A general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience
Individuals who are highly open to experience tend to have distinctive and unconventional decorations in their home. They are also likely to have books on a wide variety of topics, a diverse music collection, and works of art on display.
A tendency to show self- discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement
Individuals who are conscientious have a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior.
The tendency to experience positive emotions and to seek out stimulation and the company of others
Extroverts enjoy being with people. In groups they like to talk, assert themselves, and draw attention to themselves.
A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic toward others; reflects individual differences in general concern for social harmony
Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with those of others.
The tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression; sometimes called “emotional instability”
Those who score high in neuroticism are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. They may have trouble thinking clearly, making decisions, and coping effectively with stress.
P ersonality can change throughout adulthood. Longitudinal studies reveal average changes during adulthood in the expression of some traits (e.g., neuroticism and openness decrease with age and conscientiousness increases) and individual differences in these patterns due to idiosyncratic life events (e.g., divorce, illness). Longitudinal research also suggests that adult personality traits, such as conscientiousness, predict important life outcomes including job success, health, and longevity. [12] [13]
The Harvard Health Letter [14] identifies research correlations between conscientiousness and lower blood pressure, lower rates of diabetes and stroke, fewer joint problems, being less likely to engage in harmful behaviors, being more likely to stick to healthy behaviors, and more likely to avoid stressful situations. Conscientiousness also appears related to career choices, friendships, and stability of marriage. Lastly, a person possessing both self-control and organizational skills, both related to conscientiousness, may withstand the effects of aging better and have stronger cognitive skills than one who does not possess these qualities.
| I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me. |
| I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. |
| I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this sometimes scares people away. |
Hazan and Shaver [16] described the attachment styles of adults, using the same three general categories proposed by Ainsworth’s research on young children; secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent. Hazan and Shaver developed three brief paragraphs describing the three adult attachment styles. Adults were then asked to think about romantic relationships they were in and select the paragraph that best described the way they felt, thought, and behaved in these relationships (See Table 7.3.). [17]
Bartholomew [18] challenged the categorical view of attachment in adults and suggested that adult attachment was best described as varying along two dimensions; attachment related-anxiety and attachment-related avoidance. Attachment-related anxiety refers to the extent to which an adult worries about whether their partner really loves them. Those who score high on this dimension fear that their partner will reject or abandon them. [19] Attachment-related avoidance refers to whether an adult can open up to others, and whether they trust and feel they can depend on others . Those who score high on attachment- related avoidance are uncomfortable with opening up and may fear that such dependency may limit their sense of autonomy. [20] According to Bartholomew [21] this would yield four possible attachment styles in adults; secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful- avoidant (see Figure 7.10)
Securely attached adults score lower on both dimensions. They are comfortable trusting their partners and do not worry excessively about their partner’s love for them. Adults with a dismissing style score low on attachment-related anxiety, but higher on attachment-related avoidance. Such adults dismiss the importance of relationships. They trust themselves, but do not trust others, thus do not share their dreams, goals, and fears with others. They do not depend on other people, and feel uncomfortable when they have to do so.
Those with a preoccupied attachment are low in attachment-related avoidance, but high in attachment-related anxiety. Such adults are often prone to jealousy and worry that their partner does not love them as much as they need to be loved. Adults whose attachment style is fearful- avoidant score high on both attachment-related avoidance and attachment-related anxiety. These adults want close relationships, but do not feel comfortable getting emotionally close to others. They have trust issues with others and often do not trust their own social skills in maintaining relationships.
Research on attachment in adulthood has found that:
Adults with insecure attachments report lower satisfaction in their relationships. [22] [23]
Those high in attachment-related anxiety tend to report more daily conflict in their relationships. [24]
Those with avoidant attachment exhibit less support to their partners. [25]
Young adults tend to show greater attachment-related anxiety than do middle-aged or older adults. [26]
Some studies report that young adults tend to show more attachment-related avoidance, [27] while other studies find that middle-aged adults tend to show higher avoidance than younger or older adults. [28]
Young adults with more secure and positive relationships with their parents tend to make the transition to adulthood more easily than do those with more insecure attachments. [29]
When people are asked what kinds of psychological or behavioral qualities they are seeking in a romantic partner, a large majority of people indicate that they are seeking someone who is kind, caring, trustworthy, and understanding, that is the kinds of attributes that characterize a “secure” caregiver. [30] However, we know that people do not always end up with others who meet their ideals. Are secure people more likely to end up with secure partners, and, vice versa, are insecure people more likely to end up with insecure partners? The majority of the research that has been conducted to date suggests that the answer is “yes.”
One important question is whether these findings exist because (a) secure people are more likely to be attracted to other secure people, (b) secure people are likely to create security in their partners over time, or (c) some combination of these possibilities. Existing empirical research strongly supports the first alternative. For example, when people have the opportunity to interact with individuals who vary in security in a speed-dating context, they express a greater interest in those who are higher in security than those who are more insecure. [31] However, there is also some evidence that people’s attachment styles mutually shape one another in close relationships.
The majority of research on this issue relies on adults’ reports of what they recall about their childhood experiences. This kind of work suggests that secure adults are more likely to describe their early childhood experiences with their parents as being supportive, loving, and kind. [32] A number of longitudinal studies are emerging that demonstrate prospective associations between early attachment experiences and adult attachment styles and/or interpersonal functioning in adulthood.
It is easy to come away from such findings with the mistaken assumption that early experiences “determine” later outcomes. To be clear: Attachment theorists assume that the relationship between early experiences and subsequent outcomes is probabilistic, not deterministic. Having supportive and responsive experiences with caregivers early in life is assumed to set the stage for positive social development. But that does not mean that attachment patterns cannot change over time. For instance, even if an individual has far from optimal experiences in early life, attachment theory suggests that it is possible for that individual to develop well-functioning adult relationships through a number of corrective experiences, including relationships with siblings, other family members, teachers, and close friends. Security is best viewed as a culmination of a person’s attachment history rather than a reflection of only the person’s early experiences. Those early experiences are considered important, not because they determine a person’s fate, but because they provide the foundation for subsequent experiences.
Individual and Family Development, Health, and Well-being Copyright © 2022 by Diana Lang; Nick Cone; Margaret Clark-Plaskie; Laura Overstreet; Martha Lally; and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff
Almost by definition, personality traits are thought to be enduring psychological features. They mark someone as thinking and behaving in a characteristic way right now—and, probably, tomorrow and even a year from now. Indeed, research on personality development over time indicates that, at least in adulthood, individuals’ comparative ratings on traits such as extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are relatively stable.
At the same time, it’s clear that people’s personalities do gradually evolve over the lifespan, from childhood through older age, and potentially shift in conjunction with important life events, such as romantic partnerships. Individuals may even be able to change aspects of their personalities through their own volition.
While traits show stability over time, personality can indeed change—and psychologists continue to explore why, how, and when that happens.
Will a kind, hard-working, and introverted teenage girl still retain those traits when she’s a 55-year-old woman? Has an outspoken and short-tempered grandfather always been that way, or has he grown more so over the years? One way to answer these questions might be: Yes and no.
Psychologists who have analyzed data on personalities taken decades apart in the lifespan find evidence for both stability and change. That is, people often resemble themselves over time rather than changing dramatically—and will likely remain more extroverted or neurotic than most if they start out that way. But there are also overall trends showing that people tend to rate higher or lower on certain traits with the passage of years.
In short, people seem to mature, or become more socially adapted, over time in ways that show up on personality tests. Personality data taken first in youth and again 50 years later showed increases in traits such as calmness (thought to be related to emotional stability) and social sensitivity (related to agreeableness). Other work has found evidence that narcissism decreases , on average, over time.
Children, studies suggest, may show increasingly more distinct trait profiles as they grow older. Research involving adolescents and young adults indicates fluctuations in personality over time: In the teen years, for instance, boys may become less conscientious and girls less emotionally stable, on average, with both gaining in those traits as they reach adulthood. Agreeableness also seems to increase.
They might. Some research has found an overall decline in agreeableness among newlywed husbands and wives . Husbands also exhibited lowered extroversion and greater conscientiousness, on average, and wives showed decreased openness and neuroticism. Past work has also connected first long-term relationships with decreases in aspects of neuroticism.
People can evolve over the course of experience-filled years for many different reasons. But what about the person who wants to become more conscientious or agreeable, or less neurotic or self-centered, and to do so ASAP? Recent research provides reason to be hopeful about the possibilities for intentional, self-directed personality change—though it likely requires more than just wishing to be a certain way.
It seems possible. Several of the Big Five traits, including extroversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, seem amenable to volitional change—via exercises like deliberately saying hello to someone new (for extroversion)—though consistency in these efforts appeared to be important. Neuroticism (or emotional stability) is also apparently changeable, whether through special courses or through a time-worn method of change: psychotherapy .
Some interventions used to enable people to change their personalities have unfolded on the scale of months. But recent research suggests that even a two-week, smartphone-based intervention may be enough to enhance a specific facet of personality like self-discipline—at least in the short-term.
Yes. While personality disorders are thought of as long-term patterns of maladaptive thinking and behavior, there is evidence that over time, symptoms of a personality disorder can decrease—even if certain psychological and social impairments remain . In some cases, therapy may be helpful in improving functioning: For example, Dialectical Behavior Therapy is one approach commonly used to treat borderline personality disorder.
As we learn about how much and in what ways personalities develop over time, questions still abound about what, exactly, gives a person a particular set of traits to begin with. As with other psychological characteristics, personality traits are influenced by one’s genes as well as other factors—and not necessarily the ones we think.
Many theories have been offered over the centuries, and there are still differences of opinion. But contemporary scientific research indicates that some portion of personality differences are explained by people’s genes, a small proportion at most is linked to environmental influences shared within a family, like parenting, and much of the differences result from many other non-genetic developmental factors . Some theorists propose that social role changes influence personality in significant ways as a person grows up.
Estimates suggest the amount of difference between people (or variance) in personality ratings that can be attributed to genes—the heritability of personality—is less than half. A 2015 analysis gave an overall estimate of 40 percent, though it varied depending on the type of study. These figures are based on studies of twins and other approaches for exploring the contribution of genetic and non-genetic factors. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are now used to explore the specific links between many small genetic differences and people’s traits.
Despite popular ideas and psychological theorizing about the effects of being a firstborn sibling, the “baby” of the family, or a middle child, recent studies show no evidence that birth order plays a substantial role in shaping personality. Research on only children has also found little to no difference between their personalities and those of others.
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Y ou’ve probably heard the saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” An awful phrase, I know, but it speaks to a common belief about older adulthood: that it’s a time of stagnation. A time when we’ve become so set in our ways that, whether we’re proud of them or not, we’re not likely to budge.
Psychologists used to follow the same line of thinking: After young adulthood, people tend to settle into themselves, and personality, though not immutable, usually becomes stabler as people age. And that’s true—until a certain point. More recent studies suggest that something unexpected happens to many people as they reach and pass their 60s: Their personality starts changing again.
This trend is probably observed in older populations in part because older adults are more likely to experience brain changes such as cognitive impairment and dementia. But some researchers don’t believe the phenomenon is fully explained by those factors. People’s personality can morph in response to their circumstances, helping them shift priorities, come to terms with loss, and acclimate to a changing life. These developments illuminate what personality really is: not a permanent state but an adaptive way of being. And on a societal level, personality changes might tell us something about the conditions that older adults face.
