Are some people more consistent? Examining the stability and underlying processes of personality profile consistency.

Abstract

Personality traits are relatively consistent across time, as indicated by test-retest correlations. However, ipsative consistency approaches suggest there are individual differences in this consistency. Despite this, it is unknown whether these differences are due to person-level characteristics (i.e., some people are just more consistent) or exogenous forces (i.e., lack of consistency is due to environmental changes). Moreover, it is unclear whether the processes promoting long-term consistency are the same across people. We examine these two questions using item-level profile correlations across four to nine waves of data with four data sets (N = 21,616) with multilevel asymptotic growth models. Results indicated that there were, on average, high levels of profile consistency. However, there were notable individual differences in initial profile correlation values as well as in changes in levels of consistency across time, indicating that some people are more stably consistent than others. Moreover, the directions of people's trajectories across increasing time intervals suggest that the mechanisms responsible for reinforcing personality consistency vary across people. These effects were typically moderated by age at 30 years old, maturity-related traits, and education level. Overall, findings indicate some people are more consistent than others, such that this stable level of (in)consistency is a dispositional factor. Additionally, individual differences in profile consistency are shaped by different levels of three processes. On average, stochastic factors are not impactful for most individuals, and transactional processes have an important role in increasing consistency for a sizable amount of peoplenuances not previously revealed when focusing on rank-order stability.

Do changes in personality predict life outcomes?

“…Although much can be gained by considering the dynamic nature of personality and how it interacts with one’s environment, it seems to be a fruitless effort to continue doing so while ignoring the undeniable impact that who one “is” on average has on their future outcomes. Second, the malleability of personality and its tendency to change over time is indisputable (Bleidorn et al, 2022; Wright & Jackson, 2023), but it appears that the degree to which one changes does not, on average, overpower the impact that their previous level of personality has on their outcomes. While someone can change in their personality, and this change can sometimes be meaningfully associated with outcomes, it will likely never fully negate the effects associated with their previous static levels.…”

“…A considerable amount of research has established that personality traits are not immutable and can change across time (e.g., Bleidorn et al, 2022;Roberts & Nickel, 2021;Wright & Jackson, 2023). The discovery of this mutable property, paired with their predictive utility, has led to an interest in purposefully eliciting changes in these traits through interventions (Allemand & Flückiger, 2022;Bleidorn et al, 2020;Stieger et al, 2020).…”

The associations between life events and person‐centered personality consistency

“…The prior for the intercept was a normal distribution centered around 0.60 with a standard deviation of 0.10, as 0.60 is an approximate value of the initial ipsative test-retest correlations for these datasets (Wright & Jackson, 2022a); the prior for the standard deviation parameters was a Cauchy distribution centered around 0 with a spread of 0.10; the prior for the regression coefficients was a normal distribution centered around 0 with a standard deviation of 0.10; the prior for the Level 1 residual was an exponential distribution with a parameter value of 1; and the prior for the correlation among the random effects was an LKJ distribution with a value of 1.…”

Do changes in personality predict life outcomes?

“…A considerable amount of research has established that personality traits are not immutable and can change across time (e.g., Bleidorn et al, 2022;Roberts & Nickel, 2021;Wright & Jackson, 2022a). The discovery of this mutable property, paired with the predictive utility, has led to an interest in purposefully eliciting changes in these traits through interventions (Allemand & Flückiger, 2022;Bleidorn et al, 2020;Stieger et al, 2020).…”

“…Second, the malleability of personality and its tendency to change over time is indisputable (Bleidorn et al, 2022;Wright & Jackson, 2022a), but it appears that the degree to which one changes does not, on average, overpower the impact that their previous level of personality has on their outcomes. While someone can change in their personality, and this change can meaningfully be associated with outcomes, it will likely never fully negate the effects associated with their previous static levels.…”