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Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change?
Abstract
Different theories make different predictions about how mean levels of personality traits change in adulthood. The biological view of the Five-factor theory proposes the plaster hypothesis: All personality traits stop changing by age 30. In contrast, contextualist perspectives propose that changes should be more varied and should persist throughout adulthood. This study compared these perspectives in a large (N = 132,515) sample of adults aged 21-60 who completed a Big Five personality measure on the Internet. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness increased throughout early and middle adulthood at varying rates; Neuroticism declined among women but did not change among men. The variety in patterns of change suggests that the Big Five traits are complex phenomena subject to a variety of developmental influences.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Srivastava, S., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2003-05
- Volume
- 84
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1041-1053
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W2096533706
- Cited by
- 1,204
- References
- 10
- FWCI
- 35.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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