Personality Development Across the Lifespan

568 Pages·2017·12.91 MB·English

by  Jule Specht (Eds.)

Personality Development Across the Lifespan
Personality Development
Across the Lifespan
Edited by
Jule Specht
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Beingapersonalitypsychologistmeanslovingdiversity.
List of Contributors
MathiasAllemand UniversityofZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
MitjaD.Back UniversityofMu¨nster,Mu¨nster,Germany
WiebkeBleidorn UniversityofCalifornia,Davis,CA,UnitedStates
ElienDeCaluwe´ GhentUniversity,Ghent,Belgium
BarbaraDeClercq GhentUniversity,Ghent,Belgium
FilipDeFruyt GhentUniversity,Ghent,Belgium
GrantW.Edmonds OregonResearchInstitute,Eugene,OR,UnitedStates
ChristineFinn FriedrichSchillerUniversityJena,Jena,Germany
R. Chris Fraley University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL,
UnitedStates
AlexandraM.Freund UniversityofZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
Denis Gerstorf Humboldt-Universita¨t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German
InstituteforEconomicResearch(DIWBerlin),Berlin,Germany
KatharinaGeukes UniversityofMu¨nster,Mu¨nster,Germany
MarieHennecke UniversityofZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
KathrinHerzhoff NorthwesternUniversity,Evanston,IL,UnitedStates
PatrickL.Hill WashingtonUniversityinSt.Louis,St.Louis,MO,UnitedStates
NathanW.Hudson MichiganStateUniversity,EastLansing,MI,UnitedStates
GizemHu¨lu¨r UniversityofZurich,Zurich,Switzerland
xii ListofContributors
Charles J. Infurna Children’s Institute, Rochester, NY, United States; St. John
FisherCollege,Rochester,NY,UnitedStates
FrankJ.Infurna ArizonaStateUniversity,Tempe,AZ,UnitedStates
Joshua J. Jackson Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United
States
Bertus F. Jeronimus University Medical Center Groningen, University of
Groningen,Groningen,TheNetherlands
Christian Kandler Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany; Medical School
Berlin,Berlin,Germany
HyunjiKim YorkUniversity,Toronto,ON,Canada
TheoA.Klimstra TilburgUniversity,Tilburg,TheNetherlands
ShaunaC.Kushner UniversityofToronto,Toronto,ON,Canada
MaikeLuhmann RuhrUniversityBochum,Bochum,Germany
KateC.McLean WesternWashingtonUniversity,Bellingham,WA,UnitedStates
MatthiasR.Mehl UniversityofArizona,Tucson,AZ,UnitedStates
Rene´ Mo˜ttus UniversityofEdinburgh,Edinburgh,UnitedKingdom
SwantjeMueller Humboldt-Universita¨tzuBerlin,Berlin,Germany
FranzJ.Neyer FriedrichSchillerUniversityJena,Jena,Germany
Lauren B.Nickel UniversityofIllinois,Urbana-Champaign,IL,UnitedStates
Johan Ormel University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen,
Groningen,TheNetherlands
UlrichOrth UniversityofBern,Bern,Switzerland
MichaelPapendick BielefeldUniversity,Bielefeld,Germany
JohnF.Rauthmann WakeForestUniversity,Winston-Salem,NC,UnitedStates
Anne K. Reitz Columbia University, New York, NY, United States; New York
University,NewYork,NY,UnitedStates
ListofContributors xiii
Harrie¨tte Riese University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen,
Groningen,TheNetherlands
BrentW.Roberts UniversityofIllinois,Urbana-Champaign,IL,UnitedStates
JoniY.Sasaki YorkUniversity,Toronto,ON,Canada
Florian Schmiedek German Institute for International Educational Research
(DIPF),FrankfurtamMain,Germany
LeahH.Schultz WashingtonUniversityinSt.Louis,St.Louis,MO,UnitedStates
TedSchwaba UniversityofCalifornia,Davis,CA,UnitedStates
ConorG.Smith TheUniversityofEdinburgh,Edinburgh,UnitedKingdom
Jule Specht Humboldt-Universita¨t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German Institute
forEconomicResearch(DIWBerlin),Berlin,Germany
UrsulaM.Staudinger ColumbiaUniversity,NewYork,NY,UnitedStates
GundulaStoll UniversityofTu¨bingen,Tu¨bingen,Germany
JenniferL.Tackett NorthwesternUniversity,Evanston,IL,UnitedStates
UlrichTrautwein UniversityofTu¨bingen,Tu¨bingen,Germany
LottevanDoeselaar TilburgUniversity,Tilburg,TheNetherlands
MaartenH.W.vanZalk UniversityofMu¨nster,Mu¨nster,Germany
LizeVerbeke GhentUniversity,Ghent,Belgium
Manuel C. Voelkle Humboldt-Universita¨t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Max
PlanckInstituteforHumanDevelopment,Berlin,Germany
Michael VonKorff Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative,
Seattle,WA,UnitedStates
Jenny Wagner Humboldt-Universita¨t zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Leibniz
InstituteforScienceandMathematicsEducation(IPN),Kiel,Germany
AlexanderWeiss TheUniversityofEdinburgh,Edinburgh,UnitedKingdom
xiv ListofContributors
SaraJ.Weston WashingtonUniversityinSt.Louis,St.Louis,MO,UnitedStates
Alexandra Zapko-Willmes Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany; Medical
SchoolBerlin,Berlin,Germany
JuliaZimmermann FernUniversita¨tHagen,Hagen,Germany
1
Personality development research:
State-of-the-art and
future directions
JuleSpecht1,2,*
1Humboldt-Universita¨tzuBerlin,Berlin,Germany,2GermanInstituteforEconomic
Research(DIWBerlin),Berlin,Germany
Whatcanwepredictforthefutureofanindividualwhohappenstobeasociable,talka-
tive, and lively young boy? Or for an open-minded, unconventional, and curious
womanwhoentersyoungadulthood?Frompersonalitypsychologyresearch,weknow
that individuals are characterized by stable individual differences like, e.g., extraver-