Read: Life is worse for older people now
P sychologists have identified certain major, measurable personality traits called the “Big Five”: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism. And they can track how those traits increase or decrease in a group over time. To the surprise of many in the field, those kinds of studies are revealing that the strongest personality changes tend to happen before age 30—and after 60 . In that phase of later adulthood, people seem to decrease, on average, in openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extroversion—particularly a subcategory of extroversion called “social vitality.” And neuroticism tends to increase, especially closer to the end of one’s life.
We can’t say with certainty what factors are driving these shifts, but a few theories exist. One possibility is that personality is shaped by specific life events that tend to happen in older age: retirement, empty nesting, widowhood. But such milestones, it turns out, aren’t very reliable sources of change; they affect some people deeply and others not at all. Any one event could mean many different things, depending on its context. Jenny Wagner, a psychologist at the University of Hamburg, in Germany, gave me some examples. Losing a partner could be a tremendous loss, but for some it could be a bit of a relief at the same time—say, for someone who’s been caring for their ailing spouse for years. Retirement is the same: Where one person might be jumping from book club to vacation, another might be hobbled by lack of income, forced to move away from friends to a cheaper part of town.
At any age, life events can affect people differently. But in older adulthood particularly, researchers told me, people’s daily realities vary wildly, so factors like health and social support are probably better predictors of personality change. “What you really want to know,” Wiebke Bleidorn, a personality psychologist at the University of Zurich, told me, “is What are people’s lives like? ” If someone is no longer strong enough to go to dinner parties every week, they might grow less extroverted; if someone needs to be more careful of physical dangers like falling, it makes sense that they’d grow more neurotic.
Read: I gave myself three months to change my personality
The idea that people might change who they are—really change, in a deep and even lasting way—in response to their circumstances might seem surprising. Many of us think of personality not as a set of dials we can modulate strategically but as something more akin to a hand of cards you’ve been dealt. In truth, personality can likely be nudged by our environment and our relationships—our commitments to other people, and their expectations for us—at any age. But before older adulthood, people might commonly be less pressed to change themselves; they can usually change their habits and environments instead. Brent Roberts, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told me that “we construct our world to avoid” personality change. But if you can’t take yourself to the grocery store, much less move to a different city, you might need to adapt. Once you lose control over elements of your life, Bleidorn said, you may alter your personality instead.
Granted, old-age personality changes don’t always result from a sense of helplessness or an endlessly shrinking life. Research has shown that when people get older, they commonly recalibrate their goals ; though they might be doing less, they tend to prioritize what they find meaningful and really appreciate it. A decline in openness to experience, then, could reflect someone relishing their routine rather than seeking new thrills; a decline in extroversion could indicate that they’re satisfied spending time with the people they already love. That may involve adjusting to what they can’t control, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re reacting to a bad life—just a different one.
At the same time, not all of the changes that come with old age are inevitable. And if older adults had more support from their communities and society, perhaps they’d be better able to command their circumstances—rather than having to compensate for factors slipping out of their grasp.
Read: When does someone become “old”?
Loneliness—which affects roughly 43 percent of Americans 60 and over—can be a particular challenge for older people who, depending on their health and living situation, may have a hard time mitigating it. Older adults commonly experience friends dying, or have to move farther away from friends to enter care facilities or be closer to family; health issues can make socializing physically harder, especially for those who can’t safely drive. And the pandemic has pushed many older people further into seclusion than ever. But there are ways to work against these factors : Programs to help with home modifications could allow older adults to stay in their houses and neighborhoods for longer; affordable housing in areas with large senior populations could help older adults live in close proximity to one another; car services and more accessible public transit could transport them to social events. “To the extent that we can create communities for older individuals,” Roberts told me, “they would probably show a more healthy pattern of personality change.”
One study, for instance, found that older adults who felt they had more social support were more likely to grow in conscientiousness over time. You can imagine similarly positive results might stem from older adults having access to the health care they need, or having the tools to navigate their daily lives safely and without total dependence on others. Dan Mroczek, a psychologist at Northwestern University, gave me a common example: Say someone has put off leaving their home for a care facility, and one day they find they’re unable to climb their own stairs. Now they need to move out fast—but spots are filled in all of the most palatable places. He wouldn’t be surprised, he told me, if someone quickly grew more neurotic in that situation.
There’s a stereotype that older people are grumpy shut-ins—withering away inside while yelling at some kid to get off their lawn. That judgment is obviously sweeping and unfair, but perhaps it’s also emerged, in part, from some real tendencies—tendencies that might be better understood as justified reactions to a harsh and inaccessible world. America’s population is rapidly growing older , and life expectancy, except for a recent dip , has been getting longer. By 2040, about one in five Americans will be 65 or older; as recently as 2000, that number was one in eight. Perhaps we’d do well to consider what older people’s living conditions can push them to become.
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Personality development in emerging adulthood—how the perception of life events and mindset affect personality trait change.
Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of experiencing two major life events: graduating from school and moving away from home. Thereby, we examined the occurrence of the two life events per se and the subjective perception of the critical life event in terms of valence. In addition, we postulate a moderation effect of the construct of mindset, which emphasizes that beliefs over the malleability of global attributes can be seen as predictors of resilience to challenges. This suggests that mindset acts as a buffer for these two distinct events. In a large longitudinal sample of 1,243 people entering adulthood, we applied latent structural equation modeling to assess mean-level changes in the Big Five, the influence of life events per se , the subjective perception of life events, and a moderating role of mindset. In line with maturity processes, results showed significant mean-level changes in all Big Five traits. While no changes in the Big Five dimensions were noted when the mere occurrence of an event is assessed, results indicated a greater increase in extraversion and diminished increase in emotional stability when we accounted for the individual's (positive/negative) perception of the critical life event. In case of extraversion, this also holds true for the moderator mindset. Our findings contribute valuable insights into the relevance of subjective appraisals to life events and the importance of underlying processes to these events.
People change as they age. Individuals experience not only physical but also psychological changes across the entire lifespan. However, the exact course of internal and external changes depends on various criteria. In recent years, researchers have expended considerable effort in studying how personality develops across the lifespan; this has, in turn, incited a controversy about the stability and variability of specific personality traits. Personality traits are considered to be relatively stable individual differences in affect, behavior, and/or cognition ( Johnson, 1997 ). Whereas, the Big Five traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness appear to be rather stable and continuously increase across adulthood, levels of openness to experience appear to change in an inverted U-shape function, which increases between the ages of 18 and 22 and decreases between 60 and 70 ( McCrae and Costa, 1999 ; Roberts and DelVecchio, 2000 ; Specht et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, some studies have shown that trait change can be associated with particular life stages. For example, the findings of Roberts and Mroczek (2008) suggest that young adults tend to exhibit increases in traits that are indicative of greater social maturity. More specifically, in emerging adulthood, the average individual experiences an increase in emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness ( Arnett, 2000 ; Roberts et al., 2006 ; Bleidorn, 2015 ), and self-esteem ( Orth et al., 2018 ), while openness to experience seems to decrease in advancing age ( Roberts et al., 2006 ). Taken together, this comprises evidence that personality develops throughout the lifespan and consequently, several theories have been introduced to explain when and why personality change occurs (e.g., Cattell, 1971 ; Baltes, 1987 ; Caspi and Moffitt, 1993 ; McCrae and Costa, 1999 ; Roberts and Mroczek, 2008 ).
Theory and research support the idea that personality can change as a result of intrinsic factors such as genetics and extrinsic factors such as the environment around us ( Bleidorn and Schwaba, 2017 ; Wagner et al., 2020 ). More specifically, there is ample evidence that personality is linked to certain external influences such as critical life events (e.g., Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Bleidorn et al., 2018 ). These can be defined as “transitions that mark the beginning or the end of a specific status” ( Luhmann et al., 2012 ; p. 594) and include leaving the parental home or major changes in one's status such as employment or duty. These transitions often require adaptation processes involving new behavioral, cognitive, or emotional responses ( Hopson and Adams, 1976 ; Luhmann et al., 2012 , 2014 ). Profound adaptations are assumed to have lasting effects, as “life events can modify, interrupt or redirect life trajectories by altering individuals' feelings, thoughts and behaviors” ( Bleidorn et al., 2018 , p. 83). Building upon this assumption, many studies have sought to determine how certain Big Five traits change because of critical life events. For instance, increases in emotional stability were found to result from transitioning into one's first romantic relationship ( Lehnart et al., 2010 ). Emotional stability might also increase in anticipation of gain-based events such as childbirth or paid employment, which, in turn, lead to increases in conscientiousness and openness to experience ( Denissen et al., 2018 ).
In the present study, we focus on two critical life events that are highly relevant for emerging adults: moving away from home and graduating from school. Both events represent a personal development milestone for the transition into adulthood and are typically associated with great educational or occupational challenges ( Arnett, 2000 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Few studies have highlighted these two events and how they influence life trajectories in emerging adulthood. Lüdtke et al. (2011 ) focused on the broader superordinate section of work-related life events and personality change and found that the transition from high school to college, university, or vocational training is associated with substantial normative increases in emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. With regard to graduation from school, Bleidorn (2012) found significant mean-level changes in certain Big Five traits over an observation period of 1 year. Specifically, senior students experienced increases in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness after graduation. In a later review by Bleidorn et al. (2018) , the authors found that graduation constitutes an almost universal life event in Western societies and that related change in adult personality is likely to be observable, because young adulthood is a period in which personality traits have been shown to be most open to change ( Roberts and DelVecchio, 2000 ; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011 ).
There are fewer investigations into the personality effects of moving away from home. Pusch et al. (2018) compared age differences in emerging vs. young adults and found that, among other life events, leaving the parental home did not reveal significant age effects with respect to personality change. However, they found significant age-invariant effects for individuals who left their parental home recently, indicating positive changes in agreeableness. Jonkmann et al. (2014) investigated living arrangements after college with regard to personality differences and found that, for example, the choice of living arrangement (living with roommates vs. living alone) predicted the development of conscientiousness and—to a lesser extent—openness and agreeableness. Similarly, according to a study by Niehoff et al. (2017) , living and studying abroad after college led to increases in extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Interestingly, Specht et al. (2011) found a significant sex effect on leaving the parental home and argued that only women become more emotionally stable when moving. Taken together, this evidence suggests that moving away from home is a major life event that has not yet been deeply investigated but represents a distinct developmental task that has the potential to shape individuals' personalities.
While these studies provide valuable information about the impact of critical life events, one important issue has been hitherto neglected. Many past studies have focused on life events per se , but comparatively little effort has been made to examine the subjective appraisal of such events and its effect on the processes underlying personality change ( Roberts, 2009 ). Moreover, methodological approaches to life events are sometimes misleading, because the valence of experienced events is rated by either researchers or other people who cannot sufficiently reflect inter- and intra-individual experiences of events ( Headey and Wearing, 1989 ; Kendler et al., 2003 ; Luhmann et al., 2020 ). However, there is ample evidence that people perceive the same event or situation very differently. For example, according to a comprehensive review of person-situation transactions by Rauthmann et al. (2015) , situations can be characterized by their physical (e.g., location, activity, persons) and/or psychological (e.g., task-related, threatening, pleasant) properties. Rauthmann et al. (2015) further state that “situations only have consequences for people's thinking, feeling, desiring, and acting through the psychological processing they receive” (p. 372). Thus, people's individual experiences of psychological situations may deviate from how these situations are experienced by most other people (reality principle). This assumption aligns with the TESSERA framework conceived by Wrzus and Roberts (2017) . According to the authors, events and single situations can trigger expectancies about how to act and adjust in similar situations. These expectancies then determine which state occurs after the corresponding trigger by choosing a response from a variety of possible states ( Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ). Conjointly, two people can perceive the same situation or event very differently, leading to diverse reactions and psychological meanings.
