Facet-Level Personality Development in the Transition to Adolescence: Maturity, Disruption, and Gender Differences

Abstract

The transition to adolescence is marked by enormous change in social, biological, and personality development. Although accumulating evidence has offered insight into the nature of higher-order personality trait development during this period, much less is known about the development of lower-order personality traits, or “facets”. The current study employed a cohort- sequential longitudinal design to examine domain- and facet-level trajectories for mother- reported personality traits during the early adolescent transition. Personality trait domains and facets were assessed with the Inventory of Child Individual Differences – Short Form (Deal et al., 2007). Participants were 440 children followed at four annual timepoints from middle childhood (MAge = 9.97, SD = 0.81) to early adolescence (MAge = 13.11, SD = 0.84). Results of latent growth curve models showed substantial facet-level personality stability in this period, as well as small to moderate linear change in 13 of 15 facets. Gender differences in change were evident for 9 facets. Overall patterns suggested consistent increases in agreeableness facets with null to small gender differences. Neuroticism and openness to experience facet change was heterogeneous within each domain, but patterns were similar for boys and girls. Extraversion primarily decreased, though the magnitude and direction of change differed between facets and genders. Conscientiousness increased across all facets, but only among girls. These findings overall demonstrate a high degree of developmental consistency in facets within each domain as well as some notable differences. Further, this study contributes to a small and somewhat mixed evidence base for current theories of adolescent personality development.

Refining the maturity principle of personality development by examining facets, close others, and comaturation.

“…• Adaptive development generally occurs from late adolescence (e.g., Klimstra et al, 2018;Luan et al, 2018) up to the years preceding death (e.g., Wagner et al, 2016), with changes that are most pronounced in emerging adulthood (ages 18-30; Roberts & Davis, 2016). However, in some samples, adaptive development begins earlier in life (e.g., Brandes et al, 2020) and extends into very old age (e.g., Mueller et al, 2016). • On average, traits only co-mature within people to a small extent, as adaptive development in one trait is mostly independent of adaptive development in others (e.g., Allemand & Martin, 2017).…”

Personality Change Through Arts Education: A Review and Call for Further Research

“…An alternative explanation for the observed weighted average of d z = .22 might be that desirable personality change resulted not from participation in arts education but from normative changes in personality (for normative changes, see e.g., Brandes et al, 2020; Orth et al, 2018). To investigate this possibility, we compared the weighted average d z of the treated groups with the weighted average d z of the control groups.…”

“…Finally, a word on normative personality developments during childhood and adolescents is in order. First, the maturity principle proposes conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness increase with age (e.g., Brandes et al, 2020; Caspi et al, 2005). Second, the disruption hypothesis states that biological, social, and psychological changes lead to a setback in desirable personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness and agreeableness) during adolescence (e.g., Brandes et al, 2020; Soto & Tackett, 2015).…”

“…First, the maturity principle proposes conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness increase with age (e.g., Brandes et al, 2020; Caspi et al, 2005). Second, the disruption hypothesis states that biological, social, and psychological changes lead to a setback in desirable personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness and agreeableness) during adolescence (e.g., Brandes et al, 2020; Soto & Tackett, 2015). Third, a recent meta-analysis indicates that mean levels of self-esteem increase from ages 4 to 11 and remain stable from ages 11 to 15 (Orth et al, 2018).…”

The Development of Shyness from Late Childhood to Adolescence: A Longitudinal Study of Mexican-Origin Youth

“…Rank-order stability reflects the degree to which the relative ordering of individuals on shyness is maintained over time, whereas mean-level change refers to changes in the average level of shyness in a population. Previous studies examining the rank-order stability of shyness have found moderate to high levels of stability across adolescence (test–retest correlations of .56–.67 for 4–5 years) when shyness was assessed using parent-reports (Brandes et al, 2020; Karevold et al, 2012; Laceulle et al, 2012). Youth self-reported shyness tends to show lower, but still moderate, rank-order stability, such as 1-year test–retest correlations of .58 to .62 and a 2-year correlation of .52 from age 10 to 12 (Hassan et al, 2021).…”