sion and openness to experience. But from developmental psychology research, we
know that individuals change systematically across time depending, among other
things,ontheirbiologicalmaturationandthedevelopmentaltaskstheyarefacedwith.
Personality development research combines these two research traditions assum-
ing that there are relatively stable individual differences that may change in the
long run. Based on the findings of these two psychological disciplines, we now
have good reason to predict that the extraverted boy from the introductory example
is likely to become an energetic, happy, and self-confident man. And that he is
more likely to become popular, to have a lot of friends, and that he will later likely
be at ease attracting romantic partners compared to a more introverted person. We
can also be quite confident that these experiences will retroact on his personality,
strengthening his extraversion and stimulating changes in other personality traits of
hisownorhissocialnetwork.
We can furthermore expect on good grounds that the woman of the second
introductory example, who has particularly high levels in the personality trait
opennesstoexperience,willlikelyremainamongthemostopen-mindedindividuals
of her age during the course of her life. It is likely that she will think, feel, and
behave more extraordinarily even in old age compared to others of her age group.
However, empirical research also suggests that she will likely be less open to new
experience at age 80 comparedto the time ofher college years becauseopennessto
experiencetendstodeclineduringadulthood.
Taken together, recent findings from personality development research highlight
the fact that personality trait levels are surprisingly stable even across several
decades and even when faced with major changes in life circumstances. At the
(cid:1)While writing this chapter, Jule Specht was also affiliated at Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin,
Universita¨tzuLu¨beck,Lu¨beck,andtheGermanInstituteforEconomicResearch(DIWBerlin),Berlin.
PersonalityDevelopmentAcrosstheLifespan.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804674-6.00001-6
©2017ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved.
4 PersonalityDevelopmentAcrosstheLifespan
same time, it is very unlikely that a person remains at the same personality trait
level across all of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age or that a person
remains at the exact same position on a personality trait relative to others of the
same age group across time. Personality development researchers are eager to
understandwhy personalityishighlystableeven under instable life conditions, why
personality changes in some people more than in others, and how life shapes who
weareandwhowebecome.
A new focus: from stability to changeability of
personality traits
Personality psychologists and social psychologists have long struggled about the
question of whether enduring individual characteristics or momentary situational
characteristics are most relevant for predicting how a person will act in a given
context. Most colleagues now agree that both—the personality and the (social)
situation—have an important influence on behavior. Personality is assumed to have
a particularly high impact in situations with low social pressure to behave in a
specific way. For example, personality is more likely to result in individual differ-
ences at a Sunday afternoon with no obligations to go to work, and the freedom to
choose between relaxing at home, doing sports, going to a museum, or meeting
with friends. In contrast, personality is less likely to result in strong individual
differences at a busy working day that comes along with specific demands about
how to behave to comply to the situation. Thus even though individual differences
can occur in every situation, they are more likely in situations that are free of
specificsocialexpectationsabouthowtobehave.
The need to argue for the important impact of enduring individual differences—
compared to situational characteristics—is likely a reason for the strong focus on
the stability of individual differences in personality traits in early personality
psychology research. Now we can be sure that individuals show different behaviors
in the same situation as a result of differences in their personality traits. Also, we
now know that individuals will show similar behavior across different situations as
a result of relatively stable personality traits. Thus the scientific debate between
personality psychologists and social psychologists about whether personality actu-
ally exists is now largely overcome, and the idea of stable individual differences is
widelyacknowledgedacrossdisciplineswithinpsychology.
The initial focus on the high stability of personality traits has lost sight of the
fact that personality is far from being perfectly stable. Instead, personality changes
systematically across time, with age, and in reaction to the environment. Modern
personality psychology therefore shifted its focus from stability to changeability of
personality traits, which resulted in a new area of research, namely personality
developmentresearch.
Research on personality development has flourished during the last decade.
Nowadays, it is continuously represented with scientific talks and posters at each of