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Classically, the definitional existence of personal-
ity and the conceptual foundation of personality
traits in particular rested on the existence of rela-
tively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors (Roberts, 2009). Longitudinal and devel-
opmental research over the last two decades has re-
affirmed the existence of these relatively enduring
patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, while
at the same time showing indisputable evidence
that personality traits also change. This body of re-
search has led to the necessity of changing our def-
inition of personality traits. Specifically, we now de-
fine personality traits as the relatively automatic
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that arise in re-
sponse to environmental stimuli. These patterns of
automatic responses are relatively enduring across
time when people are confronted with isomorphic
environmental conditions. Finally, these automatic
patterns can be changed through relatively endur-
ing environmental or intrapsychic presses that con-
tradict given patterns of thought, feeling, and be-
havior.
This definition of personality traits is explicitly
different than standard deviations for several rea-
sons, but most importantly because of the inclusion
of the idea that personality traits change. What has
changed over the last few decades that would ne-
cessitate such a definitional refinement? Over the
last few decades, research that examines multiple
indices of continuity and change has shown that
personality traits are consistent over time, but they
also change throughout adulthood (e.g., Mroczek &
Spiro, 2003; Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006;
Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2011; Srivastava, John,
Gosling, & Porter, 2003). We are just now integrating
this empirical edifice into our theoretical and con-
ceptual models. Therefore, in this paper we provide
an overview of the evidence for personality trait
continuity and change and some of the possible
Personality Trait Development in Adulthood: Patterns and Implications1)
Brent W. ROBERTS Yusuke TAKAHASHIUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Kyoto University
Recent longitudinal and cross-sectional aging research has shown that personality traits are both consistent
over time and yet change systematically in adulthood. In this paper, we review the evidence for personality trait
continuity, mean-level change in personality traits, as well as individual differences in change across the life
span. We then discuss several reasons for why personality would continue to change in adulthood and the im-
plications of those changes for human capital and social policy.
Key words: personality traits, personality development, adulthood, continuity, change
2011
2011 20 1110
1) This research was supported by grants R01 AG21178
and R01 AG1846 from the National Institute of Aging.
-
reasons for these changes. We also touch upon
some of the practical and theoretical implications
of these overall changes in personality traits.
Definitions of Personality
Continuity and Change
One reason for the confusion over personality
continuity and change is that researchers fail to
clarify what they mean when they describe person-
ality as consistent or changeable. Part of the diffi-
culty arises from the multiple ways to track conti-
nuity and change, such as rank-order consistency,
mean-level change, structural consistency, and indi-
vidual differences in change. A complete under-
standing of personality continuity and change can
only come from a thorough examination of multi-
ple indices of continuity and change as they are
often independent of one another and therefore
provide different answers to the question, Do per-
sonality traits change? (Roberts, Wood, & Caspi,
2008).
In this paper, we review rank-order consistency,
mean-level change, and individual differences in
change because these indices reflect the most di-
rect indicators of continuity and change. Rank-
order consistency refers to the maintenance of rank
on a trait relative to others in a sample or popula-
tion. Mean-level change refers to gains and/or
losses in specific personality traits over a pre-speci-
fied period of time and age for a population of in-
dividuals. Individual differences in change reflect
deviations from these overall patterns of mean-level
change. That is, some people will change much
more or less than the average patterns of increase
or decrease.
Rank-Order Consistency/Change
Despite widely differing views on the meaning of
rank-order stability, researchers have been finding
the same two findings since the earliest review of
rank-order consistency (i.e., Crook, 1941). Personal-
ity traits demonstrate modest to high rank-order
consistency (e.g, correlations between .4 and .6)
over reasonably long periods of time (e.g., 4 to 10
years) and the longer one tracks rank-order consis-
tency, the lower it gets (e.g., Fraley & Roberts, 2005),
with the evidence zeroing in on a long-term level of
about .2 over 40 years. Five meta-analyses on the
topic have come to similar conclusions (Ardelt,
2000; Bazana & Stelmack, 2004; Ferguson, 2010;
Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000; Schuerger, Zarrella, &
Hotz, 1989).
The findings of these meta-analyses on the rank-
order consistency of personality traits provide a
very clear picture. Across hundreds of studies, test-
retest correlations over time for personality are
moderate in magnitude, even from childhood to
early adulthood. Furthermore, rank-order consis-
tency increases as people age and then reaches a
plateau around .70 between ages 50 and 70. Per-
sonality traits demonstrate a clear pattern of in-
creasing continuity across the life course.
