Four studies were conducted on young adults' goals and plans to change personality traits. In Study 1, a new trait change goal assessment tool, the BF-TGI, found Neuroticism to be the most frequently cited trait for a change goal. In Study 2, data was gathered from the UK, Iran and China. Iran showed a higher prevalence of normative change goals than the UK and China. Study 3 investigated plans to change traits. Extraversion and Conscientiousness plans were more specific than for the other traits. Study 4 investigated whether goals and plans to change predict change over 12 months, and found that goals and plans to change Conscientiousness and Neuroticism predicted change in the opposite direction to the goal. Keywords:Goals, plans, traits, culture, change, longitudinal, Big Five Goals and plans for trait change 4 Goals and plans for Big Five personality trait change in young adultsThe market for self-help books and self-improvement workshops is booming. People believe that with the right tips and enough effort, they can rid themselves of undesirable personality characteristics and increase positive ones (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997;Noftle, 2013). But does this belief reflect actuality? The self-help literature is based mostly on hope, not evidence, and empirical research looking at goal-directed attempts at personality development is currently scarce. The current study explores the extent to which goals and plans for personal change at the level of Big Five traits are present during young adulthood, what the content of these goals and plans are, and whether they predict change over a period of a year.Of all the age ranges of the lifespan, young adulthood has been found to be one of the most prolific in terms of personality trait change (Donnellan & Lucas, 2008). In a metaanalysis of mean-level Big Five longitudinal trait change across the lifespan, aggregated intra-individual change was greatest between ages 18 and 29 (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006). Furthermore, young adulthood shows lower rank-order stability for traits than adults in older age groups (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Indeed, recent analysis of data from 62 nations has found that personality change in young adults in the direction of increased Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, and lower Neuroticism, may be crossculturally universal (Bleidorn et al., 2013).Several theories purport to explain the change towards increased Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and lower Neuroticism, and would in turn help to explain goals to change in these directions. Socio-analytic theory advanced by Hogan and Roberts (2004) state that as they age, individuals aim for personality maturity as perceived by others, which involves being liked, admired and respected. In terms of Five Factor Model traits, they postulate that Goals and plans for trait change 5 this means becoming more agreeable, more emotionally stable and more conscientious. NeoEriksonian models of life course change, such as the model of emerging adulthood, also help to explain why this age ...

Admiration is a social emotion that is developmentally formative in emerging adulthood; admired adults act as mentors, role models and sources of inspiration to this age group (Arnett, 2014)

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This study investigated relations of parental three-dimensional wisdom on 15–17-year-old adolescents’ cognitive, social, and emotional developmental qualities. Families were recruited in 10th and 11th grades of public schools in Yazd, Iran, and a total of 140 father–mother–adolescent triads participated in the research. In multivariate regression analyses, parental wisdom was positively related to adolescents’ social intelligence and emotional competence but unrelated to adolescents’ cognitive skills and intelligence. Moreover, significant interaction effects between parental wisdom and adolescent gender showed that paternal wisdom only predicted sons’ social intelligence and emotional competence, whereas maternal wisdom only predicted daughters’ social intelligence and emotional competence. These results indicate that (a) wise parents appear to be role models for the social and emotional development of same sex adolescents and (b) intellectual development depends on other factors than parental wisdom. This suggests that promoting wisdom development in parents likely benefits the psychosocial development of their children.