1. Personality Stability, Development, and Change
Chapter 7
Personality Stability, Development, and Change
Lecture Slides created by
Tera D. Letzring
Idaho State University
© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

2. © 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Objectives
Discuss the stability of personality, including the causes of stability
Discuss the development of personality
Discuss intentional personality change
Discuss the principles of personality continuity and change
© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

3. Personality Stability
Rank-order consistency
Evidence
r = .60–.90 for 10-year span
Childhood personality predicts adult behavior
Personality disorders are stable
Rank-order consistency definition: people tend to maintain the ways in which they are different from other people the same age
Childhood personality predicts adult behavior: adaptable predicts being cheerful and intellectually curious; impulsive predicts talking more and louder; inhibited predicts longer time to find a stable romantic partner and a first job
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4. Personality Stability
Causes
Temperament is affected by genetics
Positive emotionality, negative emotionality, effortful control
Heterotypic continuity
Physical and environmental factors
Birth order: debatable, small effect sizes
Temperament definition: personality in young children
Heterotypic continuity definition: effects of fundamental temperamental tendencies change with age, but temperament and personality stay the same; behaviors associated with traits change
Physical factors: gender, height, attractiveness, and so on
Environmental factors: rich versus poor, living in the city versus the country, family size
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5. Personality Stability
Causes
Early experience: stress
Person-environment transactions: active, reactive, evocative
Cumulative continuity principle
Environment also becomes more stable as we age
Psychological maturity
Person-environment transactions definition: people tend to respond to, seek out, and create environments that are compatible with, and may magnify, their personality traits
Active: seek out compatible environments and avoid incompatible ones
Reactive: people respond differently to the same situation
Evocative: the person changes the situation
Cumulative continuity principle definition: individual differences in personality become more consistent as one gets older
Psychological maturity: contributes to stability; includes self-control, interpersonal sensitivity, and emotional stability
Activities: Sources of Stability in Your Life; Identifying Person-Environment Transactions
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6. Personality Development
Development and stability can go together
Cross-sectional studies: mean-level changes on the Big Five
Personality development definition: change in the mean level of a personality trait over time
Development and stability can go together: rank-order stability and mean-level change can occur at the same time.
Cross-sectional studies definition: surveys of people at different ages
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7. Mean Scores on Big Five Personality Traits Between Ages 10 and 60
Transaction
Process
Examples
Active person- environment transaction
Person seeks out compatible environments and avoids incompatible ones
Aggressive person goes to bar where fights are frequent; introvert avoids social gatherings
Reactive person- environment transaction
Different people respond differently to the same situation
Extravert finds party enjoyable; introvert finds same party unbearable
Evocative person- environment transaction
Aspects of an individual’s personality leads to behavior that changes the situations he or she experiences
Conscientious person tells group “it’s time to get to work”; disagreeable person starts argument over minor matter
Figure 7.1 on p. 229
This is from cross-sectional data.
Activity: Personality Development of the Big Five Traits
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8. Personality Development
Cohort effects: may contribute to age differences in cross-sectional studies
Longitudinal studies
Similar findings to cross-sectional studies
People become more socially dominant, agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable; and self-esteem (up to age 50) and ego development increase
Confirms the maturity principle
Cohort effect definition: People of different ages may differ because they grew up in different social environments.
Longitudinal studies definition: the same people are repeatedly measured over the years; a better method for studying development
Ego development definition: ability to deal well with the social and physical world and to think for oneself when making moral decisions
Maturity principle definition: Traits needed to effectively perform adult roles increase with age, especially conscientiousness and emotional stability.
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9. Personality Development
Findings refer to mean levels of traits
Not everyone changes in the same way
Personality continues to change, even in old age
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10. Personality Development
Causes
Physical development and changes in strength
Increases in intelligence and linguistic abilities
Hormone-level changes
Changes in social roles and responsibilities
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11. Personality Development
The social clock: places pressure on people to accomplish certain things by certain ages
Women who followed either the feminine or masculine social clock reported higher contentment and satisfaction than women who followed neither
The social clock definition: systematic changes in the demands that are made on a person over the years
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12. Personality Development
Narrative identity
Three aspects: actor, agent, author
How a person views his or her life, and how its trajectory fits into goals and dreams
Themes differ
Related to personality: conscientiousness and agency
We develop how we see ourselves and our sense of who we are over time
Actor: develop social skills, traits, and roles that one needs to take a place in society
Agent: a person guided by goals and values; plan for the future to align with desired outcomes
Author: to be able to tell your life story
Themes differ: luck, success, tragedy; related to culture
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13. Personality Development
Goals across the life span
When younger: preparation for the future
When older (70+): things that are emotionally meaningful
Related to breadth of perspective about time
Emotionally meaningful: family, regulation of emotional experience
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Personality Change
Desire for change is typical, and usually in the socially desirable direction
Reason for wanting change: make life better
Four potential methods of change
In relation to intentional changes
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Personality Change
Psychotherapy and psychiatric drugs: can produce long-term behavior change
General interventions: usually aimed at important outcomes
Usually aimed at important outcomes such as completing education, decreasing criminal behavior, and improving prospects for employment
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Personality Change
Targeted interventions: address certain personality traits
Increasing self-control: relaxation, learning to think differently about temptations and frustrations, mindfulness meditation, set realistic goals that are compatible with personal values
Targeted intervention examples: practice inductive reasoning and working on puzzles increased openness; writing self-affirmations increased tolerance for stress and decreased defensiveness
Activities: Increasing Self-Control and Compassion with Mindfulness Meditation; Increasing Self-control with Goal Setting
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Personality Change
Behaviors and life experiences
Positive: exercise, starting college or a job, beginning a serious relationship
Negative: trying drugs, onset of chronic disease
Becoming unemployed
Negative life events
Travel
Military training
Exercise: more physical activity in mid-life predicts more stable personality in old age (less of the typical decrease in conscientiousness, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness)
Started college: related to decreased self-esteem, but it rebounds quickly and even increases
Starting a job or a serious relationship: related to increased conscientiousness
Trying drugs: increased neuroticism
Onset of chronic disease: increased neuroticism and conscientiousness
Becoming unemployed: decreased in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness; but rebounded when a new job was found
Negative life events: increased neuroticism, but also more likely for those high in neuroticism; having a little adversity seems to be good, but too much is harmful
Travel: increased confidence, social skills, self-esteem, openness, agreeableness, creativity; decreased neuroticism
Military training: increased in agreeableness, but not as much as those who had chosen to perform community service
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Personality Change
Obstacles to change
Not seeing a reason for change
Takes effort
Blaming negative experiences and failures on external forces
People like consistency and predictability
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19. © 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Personality Change
Overcoming obstacles to change
Figure 7.7 on p. 249
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20. Principles of Personality Continuity and Change
“Personality is characterized by stability over the lifespan, and also by significant change” (p. 250).
Cumulative continuity
Maturity
Plasticity
Role continuity
Cumulative continuity and maturity: discussed earlier in this chapter
Plasticity: Personality can change at any time.
Role continuity: Taking on roles consistent with one’s personality can help explain stability.
Psychological development
See Table 7.3 on p. 250.
© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

