New Psychology Research Uncovers How Your Personality Evolves As You Get Older
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Remember when you were a teenager and thought you’d never turn into your parents? See how much has changed now?
It’s no surprise that your personality shifts as you age, and several studies have backed this observation up. However, when attempting to identify which character aspects have changed, many of them would return with varying results.
New research by researchers from the European Association of Personality Psychology sought to identify distinct patterns of personality change by looking at data from 16 longitudinal studies and searching for similarities between middle-aged and older individuals. The 16 studies spanned over 60,000 participants from the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, and Sweden, and all of the assessments incorporated the Big Five personality model.
Interestingly, the research team managed to pinpoint clear evidence of changes in four aspects out of the Big Five from the various studies. However, there were no noticeable similarities for the last trait, agreeableness.
Across the board, the team recorded a fairly similar observation of extraversion and conscientiousness declining over time, with the dip in conscientiousness appearing to be more prominent among respondents above the age of 60. This suggests that people tend to value solitude and become less organized as they get older.
The researchers justified these shifts by citing existing theories about how people are likely to become less attached to social demands as they get older, whereas younger individuals might feel more obligated to showcase pro-social traits such as extraversion and conscientiousness.
For these reasons, the team also recorded a general stability in openness to experience during middle adulthood, but a drop in the trait as people aged.
This means people might get less curious and more cautious with time.
When tracking neuroticism, the researchers noted a U-shaped pattern indicating a decrease in this aspect during most of adulthood, before increasing in older age.
According to Research Digest, this corroborates the concept that people get more worried about terminal illness and death in old age.
The review found that the sex of the participants was not relevant when observing personality changes. However, females appeared to have slightly steeper declines for neuroticism than males.
It’s worth noting that while the researchers discovered overall psychological patterns, almost all of the studies in the data set saw different changes between the five personality traits. “People change differently on different traits, personality is not stable for everyone across the lifespan (but is for some people), and accounting for or explaining these changes is difficult,” the team deduced.
[via Research Digest, cover image via Shutterstock]
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