A first step toward this important distinction was proposed by Luhmann et al. (2020) , who aimed to systematically examined the effects of life events on psychological outcomes. To do so, the authors proposed a dimensional taxonomy which that considers nine perceived characteristics of major life events. I this way, the study uniquely emphasizes the difference between assessing the mere occurrence of a critical life event and taking into account subjective appraisal. However, significantly more research is needed to fully explore how this causes lasting personality trait change.
In conclusion, two aspects of person-situation transactions should be highlighted. First, one situation can be interpreted very differently by two individuals. Expectations and individual goals—as well as variable expressions of personality traits—influence the extent to which a situation is perceived as meaningful and, therefore, determine how people approach it ( Bleidorn, 2012 ; Denissen et al., 2013 , 2018 ). Second, this is also true for life events. Two people can reasonably experience the same major life event as completely differently. Therefore, we focus the present study on the valence of two distinct life events and use this characteristic as our central parameter. In particular, in emerging adulthood, individuals might perceive the behavioral expectations and demands associated with a life event as more pressing than others ( Pusch et al., 2018 ). What remains less clear is how situational perceptions affect personality change after a major life event, but with respect to the current string of literature, it seems reductive to only ask if, but not how, critical life events are experienced.
In the previous section, we examined how diverse critical life events can be perceived. Here, we extend our theoretical approach by focusing on the underlying processes that might account for the different perception and spotlight causes of individual personality trait changes. One construct that is highly relevant to the aforementioned regulatory mechanisms is the individual belief system mindset. According to Dweck (1999) , an individual's mindset refers to the implicit belief about the malleability of personal attributes. Dweck (1999) distinguishes between growth and fixed mindsets. The growth mindset emphasizes the belief that attributes like intelligence and personality are changeable. Conversely, the fixed mindset refers to the belief that such attributes are immutable. According to Dweck (2012) , the individual mindset is not static and can be changed throughout one's life. Actively changing one's mindset toward a growth mindset was found to decrease chronic adolescent aggression, enhance people's willpower, and redirect critical academic outcomes ( Dweck, 2012 ; Yeager et al., 2019 ). Moreover, Blackwell et al. (2007) found that the belief that intelligence is malleable (incremental theory) predicted an upward trajectory in grades over 2 years of junior high school, while the belief that intelligence is fixed (entity theory) predicted a flat trajectory. Yet, according to a meta-analysis from Sisk et al. (2018) , mindset interventions for academic achievement predominately benefitted students with low socioeconomic status or who are at-risk academically. Mindset has also been linked to business-related outcomes (e.g., Kray and Haselhuhn, 2007 ; Heslin and Vandewalle, 2008 ). That is, individuals with a growth mindset tend to use “higher-order” cognitive strategies and adapt to stress more easily ( Heslin and Vandewalle, 2008 ). Likewise, mindset has been linked to health outcomes and even mental illness, with the assumption that a growth mindset buffers against psychological distress and depression (e.g., Biddle et al., 2003 ; Burnette and Finkel, 2012 ; Schroder et al., 2017 ). Therefore, a growth mindset can be considered a predictor of psychological resilience ( Saeed et al., 2018 ).
With regard to changes in personality traits, the findings have been mixed. Hudson et al. (2020) investigated college students' beliefs by adapting a personality measure into a mindset measure and administering it within a longitudinal study. They found that the mere belief that personality is malleable (or not) did not affect trait changes. However, in her Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development, Dweck (2017) suggests that basic needs, mental representations (e.g., beliefs and emotions), and action tendencies (referred to as BEATs) contribute to personality development. Dweck further argues that mental representations shape motivation by informing goal selection and subsequently form personality traits by creating recurring experiences ( Dweck, 2017 ). Thus, there might be more information about indicators such as the integration of mindset, motivation, and environmental influences necessary to understand how personality traits change according to belief systems.
In summary, there is evidence that a belief in the malleability of global attributes allows individuals to adapt to life circumstances in a goal-directed way and that individuals' mindsets determine responses to challenges ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Building upon the existing literature around environmental influences on personality traits and the diverse effects of mindset, we argue that after experiencing a critical life event, individuals with a growth mindset will adapt to a new situation more easily and accordingly exhibit greater change in relating personality traits. In contrast, individuals with a fixed mindset might react in a more rigid way to unknown circumstances and thus don't experience the need adapt, resulting in no personality trait change.
This study aims to contribute to the literature around external and internal influences on personality development in emerging adulthood by analyzing changes in the Big Five, the influences of the occurrence of life events per se vs. their subjective perception, and the possible moderating effects of mindset in a longitudinal study with a large sample. Most prior studies have focused on personality development in adulthood (e.g., Roberts and Jackson, 2008 ; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011 ; Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ; Damian et al., 2018 ; Denissen et al., 2018 ), but emerging adulthood is marked by tremendous changes; thus, we focus our analyses on this period. According to Arnett (2000 , 2007) , emerging adulthood is considered a distinct stage between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood. This is seen as a critical life period because it is characterized by more transformation, exploration, and personality formation than any other life stage in adulthood ( Arnett, 2000 ; Ziegler et al., 2015 ; Bleidorn and Schwaba, 2017 ). With regard to beliefs systems, Yeager et al. (2019) argue that beliefs that affect how, for example, students make sense of ongoing challenges are most important and salient during high-stakes developmental turning points such as pubertal maturation. For this reason, it is particularly compelling to investigate environmental influences such as major life events that shape the trajectory of personality trait change in emerging adulthood.
To do so, we examined whether two major critical life events (graduating from school and moving away from home) affect personality development. We chose these two major life events because they are uniquely related to emerging adulthood and because existing research has found mixed results regarding their influence on personality trait change (e.g., Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Specht et al., 2011 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Based on prior findings, we constructed three hypotheses. First, we expect that an increase in personality trait change will occur in individuals who graduate from school/move away from home but not in those who did not experience such events. Second, subjective perceptions of the two critical life events will influence personality trait changes in the Big Five. Third, we look at the underlying processes that influence personality and argue, that mindset will moderate the impact of the two stated life events/perception of life events on personality trait change.
For this study, we created the German Personality Panel (GEPP) by collecting data from a large German sample in cooperation with a non-profit online survey provided by berufsprofiling.de . This organization assists emerging adults by providing job opportunities and post-graduation academic pathways. After completing the questionnaire, participants received feedback and vocational guidance. In 2016 and 2017, a total of 11,816 individuals between 13 and 30 years old ( M = 17.72 years; SD = 3.22, 50.71% female) took this survey. We used this first round of data-gathering as our longitudinal measurement occasion T1. If participants consented to be contacted again, we reached out via email in October 2018 to request their participation in a second survey. A total of 1,679 individuals between 14 and 26 years old ( M = 17.39, SD = 2.37, 64.82% female) agreed to participate and filled in a second online survey (second measurement occasion of GEPP, T2). The test battery at T2 took approximately 30–40 min, and we provided personalized feedback on personality development, as well as a monetary compensation, to all participants.
Because we were interested in emerging adults who were about to graduate from school?and thus found themselves in a critical time period?we excluded all participants older than 21 at T2. On the other hand, we included 14-year-old participants because they could have entered school in Germany at the age of five and thus graduated from secondary school and/or moved away from home by this age. At T2, 12% had not yet finished school, 32% held a secondary school certificate, and 57% held a university entrance diploma.
To further improve data quality, we obtained an indicator for careless responding by asking about self-reported diligence (“Did you work conscientiously on the test?”). Participants were informed that their answer had no impact on their compensation. At T2, 41 (3%) participants answered “No.” After excluding participants meeting this criterion, a sample of n = 1,243, aged 14–21 years ( M = 16.92, SD = 1.75, 67.23% women), remained for subsequent data analyses. All data and further materials are available via osf ( https://osf.io/xc6d4/?view_only=5b913c97553d48a290b75a3f725aca3d ).
Numerous email accounts were invalid at the second measurement point—for example, because students' personalized school email accounts were deleted following their graduation or because certain institutions used only a single email account to offer vocational counseling to college students ( N = 3,495). Those who did not participate at the second measurement point (dropouts) were slightly younger than those who participated (continuers) [ M (ageD) = 17.39; M (ageC) = 17.76; p ≤ 0.000, d = −0.12] and more women filled in the second questionnaire (dropouts = 50.9% women, continuers = 64.8% women; p ≤ 0.000, d = 0.31). Only modest selectivity effects (measured by Cohen's d ) in terms of mean differences in personality traits between dropouts and continuers were found at T1; thus, there was negligible systematic attrition ( Specht et al., 2011 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Continuers had slightly higher scores in agreeableness ( d = 0.17), conscientiousness ( d = 0.19), and openness ( d = 0.16) than dropouts, but they almost identical in terms of extraversion ( d = −0.08) and emotional stability ( d = 0.01).
Personality traits were assessed on both measurement occasions using a short version of the Big Five personality inventory for the vocational context (TAKE5; S&F Personalpsychologie Managementberatung GmbH, 2005 ). The TAKE5 has been shown to be a highly reliable and valid personality measure ( Mussel, 2012 ). In the short version of the test, each of the Big Five subscales (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability) consists of three items and was measured on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ). Example items for conscientiousness include (translated from German): “Nothing can stop me from completing an important task,” “People around me know me as a perfectionist,” and “My work is always carried out the highest quality standards.” Items were selected to cover the different aspects of each domain therefore internal consistencies provide no valuable indicator. Test-retest reliabilities for the TAKE5 between T1 and T2 were 0.69 for extraversion, 0.52 for openness to experience, 0.57 for conscientiousness, 0.58 for agreeableness, and 0.50 for emotional stability. Small to moderate reliability levels can be explained by the heterogeneity of the items and our attempt to capture rather broad personality constructs. Similar results have been reported for other brief personality scales ( Donnellan et al., 2006 ; Rammstedt et al., 2016 ). All descriptive statistics and correlations can be found in Table 1 , and bivariate correlations of all items can be found at osf ( https://osf.io/xc6d4/?view_only=5b913c97553d48a290b75a3f725aca3d ).
Table 1 . Correlations and descriptive statistics among variables.
In the present study, we focus on two major life events that are highly characteristic of the critical period between the late teens and young adulthood ( Arnett, 2000 ; Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Bleidorn, 2012 ): moving away from home and graduating from school. At T2, after completing the personality questionnaire, participants rated their subjective perception of each of the two life events on a dimensional 7-point Likert scale (1 = very negatively , 7 = very positively ). Of the initial sample, 68.38% of the participants had graduated from school, 47.66% had moved away from home, and 46.96% had experienced both life events. Participants who had graduated from school were older ( M = 17.32 years, SD = 1.84, female = 68.80%) compared to those who had not yet finished school ( M = 15.30 years, SD = 1.09, female = 68.21%). Those who had moved away from home were approximately 1 year older ( M = 17.53, SD = 1.89, female = 69.30%) compared to those did not yet moved away ( M = 16.29, SD =1.69, female = 66.91%). To avoid potential confounding effects, we only asked about events that had happened within the past year (after the first measurement occasion). This allowed us to account for experiences that took place before T1.
In the second step, in order to obtain a fuller picture, participants also had the option of rating an additional significant life event from a list of 18 potential life events from various domains—such as love and health—based on the Munich Life Event List (MEL; Maier-Diewald et al., 1983 ). However, the number of individuals who experienced these other life events was too small to allow for further analyses.
