Abstract

Objectives

Life experiences are thought to prompt changes in personality. However, existing studies find few replicable mean-level changes in personality following life events. The focus on mean-level change may obscure other types of personality change that are not routinely studied in the context of life events. These are variability in response, structural, and ipsative change.

Methods

The current proposal examines whether major life events (e.g., divorce and job loss) affect these 3 understudied types of personality trait change using 3 waves of Big Five trait data in a large-scale, representative longitudinal study (German Socioeconomic Panel Study, N = 16,368). Structural equation models compare those who had an event to their prior self and a control group who did not experience the event.

Results

Life events were found to have mostly null or small effects on variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Across 2 types of tests for variability in response, few replications occurred. The only consistent effect across 3 types of change was for mental health events, which served to increase variance in all Big Five traits and increase consistency in ipsative profiles.

Discussion

Life events tend not to affect these novel metrics of personality trait change. The one exception of mental health events is consistent with previous literature on mean-level change. Overall, life events do not appear to by major catalysts of personality change, regardless of how change is defined.

中文翻译：

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人格发展超出平均水平：生活事件会影响人格变异性，结构和持续性吗？

摘要

目标

人们认为生活经历会促使人格改变。然而，现有研究发现生活事件后人格中可复制的平均水平变化很少。对平均水平变化的关注可能会掩盖其他类型的人格变化，这些变化在生活事件中通常不会被研究。这些是响应，结构和必然变化的可变性。

方法

当前的提案使用大规模代表性的纵向研究（德国社会经济专门小组研究，N = 3）中的3次“五大”特征数据，研究了重大生活事件（例如离婚和失业）是否影响了这3种未被充分研究的人格特征变化类型。16,368）。结构方程模型将发生事件的人与之前的自己以及未经历事件的对照组进行比较。

结果

人们发现生活事件对响应，结构和渐进性变化的变化几乎没有影响或影响很小。在2种类型的响应变异性测试中，几乎没有重复发生。三种类型变化的唯一一致影响是心理健康事件，这有助于增加所有“五个五”特质的方差，并增加陈述型态的一致性。

讨论区

生活事件往往不会影响人格特质变化的这些新颖指标。心理健康事件的一个例外与先前关于平均水平变化的文献一致。总体而言，无论如何定义变化，生活事件似乎都不是性格改变的主要催化剂。