Studies show that maturation may have an impact on the five personality traits. As people age, they tend to become less extraverted, less neurotic, and less open to an experience. Agreeableness and conscientiousness, on the other hand, tend to increase as people grow older.
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, mean-level change in personality traits occurs in middle and old age, showing that personality traits can change at any age.
1. The Big Five traits are relatively stable over our lifespan with a tendency for the traits to increase or decrease slightly. Researchers have found that conscientiousness increases through young adulthood into middle age, as we become better able to manage our personal relationships and careers.
In particular, they talk about the "Big Five": openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Evidence suggests that these traits aren't fixed at all, and some research shows you can intentionally change these personality traits.
They found that overall agreeableness and conscientiousness increased with age. There was no significant trend for extraversion overall although gregariousness decreased and assertiveness increased.
Researchers have found that conscientiousness increases through young adulthood into middle age, as we become better able to manage our personal relationships and careers. Agreeableness also increases with age, peaking between 50 to 70 years. However, neuroticism and extroversion tend to decline slightly with age.
Conscientiousness and Agreeableness increased throughout early and middle adulthood at varying rates; Neuroticism declined among women but did not change among men. The variety in patterns of change suggests that the Big Five traits are complex phenomena subject to a variety of developmental influences.
"Conscientiousness grows as people mature and become better at managing their jobs and relationships, and agreeableness changes most in your 30s when you're raising a family and need to be nurturing."
Psychologists call it "the maturity principle." People become more extraverted, emotionally stable, agreeable and conscientious as they grow older. Over the long haul, these changes are often pronounced. Some individuals might change less than others, but in general, the maturity principle applies to everyone.
Personality characteristics do change, but not much. For example, many people become somewhat more agreeable as they get older, but this does not apply to everyone or at every stage of life.
A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies replicated these findings, showing that individuals increase in Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and social dominance (Extraversion) in young adulthood, then later increase in Agreeableness and decrease in social vitality (Extraversion) and Openness (Roberts, Walton, & ...
Among the "Big Five" personality traits, conscientiousness is especially predictive of living a longer life. The trait has also been linked to health-related behaviors such as smoking and sleep, which may help explain its link to longevity.
While the younger group's personalities remained more or less the same overall, the older group's personality traits begin to shift, so that on average, they became less open and extraverted, as well as less agreeable and conscientious.
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. ...
For example, we tend to become more socially dominant, more conscientious (organized and dependable), and more emotionally stable between the ages of 20 and 40, whereas openness to new experiences tends to decline as we age.
The Big Five personality traits are: neuroticism, extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience.
Both resilience and self-control help people defy the aging effects of stress on their bodies. Self-control refers to the ability to manage our actions and emotions — indeed, higher self-control is linked to looking younger.
This is of particular importance given that previous research suggests that as individuals age, the relationship between perfectionistic strivings and conscientiousness weakens, and the relationship between perfectionistic strivings and neuroticism increases.
Higher levels of neuroticism or lower levels of conscientiousness or extraversion may be risk factors for the onset or progression of frailty.
Personality change across generations
Using different growth models, Brandt and colleagues found that people's conscientiousness and agreeableness tended to increase as they aged, whereas neuroticism and openness tended to decrease. Extraversion remained more stable across the lifespan.
In this table, the Big Five domains are ordered by their relative stability: from Extraversion (most stable) to Neuroticism (least stable).
Politeness was not correlated with any form of well-being! That's right. Being polite all the time doesn't seem to be related to well-being. Remember, assertiveness is different than politeness.
Personality change from disease
The largest change observed was a decrease in conscientiousness. The next most significant changes were an increase in Neuroticism and decrease in Extraversion, but Openness and Agreeableness were also decreased.
-the transition into late adulthood was characterized by increases in the following aspects of conscientiousness: impulse control, reliability, and conventionality.