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Although there is substantial stability in personality across time, it is now well-recognized that there is also substantial mean-level change across the lifespan (Ferguson, 2010; Roberts et al., 2006). This change is thought to occur most rapidly during the first part of individuals’ lives (e.g., Klimstra et al., 2009; Borghuis et al., 2017), due to the many personal and environmental changes that young people are forced to adapt to. Following both social investment theory (Roberts et al., 2008) and McAdams’ three-layer model of personality (2013), transition moments when individuals must adjust to new social roles may be drivers of personality development. In the past, both the transition to tertiary education (Klimstra et al., 2018; Lüdtke et al., 2011) and the transition to working life (Van Dijk et al., 2020; Den Boer et al., 2019; Bleidorn et al., 2016) have been found to be associated with maturation in the Big Five personality traits . However, how young people respond to changes in their lives may depend on the extent to which they already have a clear image of who they are, and therefore it may be important to consider their mean-level development of their self-concept clarity leading up to the transition. This results in the following three research questions: 1. What does mean-level personality development look like across adolescence and young adulthood (approx. age 12-25)? 2. What is the role of the transition to tertiary education and of the transition to working life in this mean-level development? 3. Does self-concept clarity moderate the impact of these transition moments on mean-level personality development?

Personality traits have been reported to predict difficulties in performing instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in old age, such as preparing meals or shopping. However, little is known about the reciprocal effects on personality. In this study, we examined bidirectional relationships between personality traits and the capacity to perform IADL using four waves of longitudinal data from 3540 older adults (aged 65 years and older) from the Health and Retirement Study. We applied a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model to separate between- and within-person effects across time and compared it to a traditional cross-lagged panel model. At the between-person level, higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness were associated with more IADL limitations. Within individuals across time, increases in neuroticism and decreases in conscientiousness and extraversion were associated with increases in IADL limitations 4 years later. In contrast, increases in IADL limitations only predicted increases in neuroticism and decreases in extraversion. These results indicate that some personality traits affect and are affected by limitations in functional capacities in old age. Results of the within-person model build a strong foundation for future personality interventions as a pathway to maintain high functioning in old age.

This article earned Open Materials badge through Open Practices Disclosure from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki. The materials are permanently and openly accessible at: https://osf.io/ds7j5/. Author's disclosure form may also be found at the Supporting Information in the online version., Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEAL

Increasing evidence shows that personality pathology starts to develop from (late) childhood onwards. The current study extends previous research by examining maladaptive personality change using both a variable-centered approach (i.e., mean-level changes) and a person-centered approach (i.e., latent profile transitions). Data were used from a 3-wave longitudinal study on Dutch youth (at T1: N = 492, mean age = 10.1). Maladaptive personality traits (i.e., Emotional Instability, Disagreeableness, Introversion, and Compulsivity) were assessed yearly using the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI). A Factor of Curves model indicated presence of a higher-order developmental factor, reflecting low initial levels and small decreases over time, which explained change in all DIPSI traits. Latent profile analyses revealed three quantitatively different maladaptive personality trait profiles. Latent Transition Analysis demonstrated substantial stability in profiles over time. Small groups showed a transition toward another (often more adaptive) profile. Although a person-centered approach may have some merit when aiming to detect high-risk subgroups, the current results suggest that a variable-centered approach—and a Factor of Curves model capturing shared underlying developmental processes in particular—is favorable over a person-centered approach.