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Knowing who you are and what you are meant to do gives you the energy to transform your life.
Knowing how you impact others can establish solid beginnings for developing productive relationships. Assessments can provide information to you on "Who am I?", "How do others see me?" and "How do I relate to others?".
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only. Financial, Legal and Professional information
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not Financial, Legal and Professional advice. You should see
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Financial, Legal or Professional in the area in which you
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Personality Changes Throughout Life
from NewScientist.com news service (11 May 03)
People's personalities are not set in stone by the
age of 30, contrary to popular and professional beliefs,
new research suggests.
In fact, the old adage about people becoming wiser with age
may hold some truth, according to the US study, which
examined five major personality traits.
Sanjay Srivastava and colleagues surveyed over 130,000
people on key personality traits known as the "Big Five":
conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism (emotionality),
openness and extraversion. These traits are not dependent on
factors like mood, says Srivastava, now a psychologist at
Stanford University, California.
Many psychologists believe these five key characteristics are
fundamentally genetic and do not change or change only slowly
after 30. But the research suggests that not only do people
continue to change after this milestone, but in some ways they
change more.
"We found a mixture of different patterns of how people change,"
Srivastava told New Scientist. "On average people were getting
better at dealing with the ups and downs of life. In particular,
they were more responsive and more caring [with age]."
Work and family
The team assessed the five
key traits in people aged between
21-60 on
the Internet using standard psychological tests.
These included
personality tests such as "Find your Star Wars
twin."
They compared
results to other non-Internet studies in
college students
to ensure that their results were
representative.
The team found that neuroticism (emotionality) decreased
with
age for women but
not men. Openness also declined slightly
with
age for both
sexes.
They also found that people tended to show a spurt
in
conscientiousness - which involves the ability to deal
with tasks
and
organization - in their twenties. Agreeability, which
encompasses
affection and warmth, improved on average in
most people's
thirties.
Srivastava, who led the study while at the University of
California,
Berkeley, said the team thought changes in
conscientiousness
and agreeability might map onto
changes
in work and
family.
"In their twenties people are typically entering into
the world
and rapidly
advancing, also they are making commitments in
their personal
life," he said. "Agreeability coincides with when
people are having
families."
Chicken and egg
However, the way in which
this happens presents a chicken
and egg
scenario, says Srivastava. "There could be socially
prompted
changes where a person changes to keep up with
the world around
them. Or you could also imagine people's
personalities
developing to allow them to take on those
roles."
For this reason, he says it is difficult to establish
the balance
between nature and nurture in developing
personality.
Srivastava's team is now planning further work to follow
the
development of personality in individuals over
time.
Journal reference: Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology (vol 84 p 1041)
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