Question

According to the article, how and why dos personality change later in life?

Answer 1

Answer:

Personality, one's characteristic way of feeling, behaving and thinking, is often conceptualized as a person's standing on each Big Five personality trait (extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness).

A person's personality profile is thus gauged from their standing on five broad concepts which predict, among other life outcomes, behavior and the quality of interpersonal relationships. Initially, it was believed that one's Big Five profile was static and dichotomous in that one was either at one extreme of each trait or another .For example, people are typically categorized as introverted or extraverted.

Change over a lifetime

There are two very specific types of change that researchers tend to focus on: rank-order change and mean-level change. A rank-order change refers to a change in an individual's personality trait relative to other individuals; such changes do not occur very often. A mean-level change refers to an absolute change in the individual's level of a certain trait over time. Longitudinal research shows that mean-level change does occur.However, some traits tend to change while some traits tend to stay stable.

There is an increase in consistency of a trait as age increases. However, personality does not stop changing at a specific age. Biological and social transitions in life may also be a factor for change. Biological transitions are stages like puberty or first childbirth. Social transitions might be changes in social roles like becoming a parent or working at a first job. These life transitions do not necessarily cause change, but they may be reasons for change.

One theory says that whether or not these life transitions cause personality change is based on whether the transition was expected based on age or was unforeseen.The events that are expected will cause personality change because those events have common scripts. However, events that are unexpected will give prominence to the traits that already exist for the individual.Historical context also affects personality change. Major life events can lead to changes in personality that can persist for more than a decade.

Stressful life events

Negative life events,long-term difficulties,and deteriorated life quality, all predict small but persistent increases in neuroticism, while positive life events, and improved life quality, predict small but persistent decreases in neuroticism. There appears to be no point during the lifespan that neuroticism is immutable,which is known as the plasticity principle.

Mechanisms of change

There are multiple ways for an individual's personality to change. Individuals will change their behavior based on the ideas in their environment that emit rewards and punishments. Some of these ideas might be implicit, like social roles.

The individual changes his or her personality to fit into a social role if it is favorable.  An individual may decide to actively try to change his or her own behavior/ personality after thinking about his or her own actions.

Personality change also occurs when individuals observe the actions of others. Individuals may mimic the behaviors of others and then internalize those behaviors. Once the individual internalizes those behaviors they are said to be a part of that person's personality.

Individuals also receive feedback from other individuals or groups about their own personality. This is a driving force of change because the individual has social motivations to change his or her personality.  It has also been shown that major positive and negative life events can predict changes in personality.

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