Subjective experiences of life events match individual differences in personality development.

Abstract

The last 2 decades have witnessed increased research on the role of life events in personality trait development, but few findings appear to be robust. We propose that a key to resolving this issue is incorporating individuals' subjective experiences into the study of event-related development. To test this, we developed and administered a survey about event-related personality change to a representative Dutch sample (N = 5,513, Ages 16-95) and linked their responses to 12-year trajectories of measured Big Five development. Most participants (63%) believed that a life event impacted their personality in the past 10 years, on average 5 years presurvey. These participants, even those who experienced the same event, had markedly heterogenous perceptions of how their traits changed and why each event affected their personality. In preregistered analyses, we examined participants' individual personality trajectories before and after the event that they identified as most impactful. Across events, retrospective perceptions of event-related personality change were significantly correlated with short-term and long-term postevent personality trajectories across Big Five traits (mean rs = .22, .28) and preevent trajectories in all traits except agreeableness (mean r = .16). We also found correspondence between perceived and measured development in analyses of the two most commonly reported personality-changing events: health problems and death of a loved one/family member. Finally, we explored associations between personality development and perceived change-inducing event characteristics. Using these findings, we argue that future research into event-related personality development should de-emphasize mean-level change to focus on individuals' varied experiences of whether, when, how, and why life events have affected their personality.

Open Peer Commentary and Author Response Regarding ‘Life Events and Personality Change: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’

“…Intrinsic to our theorizing is the idea that psychological transformation is much more critical to developing personality traits than demographic changes such as those found in life event checklists (Schwaba et al, 2023). As we noted in 2007, it is not whether, for example, one experiences a divorce that matters to development, but whether that divorce leads to a suite of experiences that carve in a positive or a negative direction.…”

“…The second surprise is that there are meaningful mean-level effects at all. In a paper published earlier this year, the first author of this commentary wrote that research should de-emphasize meanlevel change to instead focus on individually-varying changes (Schwaba et al, 2023). Perhaps there is value in investigating mean-level event-related change, after all.…”

“…Bühler et al call for research on the timing of life events in relation to sociocultural expectations. Directly assessing subjective perceptions of the timing of these events could provide further insight into individual differences in personality change (Schwaba et al, 2023). For example, having a child later in life could be viewed as an empowering personal decision (e.g., focusing on one's career), a "happy accident", a long-awaited event following fertility difficulties, or the result of legal and social barriers (e.g., same-sex couples facing discrimination when trying to adopt).…”

“…In their meta-analysis of event-related personality change, Bühler et al provide the most comprehensive quantification to date of a curious issue in the field: despite nearly everyone's expectations that life events should bring personality change (Schwaba et al, 2023), associations between life events and average personality change are quite small and flimsy (see also Beck, 2019). This is especially paradoxical and problematic when considering research on lifespan personality development, which finds that change over many years is relatively large and robust Seifert et al, 2023).…”

“…There were many good ideas about how taking the context of life events more seriously could augment our understanding of personality development. Several commenters (Hill & Allemand; Kandler; Neyer & Gonzalez; Roberts & Bonner; Weidmann et al; Wrzus et al; van Scheppingen) referenced recent studies that take the subjective experiences of life events into account , Schwaba et al, 2023. Kandler offered the interesting possibility that we could also learn something by asking people who did not experience a life event what that was like.…”