[1][2] Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns.
[5] While still uncertain, research suggests that genetics play a role in the change and stability of certain traits in a personality.
Initially, it was believed that one's Big Five profile was static and dichotomous in that one was either at one extreme of each trait or another[8] For example, people are typically categorized as introverted or extraverted.
Some researchers also noticed significant inconsistencies in how people behaved across situations, challenging the traditional notion of stable personality traits.
Some work suggests that people can adopt different levels of a personality dimension as the social situations and time of day change.
[13] In addition, social roles (e.g. employee) have been identified as potential sources of personality change.
Researchers have found strong correspondences between the demands of a social role and one's personality profile.
Conversely, once he leaves that role or takes on another which entails less conscientiousness, he will manifest a lower level standing on that trait.
Longitudinal research demonstrates that people's personality trajectories can often be explained by the social roles they adopted and relinquished throughout their life stages.
Adolescence and young adulthood have been found to be prime periods of personality changes, especially in the domains of extraversion and agreeableness.
Researchers distinguish between mean level and rank order changes in trait standing during old age.
Fleisher and Woehr (2008) suggest that consistency across the Big Five is a construct that is fairly stable and contributes to the predictive validity of personality measures.
Hence, inconsistency is quantifiable much like a trait, and constitutes an index of - and enhances - the fit of psychological models.
[21] To accommodate the inconsistency demonstrated on personality tests, researchers developed the Frame Of Reference principle (FOR).
[22] According to this theory, people tend to think of their personality in terms of a specific social context when they are asked to rate them.
This point is substantiated by yet another body of work suggesting that FOR instructions moderated the link between extraversion and openness scores on manager ratings of employee performance[24] This research thus recognizes that the importance of intrapersonal fluctuations contingent on personality is context specific and is not necessarily generalizable across social domains and time.
[29] Some of the biggest concerns faced in life are the previously listed factors - how much money does one make (income)?
During adolescence there are many increases or rapid changes in hormones, societal pressures, and environment factors, among other things.
Individuals will change their behavior based on the ideas in their environment that emit rewards and punishments.
[42] It has also been shown that major positive and negative life events can predict changes in personality.
[17][37] Some of the largest changes are observed in individuals with psychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementia.
[45] Cognitive behavioral therapy has been tested and proved to be effective in the treatment of adults with anxiety disorders.
[46] Following psilocybin therapy one study communicates that Neuroticism scores lowered substantially while Extraversion increased.
Some research suggests that during adolescence rank-order change does occur and therefore personality is relatively unstable.
[54] In a study done by Deborah A. Cobb-Clark and Stefanie Schurer, "The Stability of Big-Five Personality Traits," done in 2011, showed that "On average, individuals report slightly higher levels of agreeableness, emotional stability, and conscientiousness than extraversion and openness to experience.
For females, anxiety increases from childhood to adolescence, at emerging adulthood it levels out, and then starts to decrease into and throughout middle age.
Sociability seems to follow a different trend that is pretty high during our early teens but tends to decrease in early-adulthood and then stabilize around the age of 39.
[58][59] Although there is debate surrounding whether or not personality can change in the late stages of life, more evidence is being discovered about how the environmental factors affect people of all ages.
[60] Across multiple facets of health which include cognitive, physical, and sensory functioning, older adults' ability to maintain their everyday routine and lifestyle is being challenged.
[7] There are noticeable finds on reverse trends in maturity-related traits, such as increases in neuroticism and declines in conscientiousness.