In terms of the overall levels of test-retest consis-
tency, personality psychologists can find solace in
the fact that the magnitude of rank-order consis-
tency, although not high enough to argue for ab-
solute stability, is still remarkably high. The only psy-
chological constructs more consistent than person-
ality traits are measures of cognitive ability (Conley,
1984; Schuerger, Tait, & Tavernelli, 1982) and voca-
tional interests are just about equal in their consis-
tency (Low, Yoon, Roberts, & Rounds, 2005). Sec-
ond, the level of continuity in childhood and ado-
lescence is much higher than originally expected
especially after age three. Although childhood char-
acter is by no means fate, there are striking conti-
2 20 1
-
nuities that point to the importance of childhood
temperament and the effects of cumulative conti-
nuity from childhood through adulthood (Moffitt,
Arseneault, Belsky, Dickson, Hancox, Harrington, &
Caspi, 2011).
One of the most conspicuous aspects of the in-
crease in rank-order consistency is the fact that it is
linear. Given developmental depictions of adoles-
cence and young adulthood, one would expect to
see marked decreases in rank-order consistency in
these age periods, especially if environmental
changes result in a drastic reconstruction of ones
personality. For example, adolescence is often char-
acterized as a time of psychological, if not social tu-
mult (Conger & Donnellan, 2007). If dynamic and
difficult life experiences translate one-to-one into
personality trait change, then we would expect a
marked decrease in continuity during these periods
of the life course. Despite these dramatic psycho-
logical and demographic shifts, personality consis-
tency marches in a linear fashion towards its peak
from childhood through old age. This implies that
the relationship between life experiences and per-
sonality trait development is neither simple nor di-
rect.
Mean-Level Changes in
Personality Traits
Complementing the data showing an increase in
continuity is the finding that personality traits show
reliable mean-level changes well into adulthood.
Specifically, cross-sectional research has shown that
middle-aged individuals tend to score higher than
young adults on agreeableness and conscientious-
ness and lower on extraversion, neuroticism, and
openness (Soto et al., 2011; Srivastava et al., 2003).
Moreover, within middle age, 60-year old partici-
pants scored higher than 40-year old participants
on most dimensions. The fact that these findings
continue to be replicated across several decades
(e.g., Soto et al., 2011) provides strong evidence
against the argument that age differences in per-
sonality traits are due to cohort effects.
Longitudinal studies, mostly of western cultures,
have found strikingly similar results. Changes in
mean-levels of personality traits were examined in a
meta-analysis of 92 longitudinal studies covering
the life course from age 10 to 101 (Roberts, Walton,
et al., 2006). Like the cross-sectional studies, signifi-
cant mean-level change in all trait domains was
found at some point in the life course and statisti-
cally significant change in 75% of personality traits
in middle (age 40 to 60) and old age (age 60).
Clearly, personality traits continue to develop in
adulthood.
Several important conclusions about personality
development can be drawn from the studies of
mean-level change in personality traits. First, most
mean-level personality trait change occurs between
the ages of 20 and 40. This contradicts the widely
held perspective that the most interesting years for
studying personality development are either early
or late in life. In contrast, young adulthood appears
to be the most important period for mean-level per-
sonality trait change. We believe that this finding
opens a new area of focus in developmental sci-
ence as the causes and mechanisms responsible for
personality trait change in young adulthood have
received little empirical or theoretical attention.
Second, personality traits continue to change,
even in old age. One of the precepts of a life span
orientation is that humans are open systems (e.g.,
Baltes & Nesselroade, 1973). That is, people retain
the capacity to change at all ages. The changes in
personality traits in middle and old age are by no
means dramatic, but nonetheless they show that the
3Personality Trait Development in Adulthood
-
life span orientation applies to personality traits and
that personality is not set like plaster at any point in
the life course.
Third, time has a positive effect on personality
trait change. Studies that follow people for a longer
period of time show larger mean-level changes
(Roberts, Walton, et al., 2006). The positive associa-
tion between time and mean-level change is impor-
tant for theoretical models of human nature. A com-
mon assumption is that personality traits act like
metabolic set points. People may stray briefly from
their biological propensity, but they will then tend
to drift back to their genetically driven set point
(see Kandler, Bleidorn, Riemann, Spinath, Thiel, &
Angleitner, 2010 for a review). Under these types of
models, one would expect to find a negative or null
association between time and mean-level change
because any change will represent short-term fluc-
tuations that disappear as people return to their bi-
ologically driven set point. However, time is posi-
tively associated with personality trait change,
which indicates that a strong set-point model does
not apply to personality trait development. That is,
when people change they tend to retain the
changes in personality traits for the remainder of
their lives.
