Understanding Personality Change & Stability

Psychometric testing offers a valuable tool for evaluating candidates’ suitability for specific roles by assessing their personalities. But how stable is personality? Many of us have experienced shifts in our priorities and behaviour over time. Research suggests that while personality tends to exhibit stability, there are periods in life where significant changes can occur.

During childhood, our personalities develop as a blend of innate predispositions (“nature”) and environmental influences (“nurture”), offering a glimpse into our adult personalities. However, childhood traits do not perfectly predict adult personalities. Some personality traits, such as shyness or aggression demonstrate relative stability across a lifetime, with individuals exhibiting these tendencies as children more likely to maintain them into adulthood (Caspi, Bem, & Elder, 1989).

While personality can be quantified in many ways, the Big Five is a widely accepted framework for categorising personality traits and is typically the backbone of most valid personality tests used by psychologists such as myself. The big five personality traits are Openness to Experience (being imaginative and willing to try new things), Conscientiousness (being organised, disciplined, following rules and meeting deadlines), Extraversion (being outgoing, assertive and confident), Agreeableness (being empathetic and trusting of others) and Neuroticism (being more inclined to be anxious, irritable, and moody). Each individual falls along a continuum within each trait, with most falling somewhere in the middle of the spectrum (the so-called ‘average range’).

The Dynamics of Personality Change

Research indicates that extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness tend to increase with age, while neuroticism tends to decrease (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005). Termed the maturity principle of adult personality development, these changes correlate with positive outcomes such as enhanced relationship stability, workplace success, improved health, reduced mortality rates, and decreased likelihood of engaging in criminal behaviour or experiencing mental health issues (Miller & Lynam, 2001; Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006; Roberts et al., 2007; Kotov et al., 2010). However, individuals typically become less open to new experiences as they age, particularly after mid-life (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006).

When in life does personality change?

First, let’s consider what keeps personality stable. The theory of personality change and stability currently hinges on four mechanisms thought to produce personality stability (Roberts, 2006). These mechanisms are attraction, selection, attrition, and manipulation. Attraction refers to how people tend to select their careers, friends, and hobbies based on their personality. For example, those who are less extroverted and highly conscientious are more likely to seek out a career such as accounting which typically requires a good deal of time working diligently and independently. Selection refers to the idea that, through various factors, people are selected for jobs and friendship groups based on personality – a highly introverted person is less likely to be selected for a sales role, say. Attrition is about the drop-out that might occur if someone was placed in the wrong ‘group’ – someone who was not hard-working but found themselves in a highly challenging and demanding role will soon find themselves moved on, whether through choosing to leave or having that decision made for them. Lastly, manipulation refers to the way a person could alter their environment to better suit their personality. For example, a more introverted person may choose to spend less of their time socialising with their colleagues than an extroverted person might and thus would find themselves in social settings less often. These four processes explain how people tend to find themselves in settings that ‘match’ them and their preferences. The basic principle is that the environments tend to reinforce the personality attributes that were partially responsible for the environmental conditions in the first place (Roberts, 2006).

So, while several drivers are acting to keep personality stable, can individuals actively reshape their personalities? Emerging research suggests they can. Through personal striving, therapeutic interventions, active coaching, and reflective engagement with experiences, individuals can facilitate meaningful personality changes (Tasseli & Kilduff, 2018). While a comprehensive discussion on this topic exceeds the scope of this article, future explorations will delve deeper into the strategies for fostering intentional personality development.

In conclusion, personality traits exhibit a degree of endurance yet remain subject to change throughout life. Understanding the mechanisms underlying personality stability and change empowers individuals to navigate personal growth and development effectively.

References

Stefanie Pollard