Participants' mindset was measured with a questionnaire based on Dweck's Mindset Instrument (DMI). The 16-item DMI was developed and created by Dweck (1999) and is used examine how students view their own personality and intelligence. In the current study, only items concerning beliefs about the malleability of personality were used. The mindset inventory items were “Personality traits are something a person cannot change,” “You have a certain personality and you really can't do much to change it,” and “You can learn new things, but you can't really change your basic personality.” At T2, participants were presented a 7-point response scale, ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ) ( M = 3.60, SD = 1.45). Items were reversed such that higher levels indicated a growth mindset. This short inventory was found to be highly reliable ( M = 3.60, SD = 1.45, ω = 0.81, 95% CI [0.70, 0.84]).
Analyses were carried out in four steps. First, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test for measurement invariance across time points T1 and T2. Second, we constructed latent difference score models for all Big Five scales to test for mean differences in personality traits. Third, we investigated the impact of the life events moving away from home and graduating from school, as well as the perception of these two events on changes in the Big Five. Fourth, we added mindset as a moderator to the model. All statistical analyses were carried out in R and R Studio 1.2.1335 ( R Core Team, 2018 ).
To ensure that the same construct was being measured across time, we first tested for measurement invariance. For weak measurement invariance, we fixed the factor loadings for each indicator to be equal across measurement occasions and compared this model to the configural model, where no restrictions were applied. The same procedure was followed to assess strong measurement invariance, with the weak invariant model compared to a model with constrained intercepts to equality across time (e.g., the same intercept for Item 2 at T1 and Item 2 at T2) ( Newsom, 2015 ). To evaluate the model fit, comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were inspected. Good fit was considered to be indicated when CFI and TLI values were 0.90 or higher, RMSEA below 0.08, and SRMR values below 0.05 ( Hu and Bentler, 1999 ; Marsh et al., 2005 ). The configural model showed good fit for all of the Big Five traits (All χ 2 [4 24], df = 5, CFI > [0.98 1.00], TLI > [0.94 1.00], RMSEA < [0.0 0.06], SRMR < [0.0 0.02]). Model fit for partial strong measurement invariance revealed similar fit (all χ 2 [9 50], df = 8, CFI > [0.96 1.00], TLI > [0.92 1.00], RMSEA < [0.01 0.07], SRMR < [0.01 0.03]) when freely estimating the intercept of the first manifest OCEAN item ( Cheung and Rensvold, 2002 ; Little et al., 2007 ). All further analyses are based on this model and full results for fit indices are presented in Table S1 .
To test for changes in personality over time, we applied latent structural equation modeling analysis with the R package lavaan (version 0.5-23.1097; Rosseel, 2012 ). Required sample size for the specified latent change score model was estimated by the R-toolbox semTools ( MacCallum et al., 2006 ; Jorgensen et al., 2018 ) for RMSEA = 0.05, df = 16, α = 0.05, and a statistical power of 90% to N = 672 individuals. Therefore, we consider our sample size to be sufficiently large.
As we were first interested in the rate of change, we built a multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model for each of the Big Five domains ( Figure 1 ). Each latent construct of interest (OCEAN) consisted of three observed measures (X1, X2, and X3) at two waves. Equality constraints were imposed on factor loadings and intercepts ( Newsom, 2015 ). Moreover, the autoregressive path was set equal to 1. The means, intercepts, and covariances at the first occasion and for the difference score factor were freely estimated, and all measurement residuals were allowed to correlate among the sets of repeated measurements ( McArdle et al., 2002 ). We accounted for missing data by applying robust maximum likelihood estimation. Finally, after specifying this basic model, the variables of interest—the occurrence of the life event, perception of the life event, and the moderator mindset—were added to the model.
Figure 1 . Schematic model of the multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model. The latent construct of interest (each personality trait) was measured at two time points (T1 and T2), using three indicators each time (X1, X2, X3). The lower part of the model constitutes the assessment of measurement invariance. “Δ latent change” captures change from the Big Five trait from T1 to T2. Latent regressions from “Δ latent change” on Mod→ Δ reflect the influence of the covariate perception of life event or the moderator mindset on the development of the Big Five. Straight arrows depict loadings and regression coefficients, curved arrows co-variances.
Standardized mean differences were calculated as an average of all intra-individual increases and decreases in a given personality trait over time. As illustrated in Figure 2 , all latent mean scores for the Big Five increased from T1 to T2. Conscientiousness and openness to experience exhibited the largest mean-level changes from T1 to T2, whereas agreeableness ( d = 0.02) and emotional stability ( d = 0.07) remained nearly the same. To test for changes in personality, we employed a multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model. Separate models for each of the Big Five all fit the data well (all CFI > 0.95, TLI > 0.93, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.04). Inspecting the intercepts of the change factors revealed that all Big Five scores changed between T1 and T2, with less increase among individuals with high compared to low levels at T1. The latent means for each personality dimension at each time point, along with their fit indices, are reported in Table 2 .
Figure 2 . Mean-level changes in Big Five dimensions over measurement occasions T1 and T2.
Table 2 . Big Five mean-level change from T1 to T2 with fit indices, n = 1,243.
To assess personality trait change resulting from experiencing a life event, we included a standardized dichotomized variable “experiencing the life event vs. not” into the model. Again, the model fit the data well for both critical life events (all CFI > 0.94, TLI > 0.92, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.04). However, comparing participants who had experienced one of the critical life events (moving away from home or graduating from school) to those who had not revealed that neither life event had a significant impact on changes in personality traits between T1 and T2 ( p >0.05).
To assess personality trait change resulting from perception of a life event, we included the standardized variable “perception of the life event” for each of the two events into the model and regressed the latent change score on the covariate. This time, results regarding the subjective perception of the life event graduating from school indicated a significant impact on personality change for emotional stability (χ 2 [16] = 94.07, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.05, λ = 0.05, p [λ] < 0.05). Specifically, participants who had experienced graduating from school more negatively exhibited a diminished increase in emotional stability than compared to individuals who had experienced graduating from school more positively. We also found evidence that subjective perceptions are relevant for extraversion. A greater positive change in extraversion was observed when participants experienced graduating from school more positively than compared to negatively (χ 2 [16] = 23.90, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.02, SRMR = 0.03, λ = 0.10, p [λ] = 0.05). Subjective perceptions moving away from home had no impact on trait changes in any of the Big Five traits. Descriptive statistics for the life events along with model fit indices can be found in Table S2 .
To test for a moderating role of mindset, an interaction term between mindset and each of the two critical life events was constructed. First, we built an interaction term between mindset and the dichotomous variable “experienced the life event” and regressed the latent change factor on the interaction term. Separate models for each of the Big Five all fit the data well (all CFI > 0.94, TLI > 0.92, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.05). As shown in Table S3 , no effects for the Big Five traits were significant for the distinction between experienced the life event vs. did not experience the life event ( p > 0.05). Second, for each of the two life events an interaction term between mindset and perception of the life event was built analogously. For extraversion, we found a significant influence of the moderator when assessing the perception of graduating from school (χ 2 [16] = 25.62, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.03, SRMR = 0.03, λ = −0.09, p [λ] = 0.05). Hence, a fixed mindset indicates less change in extraversion when experiencing the critical life event graduation from school. More specifically, regarding manifest means of extraversion, participants with a growth mindset experienced almost the same amount of increase in extraversion over time, regardless of their perception (positive or negative) of the critical life event. On the other hand, participants with a fixed mindset only show an increase in extraversion when they experienced the life event more positively (see Figure 3 ). No effects for the interaction between mindset and the critical life event moving away from home were significant.
Figure 3 . Change in trait extraversion for people with a fixed vs. growth mindset with regard to the perception of life event graduation from school .
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of external sources such as life events and internal dispositions like the mindset on personality trait change. We assert that exploring whether the subjective experience of life events is associated with personality trait development constitutes an important future directions in various domains of personality research. Therefore, we took a closer look at the underlying processes, particularly as they relate to individual differences in situational perceptions and belief systems. We investigated how two critical life events (moving away from home and graduating from school) influence personality trait change, the role of subjective perceptions of these events, and how internal belief systems like mindset moderate the impact of life events on trait change.
Since our sample was selected to be between 14 and 21 years of age, most of our participants were classified as emerging adults Arnett, 2000 , 2007 . A large body of research has consistently demonstrated that emerging adulthood is characterized by trait changes related to maturity processes (for an overview, see Roberts et al., 2006 ). Thus, emerging adults tend to experience increases in conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, and (to a lesser degree) agreeableness. This pattern is often called the “maturity principle” of personality development, and it has been found to hold true cross-culturally ( Roberts and Jackson, 2008 ; Bleidorn, 2015 ). Although the effects were small, we found evidence for mean-level changes in line with the maturity principle and functional personality trait development. Extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability significantly increased over the 1-year period. The largest changes were found for openness and conscientiousness. These changes are most likely to be explained by attempts to satisfy mature expectations and engage in role-congruent behavior. While increases in openness might be due to identity exploration, higher scores on conscientiousness could reflect investment in age-related roles. Individuals might, for instance, take increased responsibility for social or career-related tasks that require more mature functioning ( Arnett, 2000 , 2007 ).
First, we analyzed whether the occurrence of a life event per se had an influence on personality trait change. In our study, neither of the critical life events?moving away from home or graduating from school?affected Big Five trait change over the two measurement occasions. One possible explanation is that the two chosen life events were not prominent enough to evoke far-reaching changes in personality traits ( Magnus et al., 1993 ; Löckenhoff et al., 2009 ). In line with a study by Löckenhoff et al. (2009 ), more stressful, adverse events might have triggered more pronounced and predictable effects on personality traits. Moreover, the period between the late teens and early adulthood is characterized by a large number of stressful events and daily hassles ( Arnett, 2000 , 2007 ). In a comprehensive review of emerging adulthood by Bleidorn and Schwaba (2017) , graduates also experienced changes in other personality traits, such as openness and emotional stability, which suggests that many developmental tasks and major life transitions contribute to changes in Big Five trait domains. Furthermore, according to Luhmann et al. (2014) and Yeager et al. (2019) , life events may not only independently influence the development of personality characteristics, they might also interact with one another. Researchers must address the interpretation of other challenges that adolescents experience. This notion is also supported in a study by Wagner et al. (2020) , who introduced a model that integrates factors that are both personal (e.g., genetic expressions) and environmental (e.g., culture and society). The authors assert that the interactions and transactions of multiple sources are responsible for shaping individuals' personalities, and, in order to understand how they interact and develop over time, more integrated research is needed. Future studies should focus on a wider range of important life events and environmental influences during emerging adulthood and account for possible accumulating effects.
Second, and perhaps most remarkably, our findings revealed a different picture after we analyzed how the two critical life events were perceived. When participants experienced graduating from school negatively, a greater decrease in emotional stability was observed. Conversely, when the event was evaluated positively, a greater positive change in extraversion was reported. There are clear theoretical links between these two traits and the perception of life events in terms of emotional valence. While low emotional stability encompasses a disposition to experience negative emotions such as fear, shame, embarrassment, or sadness (especially in stressful situations), extraverted individuals are characterized by attributes such as cheerfulness, happiness, and serenity ( Goldberg, 1990 ; Depue and Collins, 1999 ). In line with the notion of a bottom-up process of personality development ( Roberts et al., 2005 ), experiencing a major life event as either positive or negative might lead to a prolonged experience of these emotions and, thus, ultimately to altered levels of the corresponding personality traits. These findings are in line with previous research on subjective well-being (SWB). In fact, variance in SWB can be explained by emotional stability and extraversion, indicating a robust negative relationship between low emotional stability and SWB and a positive relationship between extraversion and SWB ( Costa and McCrae, 1980 ; Headey and Wearing, 1989 ). Moreover, Magnus et al. (1993) found selection effects for these traits, suggesting that high scorers in extraversion experience more subjectively positive events, and low scorers in emotional stability experience many (subjectively) negative events (see also Headey and Wearing, 1989 ).