Fourth, the direction of change is clearly in the
positive direction. People become more confident,
warm, responsible, and calm with age, or what
some have described as socially mature (Roberts &
Wood, 2006). Social maturity is equated with the ca-
pacity to become a productive and involved con-
tributor to society. Accordingly, most people do be-
come more socially mature with age, and those
who develop the cardinal traits of psychological
maturity earliest are more effective in their relation-
ships and work, and lead healthier and longer lives
(Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007).
The recent research on mean-level personality
trait change has mapped out the normative trends
in personality trait development and has led to sev-
eral surprises. Personality traits change more in
young adulthood than another other period of the
life course and continue to change in old age.
Moreover, most of the change is positive. These find-
ings motivate a new generation of questions con-
cerning why personality traits change more in
young adulthood than other periods of the life
course, and what the implications of the mostly pos-
itive trend in personality trait change might be. Of
course, one of the realities of any sweeping gener-
alization is that it does not apply to all people
much of this research needs to be replicated in
non-Western cultures before firm conclusions are
drawn. Moreover, some people fail to conform to
the general trends by either not changing at all,
being more accelerated in their change patterns
with time, or changing in ways that contradict nor-
mative trends. These deviations are captured with
the concept of individual differences in personality
trait change.
Individual Differences in Personality
Trait Change in Adulthood
The concept of individual differences in change,
a major tenet of lifespan developmental theory
(Baltes & Nesselroade, 1973), refers to the gains or
losses (or lack of) in absolute levels of a personal-
ity trait that each individual experiences over time.
These are changes that deviate from the population
mean-level pattern of change. This perspective
holds that personality change (and stability) is an
individual differences variable and a complete un-
derstanding of personality development is only pos-
sible if individual differences in personality trait
change are examined alongside more traditional in-
4 20 1
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dices of development.
The key empirical hurdle that needs to be ad-
dressed is whether individual differences in change
are real or simply represent error in measurement
(Watson, 2004). This has drawn many personality
development researchers toward techniques to
gauge the amount and pattern of change over time,
such as the Reliable Change Index (Roberts, Caspi,
& Moffitt, 2001) or the variance in slopes from
growth models (Allemand, Gomez, & Jackson,
2010). Using these techniques, numerous studies
have established that the Big Five traits show un-
mistakable variability across individuals in direction
and rate of change.
Once the existence of reliable individual differ-
ences in personality trait change has been estab-
lished, the compelling question becomes why these
changes occur. A number of studies have shown
that life experiences are associated with changes in
personality traits (for review see Roberts, et al.,
2008). For example, people who experience more
successful and satisfying careers in young adult-
hood increase disproportionately on measures of
emotional stability and conscientiousness (Roberts,
Caspi, & Moffitt, 2003). Similarly, initiating and stay-
ing in a committed relationship in young adulthood
his associated with increases in conscientiousness
and decreases in neuroticism (Robins, Caspi, &
Moffitt, 2002; Lehnart, Neyer, & Eccles, 2010). Fur-
thermore, men who get remarried in middle age
show decreases in neuroticism (Mroczek & Spiro,
2003).
Not all experiences are for the better. People who
conduct problematic, counterproductive activities
at work, such as theft, aggression, and malingering
are prone to decrease on measures of conscien-
tiousness and emotional stability (Roberts, Bogg,
Walton, & Caspi, 2006). Similarly, people who con-
tinue to abuse drugs and alcohol tend to decrease
in conscientiousness and neuroticism in young
adulthood (see Littlefield, Sher, & Wood, 2010). In-
terestingly, seeing a psychotherapist is associated
with increases in neuroticism in college students
whether or not the experience is a good one
(Ldtke, Roberts, Trautwein, & Nagy, in press).
The irony of individual differences in change is
that many individual difference researchers fail to
appreciate their existence. Their meaning is rather
profound for individual development, however, as
they indicate that many people fail to follow the
normative path of development. Moreover, follow-
ing a non-normative path appears to be conse-
quential as it might result in personality changes, or
the lack thereof, that are not optimal.