21. Principles of Personality Continuity and Change
Identity development
Social investment
Corresponsive
Identity development: People get a sense of who they are and then try to be consistent with it.
Social investment: Connections to social structures and institutions, which changes with age, can influence psychological development.
Corresponsive: Life experiences can magnify traits that already exist.
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22. Personality Change: Both Good and Bad
Instability and inconsistency can cause problems
Most change is adaptive but slow
Who do you want to be, and what can you do to make this happen?
Instability and inconsistency can cause problems with relationships, how one feels about the self, and long-term goal setting.
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Clicker Question #1
Research has shown that
it is possible to intentionally change personality, such as make someone more self-controlled.
personality does not change after about age 50.
longitudinal studies reveal similar patterns of development as have been found in cross-sectional studies.
one principle is sufficient to explain personality change.
Correct answer: a
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24. © 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Clicker Question #2
Personality stability
is only affected by genetics.
increases as people get older.
is so low that adult behavior cannot be predicted by childhood personality.
is certainly not affected by birth order.
Correct answer: b, and point out that this is called the cumulative continuity principle
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25. © 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Clicker Question #3
Which of the following statements about personality development is true?
Personality changes very little after age 30.
Rank-order stability tends to be high.
The mean levels of traits change over time.
Both b and c are correct.
Correct answer: d, and reinforce the idea that change can be looked at in different ways and the meaning of each
© 2016 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.