Age differences in five personality domains across the life span

The present study addresses the issue of age differences in 5 personality domains across the life span in a cross-sectional study. In contrast to most previous studies, the present study follows a methodologically more rigorous approach to warrant that age-related differences in personality structure and mean level can be meaningfully compared. It uses data on 50 items of the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) available from a study in a large and representative Dutch sample (N = 2,494; age range: 16 to 91 years) conducted in 1996 for the purpose of establishing norms for the FFPI. After having established strict measurement invariance, tests were made for factor covariances to be equal across age groups, revealing structural continuity of personality. Additionally, factor variances were shown to be equal across age groups. A number of age differences in the mean level of the five personality domains emerged. Specifically, older adults were, on average, more agreeable and, especially, more conscientious than middle-aged and younger adults. Findings from our study suggest that both continuity and change may mark personality over the course of life.     

Age differences in personality across the adult life span: parallels in five cultures

Both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in the United States have shown consistent changes between college age and middle adulthood. There appear to be declines in 3 of the 5 major factors of personality--Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness--and increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. To examine cross-cultural generalizability of these findings, translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory were administered to samples in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Croatia, and South Korea (N = 7,363). Similar patterns of age differences were seen in each country, for both men and women. Common trends were also seen for the more specific traits that define the major factors. Because these nations differ substantially in culture and recent history, results suggest the hypothesis that these are universal maturational changes in adult personality.     

Gratitude across the life span: Age differences and links to subjective well-being

Abstract

Gratitude has been described as an adaptive evolutionary mechanism that is relevant to healthy psychological and interpersonal outcomes. Questions remain as to whether the presence and benefits of gratitude are consistent from young adulthood to old age; prior research has yielded mixed evidence. We examined the magnitude and direction of age differences in gratitude in three samples (combined N = 31,206). We also examined whether gratitude was associated with greater/lesser well-being at different periods in the life course. We found that the experience of gratitude was greatest in older adults and least in middle aged and younger adults. Further, we found that the associations between gratitude and subjective well-being remained relatively constant across the lifespan. Findings are discussed from a developmental perspective.     

Age differences in the personality hierarchy: A multi-sample replication study across the life span

This replication and extension of Mõttus and Rozgonjuk (2019) compared the extents of age-related information captured by different levels of the personality trait hierarchy (domains, facets and nuances, indexed by individual items) in several samples (N = 51,524) of different age ranges and cultural backgrounds, and tested with different instruments. Across samples and measures, lower trait hierarchy levels (especially nuances) tended to contain substantially more age-sensitive information than higher levels; most of the unique age-sensitive information was in nuances. Besides showing the need for more nuanced personality (development) research, the findings suggest ways of testing novel hypotheses that rely on systematic between-trait variance in age differences.     

Age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem across the life span

We investigated age differences in instability, contingency, and level of self-esteem from age 13 to 72 years, using data from 1386 individuals who participated in a diary study over 25 days. Instability and contingency of self-esteem decreased from adolescence to old age, whereas level of self-esteem increased. Big Five personality traits predicted the level, but not the slope, of the trajectories of self-esteem characteristics. Age differences in self-esteem characteristics did not merely reflect age differences in instability and level of positive and negative affect. Finally, self-esteem characteristics showed a stable pattern of interrelations across the life span. Overall, the findings suggest that people’s self-esteem tends to become better adjusted—i.e., more stable, less contingent, and higher—across the life course.     

Personality development across the life span: longitudinal analyses with a national sample from Germany

Longitudinal data from a national sample of Germans (N = 20,434) were used to evaluate stability and change in the Big Five personality traits. Participants completed a brief measure of personality twice, 4 years apart. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to establish measurement invariance over time and across age groups. Substantive questions about differential (or rank-order) and mean-level stability and change were then evaluated. Results showed that differential stability was relatively strong among all age groups but that it increased among young adults, peaked in later life, and then declined among the oldest old. Patterns of mean-level change showed that Extraversion and Openness declined over the life span, whereas Agreeableness increased. Mean levels of Conscientiousness increased among young adults and then decreased among older adults. Trajectories for Neuroticism were relatively flat, with slight increases during middle age and a slight decline in late life.     

Individual differences in skewed financial risk-taking across the adult life span

Older adults are disproportionately targeted by fraud schemes that advertise unlikely but large returns (positively skewed risks). We examined adult age differences in choice and neural activity as individuals considered risky gambles. Gambles were symmetric (50% chance of modest win or loss), positively skewed (25% chance of large gain), or negatively skewed (25% chance of large loss). The willingness to accept positively skewed relative to symmetric gambles increased with age, and this effect replicated in an independent behavioral study. Whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses comparing positively (vs. negatively) skewed trials revealed that relative to younger adults, older adults showed increased anticipatory activity for negatively skewed gambles but reduced activity for positively skewed gambles in the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal regions. Individuals who were more biased toward positively skewed gambles showed increased activity in a network of regions including the nucleus accumbens. These results reveal age biases toward positively skewed gambles and age differences in corticostriatal regions during skewed risk-taking, and have implications for identifying financial decision biases across adulthood.     