Theoretical Implications
The first and most significant implication of the
fact that personality traits are both relatively endur-
ing and changing across the life course is the need
to revise our most prominent models of personality
and personality traits. For a variety of reasons, most
theoretical perspectives of personality traits fall into
one of two extreme camps (Roberts, 2009). On one
side is the view that personality traits are biological,
unchanging, and causal. This perspective is mani-
fest in some theoretical systems explicitly (McCrae
& Costa, 2008). It is also manifest implicitly in most
research utilizing personality traits, as most re-
search invoking personality assumes that traits
cause outcomes and therefore are used solely as
predictors. Based on these assumptions, personality
traits need not be assessed more than once be-
cause they do not change. Alternatively, some theo-
reticians minimize the significance and consistency
of personality traits, typically by overemphasizing
the state level of analysis (Mischel, 2009). Those
5Personality Trait Development in Adulthood
-
sympathetic to this perspective often take the fact
that personality traits change as support for a com-
pletely contextual model of personality traits and
personality in general.
Of course, reality is uncomfortably different than
either of these overly simplistic perspectives. Per-
sonality traits are, in fact, quite consistent over time,
but not absolutely consistent. Personality traits also
change with time, but are not a buzz of confusion
bouncing to and fro depending on the environ-
mental winds of change. Rather, what emerges from
the data is a unique perspective that combines op-
posing views (Roberts, 2009). Personality traits are
consistent, and consistent enough to be considered
causal forces. Personality traits also change and
change enough to consider change itself a phe-
nomenon of interest and key feature of human
functioning. Personality trait change, especially that
which occurs in middle and old age invites some
challenging questions. Why would human beings
remain open systems in which modifications are ca-
pable of being made late in life? Most developmen-
tal models assume that childhood is the critical
stage of personality development and that little of
interest happens thereafter. However, the majority
of personality trait change appears to occur in
adulthood, which begs the question of why?
Practical Implications
One of the unique aspects of the study of indi-
vidual differences in change is that personality
traits are considered dependent variables rather
than solely independent variables, as they are typi-
cally viewed. For example, in studies like Roberts
(1997), personality traits are seen as the conse-
quence of work experiences. One reason to con-
sider personality traits as dependent variables is
that personality trait change may be quite conse-
quential for people. Mroczek and Spiro (2007)
demonstrated that long-term increases in neuroti-
cism were predictive of mortality in an 18-year sur-
vival analysis. Those who started high on neuroti-
cism (above the sample median) and increased
over 10 years had higher mortality, controlling for
age, depression, and physical health.
In our ongoing research, we have found similar
patterns when linking personality to health. Taka-
hashi, Edmonds, Jackson, and Roberts (2011) ex-
amined whether and how initial levels and changes
in conscientiousness are linked to initial levels and
changes in both preventative health-related behav-
iors and self-rated physical health, using latent
change models (Hertzog & Nesselroade, 2003;
McArdle & Nesselroade, 1994). Our two-wave longi-
tudinal study extended previous research on con-
scientiousness and physical health by exploring re-
lations between latent variables of continuity and
change over a 3-year period. This study provided ev-
idence that people who increased in conscien-
tiousness also increased in their use of preventative
health-related behaviors, and in turn, became in-
creasingly healthy. Thus, personality trait change
may be an important health issue above and be-
yond how people stand on a trait at the beginning
of a longitudinal study.
Can Personality Traits Be Changed?
The fact that personality traits change and that
the change in personality traits may bring about
positive outcomes, such as greater success in work
and better health and longevity, leads to the next
question, which is can personality traits be
changed? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be yes
and has been known in some circles for quite some
time. Specifically, in their profoundly important
meta-analysis on the efficacy of psychotherapy,
6 20 1
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Smith, Glass, and Miller (1980) also documented
the fact that therapy affected change in personality
traits in addition to many other outcomes. In fact,
cognitive-behavioral therapy changed measures of
personality traits more than a standard deviation.
Unfortunately, the existence of this empirical proof
of the changeability of personality traits has gone
largely unnoticed.
