Personality development across the lifespan: Theory, research, and application.

Abstract

Carla is 76-year-old woman who recently moved to an assisted living residence. She is having trouble with the transition. She is sullen and withdrawn, noting that she does not need to be there. How can the residential staff best help Carla adjust to this new change in her life? Obviously, there is a considerable amount of information that they need to know about Carla before they can help. A clinician might begin Defining PersonalityPersonality psychology has long exhibited a tension between trying to undercover the commonalties and differences among people and also understanding the intricacies and motives within specific individual lives (Allport, 1966;Eysenck, 1997;McAdams & Pals, 2006). The former approach is sometimes identified as nomothetic and the latter as idiographic. Given the different focus of each approach and the broad nature of people's behaviors, it is not surprising to find that a vast array of theories of personality exists. In the past several decades, however, the

A New Twist on Old Questions: A Life Span Approach to the Trait Concept

“…Without some level of observable stability in people's patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, there would be no everyday vocabulary of personality description to capture these individual differences, and no need for trait theories postulating their underlying biological and environmental origins. Despite being so fundamental, there is a surprising level of disagreement about the extent to which traits are stable or change, and conflicting views on when in life personality reaches maturity (Griffin, Mroczek, & Wesbecher, ; Specht et al, ). We examine two theoretical questions about trait stability that are well suited to a life span approach: Is there observable personality stability from childhood to adulthood?…”