The present study examines the lack of strong correlations among existing self-report measures of narcissism. A principal-components analysis of 6 MMPI narcissism scales resulted in 2 orthogonal factors, 1 implying Vulnerability-Sensitivity and the other Grandiosity-Exhibitionism. Although unrelated to each other, these 2 factors were associated with such core features of narcissism as conceit, self-indulgence, and disregard of others. Despite this common core, however, Vulnerability-Sensitivity was associated with introversion, defensiveness, anxiety, and vulnerability to life's traumas, whereas Grandiosity-Exhibitionism was related to extraversion, self-assurance, exhibitionism, and aggression. Three alternative interpretations of these results are considered, and an argument for the distinction between covert and overt narcissism is made.

Between their early 40s and early 50s, 101 alumnae in the Mills longitudinal study decreased in dependence and self-criticism and increased in confidence and decisiveness. They also increased in comfort and stability attained through adherence to personal and social standards, and they scored higher on measures of coping through intellectuality, logical analysis, tolerance of ambiguity, and substitution. Normative personality change on the California Psychological Inventory was not associated with menopausal status, empty nest status, or involvement in care for parents. Feelings about life corresponded to descriptions of middle age by stage and period theorists, including the idea of turmoil around age 40. Findings support the view that personality changes across middle age in normative ways. Change seems to be attributable to long-term trends or period effects rather than to discrete life events.

The third vector score (competence) of the revised California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and ego level as assessed by the Loevinger Sentence Completion Test (SCT) are measures of alternative ways of conceptualizing maturity: as the ability of the individual to function effectively in society or as the degree of intrapsychic differentiation and autonomy. A longitudinal study of women (for the CPI, N = 107; for the SCT, N = 90) provides these two measures of maturity at age 43. Competence and ego level were correlated with antecedent and concurrent measures selected from inventories and life history material concerning work, marriage, relations with parents, and so forth, to assess aspects of maturity adapted from Allport: self-extension in significant endeavors, reality orientation in perception of self and others and in the conduct of one's activities, capacity for intimacy, emotional security, and individuality of personal integration. Results from the age-21 data indicate that competence and ego level are enduring trait complexes. Despite considerable overlap, they differ conspicuously in the greater emphasis of competence on emotional security and of ego level on individuality of personal integration. Analysis of the patterning of competence and ego level in the whole sample and in homogeneous groups high on one or both measures suggests psychological reasons why the two types of maturity diverge and why the relation of ego level to adjustment seems to be curvilinear.

Older adults provided oral life histories in a semi-structured interview format. The transcribed narratives were coded for the presence of specific, one-moment-in-time episodes. Participants differed systematically in the degree to which their narratives were marked by descriptions of specific events. Women's memory styles were markedly more specific or episodic than were men's styles. Participants' ratings of the ways that they use memory in daily life suggest that women place a greater value on purposeful reminiscence than do men.

The hypothesis that personality characteristics in adolescence can be used to predict religiousness and spiritual seeking in late adulthood was tested using a structural equation modeling framework to estimate cross-lagged and autoregressive effects in a two-wave panel design. The sample consisted of 209 men and women participants in the Berkeley Guidance and Oakland Growth studies. In late adulthood, religiousness was positively related to Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, and spiritual seeking was related to Openness to Experience. Longitudinal models indicated that Conscientiousness in adolescence significantly predicted religiousness in late adulthood above and beyond adolescent religiousness. Similarly, Openness in adolescence predicted spiritual seeking in late adulthood. The converse effect, adolescent religiousness to personality in late adulthood, was not significant in either model. Among women, adolescent Agreeableness predicted late-life religiousness and adolescent religiousness predicted late-life Agreeableness; both these effects were absent among men. Adolescent personality appears to shape late-life religiousness and spiritual seeking independent of early religious socialization.