Personality Psychology

Abstract

Personality psychology, which seeks to study individual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that persist over time and place, has experienced a renaissance in the last few decades. It has also not been reviewed as a field in the Annual Review since 2001 (Funder, 2001). In this chapter, we seek to provide an update, while also providing a meta-organizational structure to the field. In particular, personality psychology has a prescribed set of four responsibilities that it implicitly or explicitly tackles as a field: (a) describe what personality is—the units of analysis in the field; (b) document how it develops; (c) explain the processes of personality and why they affect functioning; and (d) provide a framework for understanding individuals and explaining their actions, feelings, and motivations. We review progress made over the last 20 years to address these four agendas and finish with a section highlighting future directions and ongoing challenges to the field.

The transition to grandparenthood: No consistent evidence for change in the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction

“…The life span perspective conceptualizes aging as a lifelong process of development and adaptation (Baltes et al, 2006). Research embedded in this perspective has found personality traits to be subject to change across the entire life span (Costa et al, 2019;Graham et al, 2020;Specht, 2017;Specht et al, 2014; for recent reviews, see Bleidorn et al, 2021;Roberts & Yoon, 2021). Although a majority of personality development takes place in adolescence and emerging adulthood (Bleidorn & Schwaba, 2017;Pusch et al, 2019;, personality traits also change in middle and older adulthood (e.g., Allemand et al, 2008;Damian et al, 2019;Kandler et al, 2015;Lucas & Donnellan, 2011;Mõttus et al, 2012;S.…”

A closer look at the domain‐specific associations of openness with language achievement: Evidence on the role of intrinsic value from two large‐scale longitudinal studies

“…Personality traits are defined as characteristic and automatic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are consistent over time and across situations (Roberts & Yoon, 2021). They represent cognitive, affective, and behavioural tendencies, averaged across situations (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).…”