In the present study, we found evidence of a moderating influence of mindset on the impact of the life event graduating from school for the trait extraversion. Our results indicate that people with a growth mindset show greater change in extraversion, almost regardless of whether they experienced the life event more negatively or more positively. On the other hand, the present results indicate that people with a fixed mindset show an increase in extraversion after experiencing a life event more positively, but almost no change in extraversion when experiencing graduating from school negatively.
Interestingly, we only found effects for extraversion. As previously mentioned, trait extraversion stands for behavioral attributes such as how outgoing and social a person is, and this is related to differences in perceived positive affect ( Goldberg, 1990 ; Magnus et al., 1993 ; Roberts et al., 2005 ). The characteristics of extraversion can be linked to the assumption that people with a growth mindset show greater resilience ( Schroder et al., 2017 ; Yeager et al., 2019 ), especially in the face of academic and social challenges ( Yeager and Dweck, 2012 ). Thus, people who believe that their internal attributes are malleable confront challenges such as graduation by adapting and learning from them; our findings suggest that this results in an increase in extraversion. By contrast, people who believe that they cannot change their personality characteristics might attribute a negatively experienced graduation to external circumstances out of their control. Thus, they do not rise from a negative life event and experience no impetus to become more extraverted.
The above notwithstanding, more research is needed, as we found no evidence for the other Big Five personality traits. Further, the relationship between mindset and personality is complex to disentangle. We examined only two major life events in this first attempt. More attention is needed with respect to other life events and their interplay with internal belief systems and implicit theories to explore possible far-reaching effects on behavior.
In summary, the present study makes an important contribution to the literature on personality development in emerging adulthood with a special focus on external and internal influences and the assessment of critical life events. Our findings support the notion of a dimensional approach to life events, as introduced by Luhmann et al. (2020) , in contrast to a typological approach. With regard to research on situational perception, it seems reductive to examine the occurrence of certain life events rather than their subjective perceptions. As previously mentioned, many studies emphasize that (1) events and single situations can trigger expectancies about how to act and adjust in similar situations (TESSERA framework, Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ); (2) psychological situations and person-situation transactions deviate from one another ( Rauthmann et al., 2015 ); and (3) regulatory mechanisms influence the variability in individual personality trait change ( Denissen et al., 2013 ).
Again, further research is needed to explore the underlying processes behind critical life events and their impact on personality trait changes. In doing so, great care should be taken in selecting life events with a strong social and emotional component with respect to individual perceptions. Finally, there is also a need for more research into the selection of life events being assessed with regard to their interplay.
Our research demonstrates the importance of examining the underlying processes behind personality changes that arise from external influences such as life events. One of the strengths of this study was our large sample, which comprised N = 1,679 German emerging adults and allowed us to use powerful statistical methods. One limitation was that we gathered data across a 1-year time interval with only two measurement occasions. As noted by Luhmann et al. (2014) , the inclusion of more than two measurement points makes it easier to distinguish between sudden short- or long-term shifts and more gradual linear changes. With this in mind, it is possible that critical life events correlate with temporary disruptions of personality maturation; tracing the impact of a single life event on personality trait change might not be as straightforward as is often assumed. Moreover, two measurement occasions can only reveal the immediate effect of life events on personality traits and may, therefore, neglect long-term effects that become salient after more time has passed. Future studies should also incorporate more characteristics of life events. We concentrated our study on the valence of critical life events, but other features—such as impact, challenge, and predictability—could reveal a more comprehensive picture ( Luhmann et al., 2020 ).
Another limitation of the present study is that all our data relied on self-report personality measures. Even though almost all research on personality change is based on self-report measures, the influence of (for example) self-concepts cannot be neglected. Self-reported data might thus depart from other types of data in terms of differential stability, for example ( Wagner et al., 2020 ). Hence, changes in the Big Five domains might reflect subjective rather than observable changes in personality. At the same time, we believe that our approach of assessing personality traits and the perception of life events gives valuable insights into personality development, since we focused on how individuals consciously understand their experiences. Nevertheless, it would be informative to compare both approaches (observer and self-reported data) to examine how they complement one another (see also: Bleidorn et al., 2020 ).
Yet another important issue that must be mentioned are our attrition effects. As previously stated, the data for the first measurement occasion was gathered through a non-profit self-assessment test intended to help students explore post-graduation occupational opportunities. Hence, our sample might be prone to selection effects and confounding preexisting differences: only emerging adults who were concerned about their future might have taken the test in the first place. The self-selection to voluntarily participate in a research study might also explain the higher percentage of female participants. Moreover, some of the Big Five traits from T2 dropouts were correlated with T1 personality traits. Therefore, our results should be interpreted with caution; participants with low conscientiousness, for example, might have been more likely to drop out or have been excluded from our study due to the diligence check, and thus conscientiousness could have risen over the study period because the sample composition shifted between T1 and T2. Nevertheless, the noted differential attrition effects were rather small and reflect only modest selectivity (see also Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Specht et al., 2011 ).
Finally, we did not examine cultural differences. With our German sample, we only investigated patterns in a modern Western industrialized country. Hence, we did not control for different cultural and demographic backgrounds, and our results might thus not be applicable to a broader range of individuals.
The present research improves our understanding of personality trait development during the critical period of emerging adulthood and demonstrates the importance of examining the underlying processes behind personality changes that arise from external influences such as life events. We showed how two critical life events can shape and adjust life trajectories, which is a necessary step toward gaining a comprehensive picture of the underlying processes of personality trait change across the life course. In addition to changes in the operationalization of life event research, larger and more diverse samples over more measurement occasions are needed to further explore how individual perceptions and internal belief systems influence our personality during and after experiencing critical life events.
The datasets generated for this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: All data, further materials, and items are available via OSF at: https://osf.io/xc6d4/ .
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the ethic commission of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
JHDV and PM designed the study and formulated the hypotheses. MS and AF provided the testing platform and set up the test battery. JHDV, MS, and AF were responsible for recruiting the sample and administrating the panel. JHDV and PM conducted the data analysis. JHDV designed the figures and drafted the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
This work was funded by a research grant to Professor Patrick Mussel by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany (Mu3045/6-1).
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671421/full#supplementary-material
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Keywords: personality development, life events, big five, mindset, emerging adulthood
Citation: De Vries JH, Spengler M, Frintrup A and Mussel P (2021) Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood—How the Perception of Life Events and Mindset Affect Personality Trait Change. Front. Psychol. 12:671421. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671421
Received: 23 February 2021; Accepted: 11 May 2021; Published: 10 June 2021.
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Copyright © 2021 De Vries, Spengler, Frintrup and Mussel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Jantje Hinrika De Vries, jantje.de.vries@fu-berlin.de
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Ze′ev hochberg.
1 Faculty of Medicine, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
2 Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
The duration of human maturation has been underestimated; an additional 4–6-year pre-adult period of “emerging adulthood,” should be included in models of human maturation. It is a period of brain maturation, learning about intimacy and mutual support, intensification of pre-existing friendships, family-oriented socialization, and the attainment of those social skills that are needed for mating and reproduction. We propose that emerging adulthood is a life-history stage that is a foundation of the high reproductive success of human beings. The period of emerging adulthood has an evolutionary context and developmental markers, and we present evidence that supports the idea that emerging adults require protection because they are still learning and maturing.
Growing evidence suggests that an individual at the end of adolescence cannot be considered to be an adult when using physical, physiological, intellectual, social, emotional, and behavioral measures. When adolescents in developed societies mature and achieve adult body size, their behavior often remains immature. Specialists in adolescent medicine have recognized this incongruity, and have redefined adolescence to include young adults up to age 24 years, of whom many have not yet assumed adult roles ( 1 , 2 ). Reproduction in contemporary forager societies also begins several years after adolescence and post-adolescent individuals are often limited in their gathering and/or hunting skills ( 3 – 5 ). Compared to other mammals, primates produce few offspring. Humans have an even slower growth rate than that of non-human primates of comparable size, but human growth may be even more prolonged than is generally realized.
Arnett proposed emerging adulthood as a phase of life between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood, with distinctive demographic, social, and subjective psychological features ( 6 , 7 ). This life- history stage applies to individuals aged between 18 and 25 years, the period during which they become more economically independent by training and/or education. Previously, the psychodynamic theorist Erik Erikson identified a stage that he called a prolonged adolescence or psychosocial moratorium in young people in developed societies ( 8 , 9 ). Much more recently, Hopwood and colleagues explored genetic and environmental influences on personality development during the transition to adulthood in same-sex male and female monozygotic and dizygotic twins assessed in late adolescence (approximately age 17 years), emerging adulthood (~24 years), and young adulthood (~29 years) ( 10 ). Their genetically-informed results support a life-course perspective on personality development during the transition to adulthood. In addition, the United Nations has identified youth, defined as the period from 15 to 24 years of age, as a period of vulnerability worldwide and has made it a priority for multiple interventions ( 11 ).
Here, we use an evolutionary approach in order to understand emerging adulthood, arguing that it is not just a sociological transition period but a biological life-history phase. Trait variability, whether it is molecular, cellular, physiological, morphological, or behavioral, is the leading edge of evolution. Together with genetic evolution, plasticity in developmental programming has evolved to provide the organism with traits that can secure its survival and reproductive success ( 12 ). Life-history theory is a powerful tool for understanding child growth and development from an evolutionary perspective ( 2 , 13 , 14 ). We provide evidence that emerging adulthood exists in some other mammals, which implies genetic evolution, and we discuss emerging adulthood in foraging as well as developed societies, which implies the occurrence of adaptive plasticity and cultural influences. We propose that genetic and cultural evolution have interacted to produce the emerging adulthood stage in human life history.
Determining the exact time of transitions between life-history stages is challenging ( 13 ). Saltations (growth spurts) and transitions occur during human growth ( 15 , 16 ), and stages have a central place in evolutionary life-history theory, but the turning points are theoretical constructions in which some aspects of a transition are highlighted.
Puberty produces an endocrine transformation with striking somatic and behavioral changes, especially in body image, sex identity, aggression, and impulsivity. To define a maturational stage between adolescence and adulthood, we need first to define the end of adolescence. During this transition, growth velocity decelerates, blood and tissue hormone levels increase, aggression becomes less overt, and learning and maturation mitigate hormonal impact.
Using maturational measures avoids the pitfalls of defining emerging adulthood according to chronological age. For example, the Tanner scale of adolescent development is based on external primary and secondary sex characteristics. Tanner stage V recognizes the conclusion of puberty in boys when the testicular volume is >20 ml and the length of the penis is >14 cm ( 17 ) and in girls when the breast reaches final adult size and the areola returns to the contour of the surrounding breast with a projecting central papilla ( 18 ).
