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Comments on the original article "Patterns of Mean-Level Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies," by B. W. Roberts, K. W. Walton, and W. Viechtbauer. Although Roberts et al depicted the present authors as proponents of the immutability of traits, in fact we have always acknowledged the possibility of change, and we are pleased that the results of their meta-analysis are consistent with our conclusions about modest change after age 30. We agree with B.W. Roberts et al that analyses should be conducted at the level of more specific traits, but prefer the 30 facets of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory to the Social Dominance-Social Vitality distinction. The origins of age changes might be found either in environmental influences common to all cultures or in biologically based intrinsic maturation; we offer some reasons for preferring the latter interpretation. Meta-analyses are useful but not definitive, and the resolution of the origin question lies in further research.

The NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3) is a modification of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) designed to be more understandable to adolescents. Data from adults aged 21 to 91 showed that the NEO-PI-3 also functions as well or better than the NEO-PI-R in adults. Age trends from combined adolescent (n = 500) and adult (n = 635) samples confirmed previous cross-sectional findings and demonstrated the importance of studying age changes especially at the facet level and during the decade of the 20s. Normative data for self-report and observer rating forms for adolescents, younger and older adults, and all adults are discussed, as well as for a combined-age group. It is argued that combined-age norms may be most appropriate for depicting the personality scores of individuals, but the utility for some purposes of within-age group scores is also acknowledged.

Hooker and McAdams (2003) have expanded a structural personality model to include personality processes and the interactions among all six resulting foci. This explicit model can usefully enlarge the scope of research on aging and personality. Additional thought, however, is needed on the definition of processes and on the selection of phenomena to be studied at the level of characteristic adaptations.

Three studies were conducted to assess mean level changes in personality traits during adolescence. Versions of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992a) were used to assess the 5 major personality factors. A 4-year longitudinal study of intellectually gifted students (N = 230) was supplemented by cross-sectional studies of nonselected American (N = 1,959) and Flemish (N = 789) adolescents. Personality factors were reasonably invariant across ages, although rank-order stability of individual differences was low. Neuroticism appeared to increase in girls, and Openness to Experience increased in both boys and girls; mean levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were stable. Results extend knowledge of the developmental curve of personality traits backward from adulthood and help bridge the gap with child temperament studies.

Temperaments are often regarded as biologically based psychological tendencies with intrinsic paths of development. It is argued that this definition applies to the personality traits of the five-factor model. Evidence for the endogenous nature of traits is summarized from studies of behavior genetics, parent-child relations, personality structure, animal personality, and the longitudinal stability of individual differences. New evidence for intrinsic maturation is offered from analyses of NEO Five-Factor Inventory scores for men and women age 14 and over in German, British, Spanish, Czech, and Turkish samples (N = 5,085). These data support strong conceptual links to child temperament despite modest empirical associations. The intrinsic maturation of personality is complemented by the culturally conditioned development of characteristic adaptations that express personality; interventions in human development are best addressed to these.

Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in the United States have shown consistent changes between college age and middle adulthood. There appear to be declines in 3 of the 5 major factors of personality--Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness--and increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. To examine cross-cultural generalizability of these findings, translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory were administered to samples in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, and South Korea (N = 7,363). Similar patterns of age differences were seen in each country, for both men and women. Common trends were also seen for the more specific traits that define the major factors. Because these nations differ substantially in culture and recent history, results suggest the hypothesis that these are universal maturational changes in adult personality.

The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) is an ongoing multidisciplinary study of biomedical and psychosocial aging. Over 1000 men and women are currently active, returning to the Gerontology Research Center every 2 years for a 2.5-day visit. Longitudinal studies of cognitive functioning have shown a variety of patterns of age changes in vigilance, problem solving, divergent thinking abilities, and visual memory. Studies of personality traits have shown stability in both mean levels and individual differences. Future BLSA research will add neuroimaging studies to link personality and cognition to the structure and function of the aging brain.

The five-factor model of personality is a hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. Research using both natural language adjectives and theoretically based personality questionnaires supports the comprehensiveness of the model and its applicability across observers and cultures. This article summarizes the history of the model and its supporting evidence; discusses conceptions of the nature of the factors; and outlines an agenda for theorizing about the origins and operation of the factors. We argue that the model should prove useful both for individual assessment and for the elucidation of a number of topics of interest to personality psychologists.

We examined the validity of need scales of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) by correlating them with a measure of the five basic factors of personality; we also considered test format as a possible source of invalidity. Three hundred thirty (223 women, 107 men) undergraduate students completed both the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)--a measure of the five factors--and one of two versions of the EPPS. Results show that both ipsative and normative versions of the EPPS could be meaningfully interpreted within the five-factor model, although the ipsative, forced-choice format of the standard EPPS apparently lowered validity coefficients and decreased convergent and discriminant validity. We argue that the five-factor model can provide a useful interpretive context for evaluating many clinical measures.

Personality researchers have recently converged on the five-factor model as an adequate representation of the structure of personality traits. This article introduces the factors and the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), a questionnaire designed to measure the factors and some of the traits that define them. Data on the comprehensiveness of the model and on the reliability, validity, and stability of measures of the factors are reviewed, and correlations between scales from the NEO-PI and two instruments widely used in clinical practice (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory [MMPI] and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory [MCMI]) are used to illustrate similarities and differences between normal and clinical assessment. Some issues regarding the clinical use of the five-factor model are discussed.

To assess the long-term predictive utility of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) content scales, 1,960 individuals who had completed the MMPI in college in 1964 or 1965 were administered two measures of adult personality, the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) and the Cook and Medley MMPI Hostility scale, in 1988. A comparison group of 274 men and women in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging were given both MMPI and NEO-PI between 1981 and 1987. Predictive correlations between MMPI scales and NEO-PI factors were qualitatively similar to concurrent correlations, but approximately half as large in magnitude. Theoretically, these correlations were interpreted to mean that about half the variance in basic dimensions of personality is stable from college age into middle adulthood. Practically, the relatively modest correlations suggest that predictive studies of medical outcomes probably require large samples, and that baseline data from adults (e.g., over age 30) may be more useful for future studies. The combination of stability and change suggests that the decade of the 20s may be a particularly fruitful time to conduct research on interventions to alter personality and their effects on health outcomes.

Adult children's ratings of their parents' behaviors on the Parent-Child Relation Questionnaire II were correlated with self-reports and peer ratings of personality on the NEO Personality Inventory in a sample of 619 men and women aged 21 to 96. Individuals who reported that their parents were loving scored lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Individuals, especially men, who described their parents as casual rather than demanding were lower in extraversion and conscientiousness, but higher in openness. Parental attention (i.e., spoiling) was associated with extraversion and low agreeableness. Several of these correlations were replicated when peer ratings of personality were examined. However, all the associations were modest, and several alternative explanations suggest that the correlations may exaggerate the influence of these child-rearing practices on adult personality. Parental behaviors and attitudes seem to have less effect on broad dimensions of adult personality than traditionally supposed.

Using a sample of 315 adult men and women, self-reports on Wiggins's revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales were jointly factored with self-reports, peer ratings, and spouse ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory to examine the relations between the two models. Results suggest that the interpersonal circumplex is defined by the two dimensions of Extraversion and Agreeableness, and that the circular ordering of variables is not an artifact of response biases or cognitive schemata. Circumplex and dimensional models appear to complement each other in describing the structure of personality, and both may be useful to social psychologists in understanding interpersonal behavior.