In the interim there has been a smattering of
studies reporting on the changeability of personal-
ity traits through direct intervention across a num-
ber of domains. For example, after a 20-week cog-
nitive behavior therapy intervention aimed to treat
depression, patients changed on a number of per-
sonality traits, most notably in extraversion and neu-
roticism (Clark, Vittengl, Kraft, & Jarrett, 2003). Evi-
dence also exists that personality traits change in re-
sponsive to a combination of therapy and medica-
tion (Santor, Bagby, & Joffe, 1997). For example,
De Fruyt, Van Leeuwen, Bagby, Rolland, and Rouil-
lon (2006) found that individuals treated with a
combination of either tianeptine or fluoxetine (the
active drug in Prozac) and therapy showed signifi-
cant positive increase in all Big Five personality
traits. Similarly, a recent study also found that both
cognitive therapy and medication (SSRIs) were as-
sociated with changes in neuroticism and extraver-
sion compared to a control group (Tang, DeRubeis,
Hollon, Amsterdam, Shelton, & Schalet, 2009).
In addition to clinical interventions, a number of
other types of intervention studies demonstrate that
personality traits are amenable to change. Training
programs, where the participant learns some type
of skill, appear to be an especially effective in
changing personality traits. For example, a recent
intervention trained medical students to become
more mindful. The mindfulness intervention re-
sulted in personality trait changes in the traits of
conscientiousness, agreeableness, empathy, and
emotional stability (Krasner, Epstein, Beckman,
Suchman, Chapman, Mooney, & Quill, 2009). Simi-
larly, a social skill training programs for recovering
substance abusers led to increases in agreeable-
ness, conscientiousness and emotional stability
(Piedmont, 2001). Moreover, a cognitive training in-
tervention for older adults was also associated with
changes in a personality trait. Across 16-weeks elder
adults learned inductive reasoning skills and com-
pleted 10 hours a week of crossword and Sudoku
puzzles. Compared to a control condition, the in-
tervention increased participants levels of open-
ness to experience (Jackson, Hill, Payne, Roberts, &
Stine-Morrow, in press).
Based on these studies it is clear that personality
traits can be changed through a variety of interven-
tions over a relatively short period of time. These
findings raise several issues. First, as none of these
studies was embedded in an ongoing longitudinal
study, it is unclear whether the changes actually
stick. It is quite possible that people change for the
better in the short run only to regress back to where
they were at earlier times in the absence of some
active intervention. On the other hand, if personal-
ity traits can be changed and the change remains, it
generates some interesting questions. For example,
most interventions focus on proximal thoughts, feel-
ings, attitudes, and behaviors that are linked to out-
comes deemed important by societies. Studies in-
tervening to increase the efficacy for specific out-
comes, such as achievement and health behaviors
are legion. Unfortunately, specific attitudes and ex-
pectancies tend to either not generalize or to be
negatively related to separate domains. For exam-
ple, in the education domain, efficacy in a topic
such as mathematics is often negatively correlated
with efficacy in language arts (Trautwein, Ldtke,
7Personality Trait Development in Adulthood
-
Roberts, Schnyder, & Niggli, 2009). In the case of
educational achievement, conscientiousness is pos-
itively related to effort and achievement across do-
mains (Trautwein et al., 2009). Therefore, interven-
ing to increase conscientiousness makes more
sense than intervening to change domain-specific
attitudes because it could result in positive effects
across domains and not adversely affect other im-
portant outcomes.
Summary
In the first portion of this paper, focusing on per-
sonality development in adulthood, we reviewed
the evidence showing both the continuity and
change in personality over time. With respect to the
rank-order stability, as Roberts and DelVecchio
(2000) found personality stability increases with
age. On the other hand, (Roberts, Walton et al.
2006) found that personality traits show mean-level
changes. The significant point to be stressed here is
that personality is stable and changeable at the
same time. In the second portion of this paper, we
placed an emphasis on discussing individual differ-
ences in personality change, because the knowl-
edge about personality change is relatively sparse.
We introduced that personality changes are pre-
dictable for individuals health and health behav-
iors (Takahashi et al., 2011), and reviewed that per-
sonality traits can be changed by receiving medica-
tion, psychological therapy, and cognitive interven-
tion. With these in mind, we need to move on the
next steps on personality research. We believe one
possible future direction of personality psychology
is to explore the pragmatic questions raised by the
existence of personality change. For example, how
can personality trait change be used to promote
better health and economic outcomes; are person-
ality traits appropriate candidates as an epidemio-
logical risk factor that predicts the development of
physical diseases (Roberts, 2009), and how we
should develop our personality traits to live as a
sound members of human society (Heckman,
2007).
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