Here, we define the transition between adolescence and emerging adulthood as occurring when growth returns to its prepubertal trajectory and the boy or girl is at Tanner stage IV ( 19 ). Boys at this stage have a testicular volume between 12 and 20 ml, their scrotal skin darkens, and the length of their penis is ~10 cm. Girls at this stage have experienced menarche, their breasts are of adult size and elevated, and the areola and papilla form a secondary mound which projects from the contour of the surrounding breast. Body composition continues to change during emerging adulthood, in terms of relative fat mass, lean body mass, and total body bone mineral content and bone mineral density increase ( 20 ), but the most important maturational changes after adolescence, even if defined as the end of Tanner Stage 4, are in the brain.
Brain size may be a pacemaker in mammalian life history ( 21 ), and it underlies the remarkable human capacity for learning and communication, but the length of the brain's developmental trajectory was until recently underestimated. It is now clear that brain development does not stop with the completion of puberty when adult brain size is attained. Brain maturation continues beyond adolescence, extending until around age 25 years, and this recently discovered prolongation provides critical support for emerging adulthood as a post-adolescent maturational stage ( 22 ). Compared to other primates, human newborns are neurologically and behaviorally altricial because many aspects of brain development are protracted, including that of the prefrontal cortex ( 23 ). The cortical architectural units or minicolumns in the prefrontal cortex of humans are wider than those of the great apes, an increase that occurs after puberty in humans, but not in chimpanzees ( 24 ). In chimpanzees, but not in humans, myelination becomes complete at about the time of sexual maturity ( 25 ). Interestingly, human brain regions with protracted development are the same that have undergone the greatest degree of volumetric enlargement in primate evolution ( 26 ).
In a large-scale longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging study, brain maturation was found to continue after adolescence: post-adolescent increases in white matter are linear while the changes in the cortical gray matter are non-linear. Cortical white matter in particular continues to increase into the mid-twenties, which is likely related to the efficiency and speed of cortical connectivity ( 27 , 28 ). In another study, Sowell and her colleagues spatially and temporally mapped brain maturation in North American adolescents (age 12–16 years) and young adults (age 23–30 years) using a whole-brain, voxel-by-voxel statistical analysis of high-resolution structural magnetic resonance images ( 29 ). They found that the pattern of brain maturation during these years was distinct from earlier development and was localized to large regions of the dorsal, medial, and orbital frontal cortex and lenticular nuclei. They also reported relatively little change at other brain locations. They concluded that cognitive function improves throughout adolescence, and this improvement is associated with parallel post-adolescent reductions in gray matter density (as white matter increases) in frontal and striatal regions. It has been argued that such brain changes should mitigate the guilt of adolescent delinquents who have not yet gone through them ( 30 – 32 ).
Asato and colleagues also investigated white matter maturation during adolescence using diffusion tensor imaging and reported that (a) pubertal hormones influence white matter development and maturation and (b) white matter connectivity and the executive control of behavior is still immature in adolescence ( 33 ). Jolles and colleagues investigated the association between whole-brain functional connectivity and cognitive and emotional functions in children (11–13 years) and young adults (19–25 years) ( 34 ). Although they found similar patterns of functional connectivity in children and young adults, there were differences in the size of the functionally connected regions and the strength of functional connectivity. Thus, functional connectivity continues to change during and after adolescence, and these developmental differences in functional connectivity patterns were associated with higher cognitive or emotional functions and basic visual and sensorimotor functions.
In another study comparing social and emotional functioning of children, adolescents, and young adults, by analyzing the age-dependent development of five functionally distinct cingulate-based intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs), Kelly and colleagues provide additional evidence that brain maturation extends beyond adolescence into young adulthood ( 35 ). They found that the pattern of correlation with voxels proximal to the seed region of interest was age-dependent: the pattern was diffuse in children (mean age 10.6 years), was less diffuse in adolescents (mean age 15.4 years), and showed signs of becoming focal in young adults (mean age 22.4 years). Also, the greatest development occurred in those ICNs associated with social and emotional functions. Finally, in their study of the brains of 103 healthy subjects aged 5–32 years using diffusion tensor tractography, Lebel and Beaulieu provide further evidence that brain maturation continues from childhood into adulthood ( 36 ). Association tracts show within-subject maturation of measures indicative of myelination and axon density.
Collectively, these studies provide strong evidence that brain development and maturation continue in young adulthood; the idea that brain maturation is finalized during adolescence is no longer tenable. Psychologically, emerging adulthood is a stage when an individual's cognitive abilities increase to reach their peak in their fourth decade and possibly beyond ( 37 ). Schaie and colleagues included 13 measures of crystallized abilities influenced by schooling and experience. The critical abilities from this perspective are those that enable the learning of new things, that is, working memory and fluid intelligence; these, as well as processing speed ( 38 ), peak in the mid 20s.
Emerging adulthood is also a social stage: it is a period of learning about intimacy and mutual support, intensification of pre-existing friendships, family-oriented socialization, political awareness, developing new relationships, and the attainment of biosocial skills that are needed for successful mating and reproduction. Finally, it is also a stage of understanding self-concepts and ideal concepts, emphasized interpersonal reactivity and obligation, self-expressiveness, and contempt toward particular ideologies ( 39 ). The attainment of these cognitive, emotional, and social abilities is the result of a complex interplay of maturation and interaction with the environment, but it is now possible to say that at least in the earlier years of emerging adulthood, they are correlated with and possibly caused by brain maturation. There is also evidence that brain size growth continues into the third decade in some individuals. In these individuals, hypothalamic maturation, puberty, and the resultant hormonal surges are dissociated from and even precede development and maturity of frontal cortex ( 40 , 41 ).
Emerging adulthood is associated with other physiological changes, such as bone mineral accretion, the completion of growth, and [frequently] first reproduction. Hence, emerging adulthood begins as a physiological, but most importantly a neural transformation in which behavioral and social functions interact, with consequences for impulse control in domains that have put the individual at risk during puberty. We will argue that this life-history phase has unfolded throughout hominin evolution. In Figure 1 we show the timeline of maturation of the main physical, behavioral and social traits.
Maturation timeline: (Upper) the age range to complete physical maturation ( 82 ). (Lower) the age range to complete social maturation ( 83 ) and US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014. SFO, The subfornical organ; SLF, The superior longitudinal fasciculus; IFO, anterior insula/frontal operculum complex; EA, emerging adulthood; F, female; M, male ( 82 – 84 ).
To define the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood, we use the age at which growth velocity returns to prepubertal levels ( Figure 2A ). The adolescent growth spurt can be identified from the growth velocity curve, and its takeoff is signaled when the rate of growth changes from deceleration to acceleration at the end of the juvenile stage ( 13 ). This inflection point marks the beginning of the adolescent growth spurt. The point at which the curvilinear growth velocity spurt returns to the pre-takeoff velocity defines for us the end of adolescence and the beginning of emerging adulthood. This refinement of the “return to [pre-]takeoff velocity,” which was previously proposed by Leigh and Park ( 42 ), is essential for understanding the human pubertal growth spurt ( 43 ). This model, displayed in Figure 2A , explains the apparently diminished peak height velocity in delayed puberty and is the basis of adult height predictions for prepubertal children.
The concept of the return to prepubertal growth velocity curve as a life history mile stone. Here, we define the return to take-off velocity as the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. (A) Schematic representation of the age-dependent pubertal take-off velocity and the return to prepubertal growth velocity curve; in girls the return to takeoff velocity coincides with menarcheal age in the early, average, and late maturers. The age-dependent decline in peak height velocity is a function of the decelerating takeoff velocity and returns to the prepubertal growth velocity curve. PGV, peak growth velocity; TV, takeoff velocity; RTV, return to prepubertal growth velocity curve. (B) The age of return to prepubertal growth velocity curve as a function of adult body mass in 21 primate species. Observations are derived from captive primates held at zoological parks and primate centers. With permission from Leigh and Park ( 42 ). a— Cebus apella , b— Cercopithecus aethiops , c— Cercopithecus mitis , d— Cercopithecus neglectus , e— Erythrocebus patas , f— Cercocebus atys , g— Macaca arctoides , h— Macaca fascicularis , i— Macaca fuscata , j— Macaca mulatta , k— Macaca nemestrina , l— Macaca silenus , m— Papio hamadryas , n— Mandrillus sphinx , o— Colobus guereza , p— Presbytis entellus , q— Presbytis obscura , r— Gorilla gorilla , s— Pan paniscus , t— Pan troglodytes . (C,D) —average adult body weight as a function of the age at return to prepubertal takeoff growth velocity of males (C) and females (D) in six predeveloped societies. Data from http://dice.missouri.edu .
In an allometric analysis of 21 species of anthropoid primates, the age at return to pre-takeoff velocity and the adult body mass are positively correlated in both females and males ( Figure 2B ). The age at return to pre-takeoff velocity occurs later in human beings than other primates because of the lateness of our growth spurt when body mass is considered ( 42 ). Overall, the growth spurt in most primates is quite minimal, and little is known about the relationship between the age at return to prepubertal growth velocity and the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. Takeoff velocity occurs early in gorillas, and despite their greater body mass, female gorillas become sexually mature at a younger age than female chimpanzees ( 44 ). Similar to humans, vervet ( Cercopithecus aethiops ) and rhesus monkeys ( Macaca mulatta ) show a relatively late return to prepubertal growth velocity. Interestingly, this positive correlation between the age at return to prepubertal growth velocity curve and body mass also exists in six small-scale societies described in Walker's Database for Indigenous Cultural Evolution ( http://dice.missouri.edu/ ) ( Figures 2C,D ).
Evolutionary life-history theory.
Life history is defined as the allocation of an organism's energy toward growth, maintenance, reproduction, raising offspring to independence, and avoiding death ( 45 ), and adaptation to environmental changes requires the selection of certain life-cycle traits ( 46 , 47 ) ( Figure 3 ). Evolutionary life-history theory attempts to explain and predict tradeoffs that optimize energy expenditure, reproductive advantage, and risk ( 2 , 14 , 48 , 49 ). Central to the concept of sexual selection is the attainment and optimization of reproductive competence, and the key traits for selection are growth, maturation, and the age at transition to adulthood and sexual reproduction ( 12 ).
Comparison of the life-history stages and the newly defined emerging adulthood of Australopithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, H. erectus , and H. sapiens .
Human beings and the great apes share similar traits including, to some extent, emerging adulthood. We know relatively little about neurological maturation in non-human primates, but we do know that non-human great apes have a 2-year period of post-menarcheal infertility ( 50 ), extended in human foragers to 3 years ( 51 ). Low reproductive success among young females is a general primate phenomenon ( 52 ). Male preference for fully developed adult females has been described in 15 primate species ( 52 ). Goodall reported that after menarche, which usually occurs at age 10 years, female chimpanzees average 19 full-size cycles before becoming pregnant for the first time at age 12 years ( 53 ). Moreover, they will have about 60% of their lifetime sexual encounters during this post-menarcheal period. Unlike gorillas, chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) , and bonobos ( Pan paniscus ) live in multi-male and multi-female groups and mate more often than needed to conceive. Accordingly, primatologists have suggested that adolescent sterility is a period in which sexual and social skills are practiced without responsibility for the care of a newborn ( 53 ). In their emerging adulthood, female vervet monkeys ( Cercopithecus aethiops ) display a high degree of interest in young infants and will touch, cuddle, carry, and groom infants whenever they can. Lancaster interpreted this play-mothering by young females as an opportunity to practice maternal behavior and ease into their expected maternal role in society ( 54 ). Fecundity in males depends on age, size, and experience. Similar to humans, where reproductive success is in-line with hunting ability ( 55 ) reproductive success among the Barbary macaques ( Macaca sylvanus ) is much lower in young than adult males ( 56 ). In male chimpanzees, pre-fertility copulation is very common ( 53 ).
