Interindividual Age Differences in Personality Structure

Abstract

Most investigations in the structure of personality traits do not adequately address age; instead they presuppose a constant structure across the lifespan. Further, few studies look at the structure of personality traits a-theoretically, often neglecting to examine the relationship among indicators within a trait (coherence) and across traits (differentiation). Using a network approach, the present study examines (1) age differences in differentiation and coherence, (2) the similarity between the Big Five and network structures, and (3) the consistency of network structure across age groups in a large, cross-sectional sample. Results indicate that coherence shows early gains in adolescence with few changes across the lifespan, while differentiation mostly weakens across adulthood. The result of these age-related changes is that Big Five indicators only parallel the Big Five structure among young but not older adults. The structure of young adults tends to be quite similar while the network structures of older adults appear to greatly differ from one another. These results suggest that older adults have a different structure of personality than younger adults and suggest that future research should not assume consistency in personality structure across the lifespan.

A longitudinal assessment of behavioral development in wild capuchins: Personality is not established in the first 3 years

“…Although most studies on the development of human personality argue for personality continuity from the age of 3–21 (Caspi, 2000), and claim for further stability at the age of 30 (Costa & McCrae, 1994; McCrae et al, 2000), there is evidence for personality traits changing more after the age of 30 than before (Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003). Moreover, the structure of adult personality has also been questioned since the Big Five model seems to be a good description of personality structure in young adults, but not in older adults (Beck, Condon, & Jackson, 2019).…”

Niche diversity predicts personality structure across 115 nations

“…Another limitation is that our data lack demographic information about participants. Prior research suggests that the factor structure of personality may vary with age (Beck et al, 2019;Mottus et al, 2019;Soto et al, 2008). If the age distribution of participants within each nation systematically varied with niche diversity, then the results presented here could be confounded with age trends in the personality structure.…”

“…We speculate here that the niche diversity hypothesis might partly explain age trends in personality structure. For instance, observed age differences in personality structure among US participants (Beck et al, 2019) appear to track trends of workforce participation and thereby occupational niche diversification. Examining the extent to which age-related differences in personality structure coincide with age differences in niche diversity is an interesting future direction.…”

Detecting Idiographic Personality Change

“…Most notably, it does not examine changes in a dynamic structure, such as that theorized in Allport's definition of personality. From this perspective, personality should be conceived as an interdependent system where the personality characteristics may influence one another, which a growing body of research supports (Beck, Condon, & Jackson, 2021;Christensen, Golino, & Silvia, 2020;Schwaba, Rhemtulla, Hopwood, & Bleidorn, 2020). Both longitudinal and cross-sectional evidence suggests that personality change occurs structurally, rather than just in terms of levels of trait.…”