Journal
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 91, Issue 4, Pages 763-779Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.763
Keywords
personality stability; Big Five; construct continuity; longitudinal study
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Funding
- NIA NIH HHS [R01 AG020048-10A1, AG20048, R01 AG020048] Funding Source: Medline
- NIMH NIH HHS [MH55600] Funding Source: Medline
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This report provides some initial findings from an investigation of the relations between childhood Big Five personality traits assessed by elementary school teachers and similar traits assessed 40 years later by self-reports at midlife (N = 799). Short-term (1-3 years) test-retest reliabilities were lower (.22-.53) in childhood when personality was developing than they were in adulthood (.70-79) when personality stability should be at its peak. Stability coefficients across the 40-year interval between the childhood assessment and the 2 measures of adulthood personality were higher for Extraversion (e.g.,.29) and Conscientiousness (e.g.,.25) than for Openness (e.g.,.16), Agreeableness (e.g.,.08), and Neuroticism (e.g.,.00). Construct continuity between childhood and adulthood was evaluated by canonical analysis and by structural equation modeling and indicated continuity at both a broad, two-dimensional level and at the level of the Big Five. The findings are discussed in relation to A. Caspi, B. W. Roberts, and R. L. Shiner's (2005) principles of rank-order personality stability.
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