While it seems impossible to ascertain the life-history stages of early hominids, the timing of their dental maturation from the fossil record has shed some light on their stages (see below). Australopithecines are anatomical intermediates between apes and human beings and chimpanzees and bonobos are often regarded as living species that can to some extent represent the australopithecines. Based on fossil dental specimens, australopithecined resembled wild chimpanzees, not modern humans, in life-history stages ( 57 ). Fossil Homo species matured more slowly and the attainment of certain developmental milestones, such as the onset of puberty, adolescence, and first reproduction, probably occurred later, in parallel with their increasing longevity, body mass, and height ( Figure 3 ).
A life-history tradeoff is a fitness cost that occurs when a beneficial change in one trait is linked to a detrimental change in another trait ( 58 ). According to Charnov, a life-history tradeoff also entails an invariant in an underlying parameter that the life cycle stabilizes or is constrained by ( 59 ). The Charnov model of mammalian life-history evolution ( 59 ) derives the flow of life-history consequences from the adult mortality rate:
Adult mortality □ Age at maturity □ Adult weight □ Fecundity □ Juvenile mortality .
In this model, any factor that decreases adult mortality, such as large adult body mass, sociality, or a low-predation environment, favors delayed maturation. Reproductive value (RV) increases with body mass while growth rates decline. The optimal age to stop investing in growth is when the expected RV starts to decline. Body mass increases during growth, which stops when body mass is optimal, so juvenile survival becomes important when maturation is delayed. Increasing juvenile survival and extending the adolescent life-history stage increases that individual's RV. Hence, emerging adulthood is highly favored.
The offspring number of most species with a large body size is small. Additionally, juvenile mortality decreases when reproduction is late, and late reproduction is associated with high fertility. Late reproduction should decrease fitness ( 60 ), but several tradeoffs could influence the prolonged period of emerging adulthood in human life-history strategies: reproducing at an earlier or later age; reproducing at a young age or continuing to grow and develop; and being an adult parent with a large parental investment in each offspring of a small family or a young parent with a small parental investment in each offspring of a large family. The Charnov model predicts that a long life span will be associated with slow development, iteroparity (repeated reproduction), a single offspring, and long parental care ( 59 ). It was recently suggested that slow rates of growth, reproduction, and aging among primates reflect their low total energy expenditure ( 61 ). Emerging adulthood in modern societies is part of the historical lengthening of both ends of the pre-reproductive life span of human females (early puberty and late reproduction) in response to improved nutrition and decreased infection ( 62 , 63 ). Microevolutionary tradeoffs that might underlie an extended emerging adulthood stage of life history include the allocation of energy to growth or reproduction, and the energy investment in courtship or parenting. Indeed, performing the sexual act in some species requires good cognitive ability and specific sexual behaviors ( 64 ). During human evolution, the acquisition of certain abilities resulted in the lengthening of maturation and development.
Brain size in mammals is correlated with longitudinal growth, and both have increased during human evolution ( 65 ). Brain size and cultural complexity have concomitantly increased over the last 2 million years with two possible periods of accelerated increase. The first occurred during the early evolution of the genus Homo , the second during the rise of Homo sapiens .
Using Charnov's model, we also suggest that emerging adulthood is a life-history stage that is a foundation of the high productivity of human beings: the metabolic potential of human beings exceeds the metabolic requirements of survival and this excess is first used to support growth and brain maturation before being allocated to reproduction. Another critical adaptation in hominin evolution was the ability to improve the food supply by establishing a rich and stable food base through the control of fire ( Homo erectus ), cooking (early Homo sapiens or earlier) ( 66 , 67 ), and exploiting coastal food resources (shellfish) ( 68 ).
Despite the fact that the human juvenile (including emerging adulthood) and adult periods are longer than that of the chimpanzee and that human infants are larger than chimpanzee infants at birth, hunter-gatherer women characteristically have higher fertility than chimpanzee females ( 69 ). In anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans), non-maternal care predicts earlier weaning, shorter birth spacing, and higher reproductive success ( 70 ). Parental provisioning of the weaned offspring, an aspect of cooperative breeding ( 71 ), is crucial ( 72 , 73 ). Here, we argue that anatomically modern human parents care for their offspring throughout their offspring's adolescence and emerging adulthood, and this extended period of care is longer than that of other primates.
The unique evolutionary path to the genus Homo was shaped by an increasing reliance on calorie-dense, large-package, skill-intensive food resources, “which, in turn, operated to produce the extreme intelligence, long developmental period, three-generational system of resource flows, and exceptionally long adult life characteristic of our species” ( 74 ). Kaplan and Robson emphasized the role of human males in provisioning meat to their family and tribal members ( 74 ). They also highlighted the contributions of grandmothers and other family and band members to provisioning and childcare, enhancing survival and success in emerging adulthood.
Although, the average menarcheal ages of the gorilla, the bonobo, and the chimpanzee are 7–8, 9, and 11 years, respectively, their ages at first birth are 10–12, 13–15, and 14–15 years ( 75 ). Despite their rapid development compared with humans, the great apes have a distinct period of post-menarcheal. In parallel with other great apes, the menarcheal age of human forager populations ranges from 13 to 19 years, and their first birth occurs about 4 years later when they are between 17 and 23 years of age ( 62 , 76 ) ( Figure 4 ). In contrast to great apes, primiparous women of human forager populations are provisioned by mature adults, such as grandmothers, who are usually post-reproductive ( 77 , 78 ); their husbands, who are typically several years older and have often passed through the emerging adulthood stage of their life history before marriage; and other adults ( 3 , 79 – 81 ).
Age at menarche and first birth among some natural fertility societies; mean and 95% confidence limits. The dashed line is the age at menarche when plotted against the age at first reproduction [reproduced with permission from Hochberg et al. ( 76 )].
Despite similarities among primates, the prolongation of dependency during emerging adulthood ( Figure 3 ) is unique to human life history, and is part of the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens . In the light of the knowledge we have gained from other primates, we need to improve our existing definitions of the beginning and end of emerging adulthood in primates in terms of physical traits.
Across forager societies, there is a consistent 3–4-year period between menarche and the birth of the first child ( Figure 4 ) and adult reproductive behaviors are learned during this period of emerging adulthood. The evolution of human development culminated in environment-dependent and late reproductive maturation. According to life-history theory ( 59 , 85 ), a reduction in juvenile and adult mortality ( 86 ) postponed reproduction and necessitated substantial parental investment in each offspring.
Sexual behavior develops according to a species-specific, genetically controlled, maturational plan in which the age at first reproduction occurs within a specific age range ( 87 ). Darwinian theory yields testable predictions about mating strategies and behaviors, which include jealousy, fidelity, pursuit, diffidence, the number of new sexual partners per year (partner frequency), and gender roles and behaviors customarily displayed in emerging adulthood ( 88 ). These predictions also apply to adult patterns of intra- and intersexual aggression ( 89 , 90 ). Here, we offer an evolutionary model for this transformative life-history stage, emerging adulthood.
Despite cross-cultural variations in the age of initiation of sexual activity and the age at marriage, the period of emerging adulthood in all cultures involves readiness for mating. Strong emotions often accompany early sexual activity. During adolescence, the frequency of depressive episodes is temporarily increased in boys and especially in girls ( 91 – 93 ).
Sex hormones intensify adolescent behavioral and psychological changes ( 94 – 96 ), but in emerging adulthood and into adulthood, average rates of depression, anxiety, and risk-taking decline. Interestingly, serum testosterone levels continue to rise after puberty and peak in the third decade in male humans ( 97 ). However, this age-dependent increase in serum testosterone levels does not occur in chimpanzees: serum testosterone levels are higher in adolescent chimpanzees (age 7–10 years) than in adults (age >11 years) ( 98 ). Male and female sex drive may be intensified and/or enabled by the activational effects of the sex steroids, as part of a switching mechanism that re-allocates resources from growth to reproductive activity during emerging adulthood ( 99 ). If the same genes allocate the energy that is required for growth and reproduction, these genes could exhibit antagonistic pleiotropy and mediate the tradeoff between growth and reproduction ( 100 ). The “fight or flight” response to perceived threat influences life-history tradeoffs during development ( 101 , 102 ). As part of their readiness for mating, the bullying behavior of adolescent males diminishes at the time of transition to emerging adulthood ( 103 , 104 ). This could be due to adolescents learning subtler ways of competing, they still vie for dominance and resource control. This may help explain why the mean age difference between men and women at the time of their first marriage in 191 national populations and traditional societies is 3.5 years ( 105 ).
Contemporary forager societies are to some extent modern representatives of pre-agricultural forager societies. The !Kung were until recently foraging people of the Kalahari Desert, whose demography and life history have been extensively studied ( 81 , 106 ). Their average age of menarche is 16.6 years (range 16–18 years), and about 50% were married before menarche to men averaging 10 years older. Their age at first childbirth was 19 years (range 17–22 years) ( 106 ). This 3-year period of between the age of menarche and the age at first birth is probably due to subfertile ovarian cycling. Although their husband's sexual advances were supposed to be delayed until menarche, women reported that this period was often stressful ( 107 ). This 3-year period is important for a newly married !Kung woman for at least two reasons. First, she gradually learns to adopt adult roles and acquire adult sexuality without having to deal with the consequences of pregnancy and feeding a family. Second, she usually lives near her mother, even after the first birth, because she is dependent on her mother, father, and extended family before moving to her husband's village-camp after a second child ( 81 , 107 ). Although !Kung women become socially responsible mothers with two or more children by their mid-20s, they are typically still being provisioned by their families ( 81 ). Psychosocial development during emerging adulthood is substantially longer in boys than in girls, and the transition from adolescence to adulthood is gradual ( 108 ). !Kung boys learn hunting and other subsistence skills and are permitted to accompany adult men on hunting trips from their mid-teens. But the husband's obligation to provision his family with meat is also aided by relatives during the period of emerging adulthood.
To what extent do the !Kung resemble other hunter-gatherer societies? The acquisition of subsistence skills is a very long process among the closely related San of the Okavongo Delta, Botswana ( 5 ). Mongongo nuts are a staple food (as for the !Kung) and the ability to crack these nuts is age-specific because nut-cracking requires skill; arm strength is less important than age. Plotted against age, the ability follows an inverted U-shaped function across the lifespan, and this time-dependent function is a good example of the adaptive evolutionary value of emerging adulthood beyond adolescence. Success at nut-cracking is minimal until the late teens and then this skill improves until midlife.
The Hiwi Indians of Venezuela and the Aché Indians of Paraguay are traditional hunter-gatherer groups whose hunting and subsistence skills gradually increase throughout young adulthood ( 109 ). Although Aché girls collect insect larvae for subsistence, children of the two tribes under age 10 years do almost no foraging and especially no hunting until their teenage years. Specifically, the skill of gathering honey and palm fiber of Aché boys and Hiwi girls progressively increases to levels that are about half of their peak adult values in adolescence. The age at which the hunting skills of Hiwi and Aché men are at their best is the late 30s, and the age at which Hiwi and Aché men and women reach their peak gathering skills for honey and palm fiber occurs is even later.
Tsimane foragers of Bolivian Amazonia are also relevant to the long pre-adult life history of modern humans ( 4 ). Based on hunting returns and specific skill tests, the peak performance of hunters is only reached several years after the completion of a long childhood and adolescence; hunters must first learn to recognize the sounds, smells, tracks, and feces of critical prey species, and then learn to hunt by sightings, pursuits, and attempted kills. The hunting performance and ability of Tsimane foragers is another example of a skill whose acquisition depends more on age than strength.
