Personality Development in Adulthood: The Role of Life Transitions, Goals to Change Personality, and Momentary Processes
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Abstract
Although research on personality development has successfully determined patterns of both continuity and change across the life span, less is known about underlying factors and processes. To address these research gaps, the current dissertation examined two potentially relevant macro-analytical factors as well as a set of theoretically suggested micro-analytical processes. Regarding the first macro-analytical factor, previous research suggested that environmental factors and especially life transitions might substantially contribute to personality development. Less pronounced trait changes observed in older adults might consequently result from more stable environmental contexts (i.e., less life transitions). Accordingly, if younger and older adults experience a similar life transition, both age groups should exhibit comparable trait changes. However, such a strong test for the importance of environmental factors in personality development is still missing. Regarding the second macro-analytical factor, recent research has highlighted that people may volitionally contribute to their personality development by setting and pursuing goals to change traits. Yet, a comprehensive examination of factors that contribute to people’s change goals is currently missing. In addition, previous research provided contradicting results on whether change goals indeed manifest in actual trait changes and hardly examined goal properties (e.g., importance or feasibility) that may foster a successful goal pursuit. Finally, the recently proposed TESSERA framework (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) provides specific suggestions on micro-analytical processes of personality development. However, this framework is still awaiting a first empirical evaluation.
To tackle this comprehensive agenda, a multi-method measurement burst study was conducted. Across a total of two years, 382 younger (n = 255, Mage = 21.57 years) and older adults (n = 127, Mage = 67.76) who partly engaged in the transition to college, completed up to four comprehensive assessments of self-rated, other-rated and implicitly measured Big Five traits as well as self-rated change goals. In addition, in-between the first three assessments, momentary processes were assessed in multiple daily diary waves across up to 50 days.
Results showed that, as expected, younger and older adults who experienced a similar life transition (i.e., the transition into college) hardly differed in the development of self-rated, other-rated or implicitly measured traits. In addition, findings indicated that older adults who engaged in college life experienced somewhat different patterns of personality development than people who did not engage in this transition. Moreover, trait changes were in part more pronounced at the beginning of a life transition (i.e., in freshmen). Regarding volitional personality development, results show that primarily current Big Five trait levels contributed to people’s change goals and that change goals were strongest when both self- and other-ratings agreed on low current trait levels. Unexpectedly, findings suggested that change goals hardly manifest in actual changes in self-rated or implicitly measured traits. However, some support was found that higher importance and feasibility of change goals might indeed foster a successful goal pursuit. Finally, regarding micro-analytical processes of personality development, results showed that momentary processes can be generalized in terms of repeated sequences of triggering situations, expectancies, states, and reactions as suggested by the TESSERA framework (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). In addition, self-rated and partly implicitly measured traits but hardly any change goals were linked with experiencing according momentary situations and states. Unexpectedly, merely momentary states but hardly any reflective or associative processes contributed to long-term trait development.
The current findings underline the importance of environmental factors for personality development across the life span. Specifically, by requiring people to invest in new or altered social roles, the experience of usually age-graded life transitions (e.g., experiencing college in young adulthood) may underlie different patterns of personality development in younger and older adults. Furthermore, although change goals seem to reflect more than a response bias or the mere desirability of higher trait levels, future research is needed to examine whether volitional personality development is possible without psychological assistance and which further conditions need to be met (e.g., goals specificity, goal commitment) for a successful goal pursuit. Finally, the current dissertation provides first but encouraging findings in support of central propositions of the TESSERA framework (Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). Yet future research is needed to further examine the relevance of reflective and associative processes in personality development.