Journal Article10.1177/107319110000700405
Personality at midlife: stability, intrinsic maturation, and response to life events.
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TL;DR: Life events in general showed very little influence on the levels of personality traits, although some effects were seen for changes in job and marital status that warrant further research.
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Abstract: Although developmental theories and popular accounts suggest that midlife is a time of turmoil and change, longitudinal studies of personality traits have generally found stability of rank order and little or no change in mean levels. Using data from 2,274 men and women in their 40s retested after 6 to 9 years, the present study examined two hypotheses: (a) that retest correlations should be no higher than about .60 and (b) that there should be small decreases in Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness, and small increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The study also explored the effects of recalled life events on subsequent personality scores. Results did not support the first hypothesis; uncorrected retest correlations uniformly exceeded .60. This was true for all personality traits, including facets of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness not previously included in longitudinal studies. The hypothesized decreases in Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness were found, but Conscientiousness showed a small decrease instead of the predicted increase. Life events in general showed very little influence on the levels of personality traits, although some effects were seen for changes in job and marital status that warrant further research.
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TL;DR: Analysis of changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood shows that personality changes throughout the life span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is partly attributable to social demands and experiences.
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The Big Five Personality Traits and the Life Course: A 45-Year Longitudinal Study
Stephen Soldz,George E. Vaillant +1 more
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