Individual differences in personality trait changes across the lifespan: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies.

IF 19.9 1区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY

Psychological bulletin Pub Date : 2026-04-01 DOI:10.1037/bul0000525

Peter Haehner,Christopher J Hopwood,Lukas Schellenberg,Ted Schwaba,Wiebke Bleidorn

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Abstract

Recent meta-analyses and large-scale longitudinal studies have shown that the mean levels and rank orders of personality traits change throughout the lifespan. However, people differ from each other in their patterns of personality development. These individual differences in personality trait changes provide important insights into the sources and course of personality development. The present meta-analysis quantified the magnitude of individual differences in personality trait changes and their fluctuation across time lags and age by integrating findings from 229 longitudinal studies (N = 230,492). Results indicated significant individual differences in change in all traits, with neuroticism showing the most pronounced differences and openness and agreeableness the least. Charting effects across the lifespan, individual differences in change were most pronounced in childhood, decreased during young adulthood, but were significant across the entire lifespan. The age at which individual differences in change were smallest varied across traits, from ages 30 to 75. Finally, individual differences in personality trait changes were larger over longer assessment intervals, for facet-level traits, and among measures that were not designed to examine the Big Five taxonomy. Our findings support theoretical claims that highlight the relevance of genetic and environmental sources of personality development and suggest that individual differences in change endure, challenging the predictions of set-point models of personality development. Moreover, our results provide benchmarks for individual differences in change that can be used to compare the magnitude of differential personality development in future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

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贯穿一生的人格特质变化的个体差异：纵向研究的荟萃分析。

最近的荟萃分析和大规模的纵向研究表明，人格特质的平均水平和等级顺序在整个生命周期中都会发生变化。然而，每个人的个性发展模式都是不同的。这些人格特质变化的个体差异为人格发展的来源和过程提供了重要的见解。本荟萃分析通过整合229项纵向研究（N = 230,492）的结果，量化了人格特质变化的个体差异程度及其随时间滞后和年龄的波动。结果表明，所有性状的变化均存在显著的个体差异，其中神经质的差异最显著，开放性和亲和性的差异最小。在整个生命周期中，个体差异的变化在童年时期最为明显，在青年时期有所减少，但在整个生命周期中都很重要。在30岁到75岁之间，个体特征变化差异最小。最后，人格特质变化的个体差异在更长的评估间隔中更大，对于面级特征，以及在非设计用于检查五大分类的测量中。我们的研究结果支持了强调人格发展的遗传和环境来源相关性的理论主张，并表明个体差异的变化持续存在，挑战了人格发展的设定点模型的预测。此外，我们的研究结果为个体差异变化提供了基准，可用于在未来的研究中比较差异人格发展的程度。（PsycInfo数据库记录(c) 2026 APA，版权所有）。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Psychological bulletin 医学-心理学

CiteScore

33.60

自引率

0.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： Psychological Bulletin publishes syntheses of research in scientific psychology. Research syntheses seek to summarize past research by drawing overall conclusions from many separate investigations that address related or identical hypotheses. A research synthesis typically presents the authors' assessments: -of the state of knowledge concerning the relations of interest; -of critical assessments of the strengths and weaknesses in past research; -of important issues that research has left unresolved, thereby directing future research so it can yield a maximum amount of new information.