Personality Development Beyond the Mean: Do Life Events Shape Personality Variability, Structure, and Ipsative Continuity?

Cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal age changes of personality in middle adulthood and old age

Joshua J Jackson, Emorie D Beck and Richard Lucas

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2021, vol. 76, issue 1, 20-30

Abstract: ObjectivesLife experiences are thought to prompt changes in personality. However, existing studies find few replicable mean-level changes in personality following life events. The focus on mean-level change may obscure other types of personality change that are not routinely studied in the context of life events. These are variability in response, structural, and ipsative change.MethodsThe current proposal examines whether major life events (e.g., divorce and job loss) affect these 3 understudied types of personality trait change using 3 waves of Big Five trait data in a large-scale, representative longitudinal study (German Socioeconomic Panel Study, N = 16,368). Structural equation models compare those who had an event to their prior self and a control group who did not experience the event.ResultsLife events were found to have mostly null or small effects on variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Across 2 types of tests for variability in response, few replications occurred. The only consistent effect across 3 types of change was for mental health events, which served to increase variance in all Big Five traits and increase consistency in ipsative profiles.DiscussionLife events tend not to affect these novel metrics of personality trait change. The one exception of mental health events is consistent with previous literature on mean-level change. Overall, life events do not appear to by major catalysts of personality change, regardless of how change is defined.

Keywords: Consistency; Ipsative; Life events; Longitudinal; Personality development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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