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Personality, scientists say, appears to improve with age. There is a general belief that personality is genetically programmed to stop changing at a certain age. Some theorists argue that various aspects may change throughout adulthood. A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that personality is plastic and that the changes that come with age are generally for the better.
To begin to understand how personality traits might change through early and middle adulthood, Stanford University researchers studied how traits varied by age and gender. Measuring traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion, some 130,000 adults between 21 and 60 years of age completed an Internet 'personality test'
Results showed that conscientiousness increased with age, with the biggest jumps occurring among those individuals in their 20s. Agreeableness also rose with age, mostly among those in their 30's. Men and women differed in their relative neuroticism: as women aged, their neurotic tendencies declined, but this was not the case for men. Openness diminished slightly for both sexes, as did extraversion in women.
The next step is to understand why and how these changes take place. For example, it is assumed that the changes in conscientiousness and agreeableness happen when people increase their work responsibilities or when they have children but all of these factors need to be evaluated.
Website of the personality test: http://www.outofservice.com
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