Thus, the evidence from foraging societies and the conditions to which humans became adapted during our evolution show that neither reproductive behaviors (i.e., parenting and the ability to manage the relationship with a spouse) nor subsistence skills are mastered by the end of adolescence. Even in societies where children forage from an age as young as four, their efficiency as young adults remains lower than that of their mothers ( 110 ). Blurton Jones and Marlowe confirmed increases in skill and performance with age in the Hadza, hunter-gatherers of northern Tanzania. For example, the accuracy when shooting with a bow and arrow among men Hadza people increases with age and reaches its peak at age 25 years ( 111 ). From such findings, Blurton Jones and Marlowe concluded that one cannot assume that the age-dependent increase in performance and ability is entirely due to learning and/or practice; the increase may also be due to increases in an individual's size and strength ( 111 ). The importance of size and strength is confirmed by a study of spearfishing and shellfishing efficiency among the Meriam, who live on the Mer and Dauer islands in the eastern Torres Strait. For fishing and spearfishing, which are cognitively difficult, Bird and Bird found no significant amount of variability in return rates because experiential factors correlated with age. However, for shellfish collecting, which is relatively easy to learn, they found strong age-related effects on efficiency ( 112 ). From the evidence collected from various foraging societies around the globe, performance proficiency of subsistence skills of individuals increases with age and only peaks when they transit from emerging adulthood into adulthood in their twenties or later. These findings confirm that the period of emerging adulthood is marked by age-dependent maturation, ongoing brain development, strength accrual, and learning, and is a key adaptation for human survival and reproduction.
Menarcheal age has declined in the U.S. and Europe for over a century ( 113 , 114 ). It has declined by 4 years over the past 150 years, and the age at peak height velocity in the pubertal growth spurt has also decreased by 4 months per decade ( 114 ). An evolutionary approach to this secular trend challenges the concept that early adolescence is a disease process, and suggests that contemporary reproductive and life-history strategies are reflected in the substantial increase in the presentation of females with early-onset adolescence ( 115 – 118 ). Part of the misconception that early adolescence is a pathological condition is related to the assumption that the transition from adolescence to adulthood is direct. The subfertility of emerging adulthood can be explained by the period between the age at menarche, which is 12.5 years, and the modeled optimal age at first birth of 18 years ( 119 ). Indeed, puberty is followed by subfertility in adolescence and emerging adulthood ( 120 ) due to a high proportion of non-ovulatory cycles ( 121 ). Currently, there is no evidence for a secular trend in the age at first consistent ovulation.
Despite liberal mores and adolescent sexual activity, early childbearing was uncommon in pre-agricultural societies. In a non-industrial traditional society, a girl who begins to menstruate at age 15 years can take her place in that society at age 19 years as a young mother after a 4-year period of emerging adulthood and be supported by the institutions of marriage and an extended family ( Figure 4 ) ( 76 ). In developed societies, the period of emerging adulthood of a girl who begins to menstruate at 12 years is prolonged, with slow maturation of the prefrontal cortex and other brain structures and late myelination until at least age 25, producing the mismatch between early-onset of puberty and late mental maturation in contemporary developed societies ( 116 ). It is the later part of this period of mismatch that we define as emerging adulthood, a time when young adults are still immature in their judgment and incapable of performing adult tasks ( 82 ).
The idea that one of the outcomes of human evolution is a very prolonged period of adolescent growth and delayed maturity is old, and is consistent with life-history theory, comparative primatology, and the hominin fossil record. We suggest in addition that emerging adulthood is a life-history stage that is part of the foundation the high productivity of human beings: our metabolic potential exceeds the metabolic requirements of survival and this excess is first used to support growth and brain maturation before being allocated to reproduction. We contend that the duration of human maturation has been underestimated, and that an additional 4–6-year pre-adult period, which (following Arnett) we call emerging adulthood, should be included in human life history. Recent imaging studies have shown that brain development continues throughout emerging adulthood; maturation of the neocortical association areas, notably the frontal lobes, extends into the mid-twenties, and is still incomplete long after the end of puberty and linear body growth. There is now abundant evidence that the frequency of behavioral disturbances of adolescence, such as unplanned sexual activity, risk-taking, impulsivity, depression, and delinquency, declines after adolescence despite persistent high levels of gonadal hormones. The most likely explanation for the transient nature of these behavioral disturbances of adolescence is continuing myelination of the frontal cortex and other brain regions that are involved in the executive control of impulses and emotions.
Adolescence is often delayed in foraging societies, resembling our human environments of evolutionary adaptedness. Since the women in these societies have late menarche and are subsequently subfertile, the age of these young women at the time of first birth is 19 years and their husbands are generally several years older. These young parents are strongly supported by older family members, who supply needed food and advice. The mastering of subsistence skills takes many years and an individual generally becomes proficient in these skills in their fourth decade. These realities highlight the adaptive advantages of a post-adolescent or emerging adulthood phase of human maturation, which requires substantial brain maturation and learning.
Secular trends indicate that the duration of pre-adolescent growth and development has shortened over the past two centuries and a further decoupling between pubertal/hormonal maturation and brain maturation has occurred in adolescents in developed societies. The nutritional and social conditions which drive this trend have been previously discussed and reviewed ( 2 ). While the mental maturation of adolescents and emerging adults in developed societies is as slow or slower than that of those in predeveloped societies, the onset of puberty in the developed societies now occurs at a younger age than that in the predeveloped societies. Many people in advanced developed states have increasingly recognized the need for prolonged period of education and support beyond adolescence. Others in contrast, especially those in the developing world where traditional structural support systems have collapsed, are often not able to provide the experience of a protected emerging adulthood to their children, leading the United Nations to identify youth, defined as 15–24 years of age, as a demographic group at risk and a special target for intervention ( 11 ). The period of emerging adulthood has an evolutionary context and a prolonged maturational underpinning, and we present evidence that supports the idea that emerging adults require protection because they are still both learning and maturing. Yet, A literature review and hypotheses of that sort are based on associations. The prolonged dependency and frequent confusion of emerging adults in modern societies is not solely attributable to the complexity of our societies, but also to the fact that they are, intrinsically and physiologically, not yet adults.
ZH and MK jointly conceived the article, drafted the manuscript, read, and approved the final version.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Personality traits can be defined as broad patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Lucas & Donnellan, 2011).Early empirical research on personality mainly focused on the structure, measurement, and consequences of traits (e.g., Digman, 1990).Stability and change in traits were less common topics, largely because traits were regarded as highly stable once people reach adulthood (McCrae ...
The graphs suggest to us that change continues throughout adulthood and is sometimes largest in middle age or late life, but McCrae et al. (1999) emphasize that change is sharpest in young adulthood and slight in later periods of life. A point they emphasize is that because personality change with age is very similar across countries with ...
Decades of research have been dedicated to understanding how personality changes across the lifespan, and there seems to be a consensus that personality traits: (1) are both stable and changing, and (2) develop in socially-desirable ways over time (i.e., individuals increase on "positive" traits with age; McCrae et al., 1999; Roberts et al., 2006).
In terms of mean-level change, people show increased selfconfidence, warmth, self-control, and emotional stability with age. These changes predominate in young adulthood (age 20-40). Moreover ...
First, most mean-level personality-trait change occurs between the ages of 20 and 40. This contradicts the widely held perspective that the most interesting years for studying personality development are either early or late in life. Rather, young adulthood appears to be the most important period.
Past research syntheses provided evidence that personality traits are both stable and changeable throughout the life span. However, early meta-analytic estimates were constrained by a relatively small universe of longitudinal studies, many of which tracked personality traits in small samples over moderate time periods using measures that were only loosely related to contemporary trait models ...
Critical Life Events. Theory and research support the idea that personality can change as a result of intrinsic factors such as genetics and extrinsic factors such as the environment around us (Bleidorn and Schwaba, 2017; Wagner et al., 2020).More specifically, there is ample evidence that personality is linked to certain external influences such as critical life events (e.g., Lüdtke et al ...
These findings support the transactional hypothesis of personality development (B. W. Roberts & Mroczek, 2008), which states that personality change occurs primarily through adaptation to new social roles; however, biological processes also play a role in personality change early in adulthood.
trigger personality-trait change in early adulthood. A more direct test of this hypothesis has recently been car-ried out in a large-scale cross-cultural study. Cross-Cultural Research Most research on personality-trait development has been done on samples from Western societies, but there is evi-dence to suggest that individuals across the ...
Recent longitudinal and cross-sectional aging research has shown that personality traits continue to change in adulthood. In this article, we review the evidence for mean-level change in personality traits, as well as for individual differences in change across the life span. In terms of mean-level change, people show increased self-confidence ...
The biological view of the Five-factor theory proposes the plaster hypothesis: All personality traits stop changing by age 30. In contrast, contextualist perspectives propose that changes should be more varied and should persist throughout adulthood. This study compared these perspectives in a large (N = 132,515) sample of adults aged 21-60 who ...
Consistent with past research 33,34, our temperament assessments completed at an average age of 3.76 years lend support that personality can be measured early on in life and have predictive ...
personality changes. Thus, a transactional perspective on mean-level change in personality would focus on normative role transi-tions— that is, transitions experienced by large numbers of people. Probably the three most important social role domains that undergo changes in early and middle adulthood are work, marriage or partnership, and ...
Although there is considerable rank-order stability in personality across time (e.g., Damian et al., 2019), it is now well-recognized that there is also considerable mean-level change in personality across the lifespan (e.g., Bleidorn & Hopwood, 2019; Ferguson, 2010; Roberts et al., 2006).This change is thought to happen most rapidly during the second and third decade of individuals' lives ...
Five-factor model personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness) are thought to be relatively impervious to environmental demands in adulthood. The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity to examine whether personality changed during a stressful global event. Surprisingly, two previous studies found that neuroticism decreased early in ...
Existing research suggests that many of the psychological changes that occur during this period tend to be in the ... Bacon S, Lykken DT. Personality stability and change in early adulthood: A behavioral genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology. ... Viechtbauer W. Personality changes in adulthood: Reply to Costa & McCrae (2006 ...
Personality can change throughout adulthood. Longitudinal studies reveal average changes during adulthood in the expression of some traits (e.g., neuroticism and openness decrease with age and conscientiousness increases) and individual differences in these patterns due to idiosyncratic life events (e.g., divorce, illness).
Research involving adolescents and young adults indicates fluctuations in personality over time: In the teen years, for instance, boys may become less conscientious and girls less emotionally ...
1. Current conceptualization of personality. The Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality has guided research and theory building for almost three decades (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008).FFM, also known as the Big Five model, contends that the construct of personality includes Basic Tendencies or traits that are biologically-based, as well as Characteristic Adaptations that result from dynamic ...
But what about adolescents who score lower on these traits? Can their personality traits change during young adulthood in ways that promote career success? Although few studies have examined work-related correlates of personality change, research suggests that personality changes may be particularly impactful during young adulthood.
More recent studies suggest that something unexpected happens to many people as they reach and pass their 60s: Their personality starts changing again. This trend is probably observed in older ...
1 Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 2 Division HR Diagnostics AG, Stuttgart, Germany; Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of ...
Abstract. The duration of human maturation has been underestimated; an additional 4-6-year pre-adult period of "emerging adulthood," should be included in models of human maturation. It is a period of brain maturation, learning about intimacy and mutual support, intensification of pre-existing friendships, family-oriented socialization ...