around $0.64$ across various scales and intervals; ranges often above $0.60$, with some higher values (e.g., Neuroticism $0.83$ at short intervals).
• Figure 5.5: Stability of personality as a function of spouse similarity; highly similar couples show the highest stability; low similarity shows greater change; Caspi & Herbener (1990).
• A Closer Look: Various case studies (Gandhi; bullies and victims; temper tantrums) illustrating how early dispositions map onto later life outcomes and how coherence can present in real life.

Key References to Consult for Each Point

• Longitudinal and meta-analytic syntheses:
  • Anusic, Lucas, & Donnellan (2012); Specht, Egloff, & Schmukle (2011)
  • Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer (2006)
  • Robins et al. (2001); Vaidya et al. (2002); McCrae et al. (2002); Allemand, Zimprich, & Hertzog (2007)
  • Costa & McCrae (1994); Robins et al. (2001); Ludtke, Trautwein, & Husemann (2009)
  • Donner et al. (2003); Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins (2003)
• Specific trait-focused and life-outcome studies:
  • Mroczek & Spiro (2003); Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner (2005)
  • Piedmont (2001); Hudson & Fraley (2015); Baranski et al. (2020)
  • Caspi & Herbener (1990); Caspi et al. (1987); Bonanno et al. (2002)
  • Hampson et al. (2006); Elkins et al. (2006); Sutin et al. (2011)
  • Olweus (1979); Brody (1996); Connolly & O’Moore (2003)
• Sociocultural and cohort work on narcissism and related traits:
  • Twenge (2000, 2001a, 2001b); Twenge, Konrath, et al. (2008); Donnellan et al. (2009)
  • Vater, Moritz, & Roepke (2018); Cai, Kwan, & Sedikides (2012)
• Temperament and infancy stability:
  • Rothbart (1981, 1986); Rothbart & Hwang (2005)
  • Goldsmith & Rothbart (1991); Hartley et al. (2019) (closing note on self-perceived burden and health)
• Health and longevity links:
  • Jokela et al. (2020); Ozer & Benet-Martinez (2006); Hampston et al. (2006); Elkins et al. (2006); Mroczek et al. (2009); Caspi et al. (1987)
• Day-to-day self-esteem and variability:
  • Kernis, Grannemann, & Mathis (1991); Kernis, Grannemann, & Barclay (1992); Ryan & Deci (2000)

Summary Takeaway

• Personality stability is robust across the lifespan, especially in terms of rank-order stability; mean-level changes occur with age, toward increased maturity (higher Agreeableness, Conscientiousness; lower Neuroticism) and can be influenced by life events and sociocultural contexts.
• Personality coherence explains how trait-level stability can coexist with changing outward behaviors and life outcomes.
• There is evidence that personality can change, including through therapy and volitional efforts, but the degree and durability of such change vary considerably among individuals and traits.
• Early temperament and temperament stability relate to later personality and important life outcomes, with stability typically strongest over shorter intervals and decreasing over longer periods.
• Across the lifespan, personality is a meaningful predictor of health, longevity, education, career success, and marital outcomes, and these links are often mediated by specific trait profiles (e.g., high Conscientiousness and low Neuroticism).