Individual and developmental differences in working memory across the life span

The effects of secondary tasks on verbal and spatial working memory were examined in multiple child, young adult, and older adult samples. Although memory span increased with age in the child samples and decreased with age in the adult samples, there was little evidence of systematic change in the magnitude of interference effects. Surprisingly, individuals who had larger memory spans when there was no secondary task showed greater interference effects than their age-mates. These findings are inconsistent with the hypothesis that age and individual differences in working memory are due to differences in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information, at least as this hypothesis is currently formulated. Moreover, our results suggest that different mechanisms underlie developmental and individual differences in susceptibility to interference across the life span. A model is proposed in which memory span and processing speed both increase with development but are relatively independent abilities within age groups.     

Age differences in memory span

Five-year-olds recalled fewer items than adults in memory-span tasks involving both familiar and unfamiliar faces. This occurred even though the use of rehearsal and recoding strategies was minimized for adults. This residual age difference may be partially accounted for by two further processing limitations in children. The five-year-olds needed more time than adults to name a face (Experiment 1) and to encode a face (Experiment 2). In order to test whether limitations in children's initial recognition and stimulus-identification processes could account for recall performance, Experiment 3 reduced adults' exposure duration in the memory-span task. This led to a drastic reduction in the age difference. Other factors contributing to remaining age differences included adults' adaptability in using various alternative encoding and retrieval strategies which elevated their recall performance.     

Explanatory style across the life span: evidence for stability over 52 years

Analyzed explanatory style across the life span. 30 Ss whose average age was 72 responded to questions about their current life and provided diaries or letters written in their youth, an average of 52 years earlier. A blind content analysis of explanatory style derived from these 2 sources revealed that explanatory style for negative events was stable throughout adult life (r = .54, p less than .002). In contrast, there appeared to be no stability of explanatory style for positive events between the same 2 time periods. These results suggest that explanatory style for negative events may persist across the life span and may constitute an enduring risk factor for depression, low achievement, and physical illness.     

Sex differences in reaction time mean and intraindividual variability across the life span

Men are often found to have faster and less variable reaction times (RTs) than do women. However, it has not been established whether these differences occur in children. One suggestion is that sex differences in RT variability may be due to the effect of sex hormones on the brain and, by implication, may be expected in adults but not in children. The present study investigates sex differences in RT mean and intraindividual variability in a sample that includes both children and adults (age range = 4-75 years). Mean and intraindividual variability of simple RT (SRT) and 4-choice RT (CRT) were measured in 1,994 visitors to science festivals held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2008 and 2009 and in Cheltenham and Cambridge, England, in 2008. The commonly reported pattern of decreasing RT mean and variability in childhood and adolescence, followed by an increase in mean and variability through adulthood and into old age, was confirmed. Greater intraindividual variability for females in SRT and CRT was observed in adults but not in children. Males had significantly faster mean SRT than did females across the life span, but there were no sex differences in mean CRT. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Visual search across the life span

Gains and losses in visual search were studied across the life span in a representative sample of 298 individuals from 6 to 89 years of age. Participants searched for single-feature and conjunction targets of high or low eccentricity. Search was substantially slowed early and late in life, age gradients were more pronounced in conjunction than in feature search, and all age groups were uniformly affected by eccentricity manipulations. However, developmental and aging trends were distinctly asymmetrical: Children's performance was particularly affected by the mere presence of distractors; whereas in late life, performance was particularly impaired on target-absent trials and with increasing numbers of distractors. The implications for life span theories of cognitive and attentional development and for cognitive-speed and inhibitory-control accounts are discussed.     

Global self-esteem across the life span

This study provides a comprehensive picture of age differences in self-esteem from age 9 to 90 years using cross-sectional data collected from 326,641 individuals over the Internet. Self-esteem levels were high in childhood, dropped during adolescence, rose gradually throughout adulthood, and declined sharply in old age. This trajectory generally held across gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and nationality (U.S. citizens vs. non-U.S. citizens). Overall, these findings support previous research, help clarify inconsistencies in the literature, and document new trends that require further investigation.     

Attachment and the processing of social information across the life span: theory and evidence

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span-encompassing theoretical model to explain the patterns of results that have emerged from these studies. The central proposition is that individuals who possess secure experience-based internal working models of attachment will process--in a relatively open manner--a broad range of positive and negative attachment-relevant social information. Moreover, secure individuals will draw on their positive attachment-related knowledge to process this information in a positively biased schematic way. In contrast, individuals who possess insecure internal working models of attachment will process attachment-relevant social information in one of two ways, depending on whether the information could cause the individual psychological pain. If processing the information is likely to lead to psychological pain, insecure individuals will defensively exclude this information from further processing. If, however, the information is unlikely to lead to psychological pain, then insecure individuals will process this information in a negatively biased schematic fashion that is congruent with their negative attachment-related experiences. In a comprehensive literature review, we describe studies that illustrate these patterns of attachment-related information processing from childhood to adulthood. This review focuses on studies that have examined specific components (e.g., attention and memory) and broader aspects (e.g., attributions) of social information processing. We also provide general conclusions and suggestions for future research.     

Considering sex differences in anxiety and its disorders across the life span: A construct-validation approach

One neglected avenue to understanding anxiety disorders is through studying patterns of sex differences, which may suggest the need for modification in definitions of anxiety and its disorders, their operationalization and measurement, and the theories associated with these constructs. This article begins with a comprehensive review of sex diffrences across the life span that supports the widely held view that most anxiety disorders are more common among females than males. Subsequently, we offer an analysis of the possible sources of sex differences from a construct-validity perspective, with emphasis on understanding whether sex differences have their basis in methodological problems, measurement or definitional problems, or problems in extant theories of anxiety themselves.