Goal and Personality Trait Development in a Transitional Period: Assessing Change and Stability in Personality Development

This longitudinal study examined continuity and change in the Big Five personality traits and in the importance of life goals from eight domains (Personal Growth, Relationships, Community, Health, Wealth, Fame, Image, and Hedonism) in 2,141 students in a 2-year period at the transition from school to college or employment. Both personality traits and life goals demonstrated high levels of rank—order and structural stability and showed significant individual differences in individual change. Moreover, mean-level changes were in line with the maturity principle: Scores on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness increased over time, whereas Neuroticism decreased. However, the importance of life goals decreased in all domains except health. Reciprocal effects models revealed that there were effects of prior personality traits on subsequent life goal importance but almost no effects of prior life goal importance on subsequent personality traits. Separate analyses by gender showed that the findings were almost invariant across gender.

[1]  A. Spiro,et al.  Modeling intraindividual stability and change in personality , 2006 .

[2]  B. Roberts,et al.  Broad Dispositions, Broad Aspirations: The Intersection of Personality Traits and Major Life Goals , 2000 .

[3]  Paul B. Baltes,et al.  The orchestration of selection, optimization and compensation: An action–theoretical conceptualization of a theory of developmental regulation. , 2000 .

[4]  O. Köller,et al.  Eine Validierungsstudie zum NEO-FFI in einer Stichprobe junger Erwachsener: Effekte des Itemformats, faktorielle Validität und Zusammenhänge mit Schulleistungsindikatoren , 2004 .

[5]  U. Trautwein,et al.  Intrinsische und extrinsische Lebensziele : Reliabilität und Validität einer deutschen Fassung des Aspirations Index , 2005 .

[6]  R. Helson,et al.  Is the traditional role bad for women , 1990 .

[7]  D. Winter,et al.  Traits and motives: toward an integration of two traditions in personality research. , 1998, Psychological review.

[8]  O. John,et al.  Handbook of personality: Theory and research, 2nd ed. , 1999 .

[9]  Avshalom Caspi,et al.  Personality development: stability and change. , 2005, Annual review of psychology.

[10]  R. McCrae.  Integrating the Levels of Personality , 1996 .

[11]  A. Caspi,et al.  The kids are alright: growth and stability in personality development from adolescence to adulthood. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  B. Roberts,et al.  Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[13]  P. Costa,et al.  Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) , 1992 .

[14]  J. Asendorpf,et al.  Personality-relationship transaction in adolescence: core versus surface personality characteristics. , 2003, Journal of personality.

[15]  B. Roberts,et al.  The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: a quantitative review of longitudinal studies. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[16]  U. Staudinger,et al.  Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology , 2007 .

[17]  J. Asendorpf,et al.  Personality effects on social relationships. , 1998 .

[18]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[19]  J. Heckhausen.  Developmental regulation across adulthood: primary and secondary control of age-related challenges. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[20]  Tenko Raykov,et al.  Behavioral scale reliability and measurement invariance evaluation using latent variable modeling , 2004 .

[21]  R. Ryan,et al.  Further Examining the American Dream: Differential Correlates of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals , 1996 .

[22]  Ulrich Trautwein,et al.  Academic self-concept, interest, grades, and standardized test scores: reciprocal effects models of causal ordering. , 2005, Child development.

[23]  Sheri J. Broyles,et al.  Wishes, gender, personality, and well-being. , 1997, Journal of personality.

[24]  J. Arnett.  Emerging adulthood. A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[25]  Jorge L. Mendoza,et al.  A method of assessing change in a single subject: An alteration of the RC index , 1986 .

[26]  O. Köller,et al.  Wer geht ins Theater? Künstlerisches Interesse und Offenheit für Erfahrung als Prädiktoren für Veränderungen kultureller Partizipation in der Emerging Adulthood , 2008 .

[27]  H. Marsh,et al.  Assessing Goodness of Fit: Is Parsimony Always Desirable? , 1996 .

[28]  J. Kagan,et al.  Personality development. , 1970, Seminars in psychiatry.

[29]  B. Little,et al.  Personality and personal projects: linking big five and PAC units of analysis. , 1992, Journal of personality.

[30]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[31]  S. Srivastava,et al.  The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. , 1999 .

[32]  I. Sigel,et al.  HANDBOOK OF CHILD PSYCHOLOGY , 2006 .

[33]  B. Roberts,et al.  Goal and personality trait development in emerging adulthood. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  R. Helson,et al.  Personality change in women from college to midlife. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[35]  N. Jacobson,et al.  Methods for defining and determining the clinical significance of treatment effects: description, application, and alternatives. , 1999, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[36]  Katariina Salmela-Aro,et al.  Goal Contents, Well-being, and Life Context During Transition to University: A Longitudinal Study , 1997 .

[37]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Goal concepts in personality and social psychology. , 1989 .

[38]  B. Roberts,et al.  Patterns of continuity: a dynamic model for conceptualizing the stability of individual differences in psychological constructs across the life course. , 2005, Psychological review.

[39]  K. Trzesniewski,et al.  A longitudinal study of personality change in young adulthood. , 2001, Journal of personality.

[40]  U. Kanning,et al.  NEO-Fünf-Faktoren-Inventar nach Costa und McCrae (NEO-FFI) , 2009 .

[41]  O. Köller,et al.  Wege zur Hochschulreife in Baden-Württemberg , 2003 .

[42]  K. Salmela‐Aro,et al.  Goal construction, reconstruction and depressive symptoms in a life-span context: the transition from school to work. , 2002, Journal of personality.

[43]  David Watson,et al.  On the temporal stability of personality: evidence for differential stability and the role of life experiences. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[44]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  A Critical Analysis of Current Trait Theory , 1994 .

[45]  B. Little.  Personal Projects Analysis: Trivial Pursuits, Magnificent Obsessions, and the Search for Coherence , 1989 .

[46]  Kennon M. Sheldon,et al.  The structure of goal contents across 15 cultures. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[47]  P. Costa,et al.  Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: robust and surprising findings. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[48]  O. Köller,et al.  Wege zur Hochschulreife in Baden-Württemberg: TOSCA - eine Untersuchung an allgemein bildenden und beruflichen Gymnasien , 2004 .

[49]  D. Buss,et al.  Personality psychology : recent trends and emerging directions , 1989 .

[50]  R. Bagby,et al.  Assessing and interpreting personality change and continuity in patients treated for major depression. , 2006, Psychological assessment.

[51]  Robert A Emmons,et al.  The personal striving approach to personality. , 1989 .

[52]  Franz J. Neyer,et al.  Personality-Relationship transaction in young adulthood. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[53]  A. Feingold,et al.  Gender differences in personality: a meta-analysis. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[54]  Jari-Erik Nurmi,et al.  Age Differences in Adult Life Goals, Concerns, and Their Temporal Extension: A Life Course Approach to Future-oriented Motivation , 1992 .

[55]  Keith F. Widaman,et al.  Unidimensional Versus Domain Representative Parceling of Questionnaire Items: An Empirical Example , 1994 .