case study for personality development

• Free Case Studies
• Business Essays

Write My Case Study

Buy Case Study

Case Study Help

• Case Study For Sale
• Case Study Service
• Hire Writer

Case Study on Personality Development

Personality development case study:.

Personality development is the process of the development of a human being under the influence of different factors which predetermine her moral values, preferences and way of life.

When a child is born, it becomes the part of the human society. Due to the influence of different factors children succeed or fail to become proper members of the human society. To begin with, a human being is a social creature and it can not survive without the care and constant communication with the members of the society. These hereditary factors are noticed only among the human beings, because new born children of animals are able to walk and look for food at once. On the contrary, human children need long and constant care of their parents to survive.The second even more important factor which influences the personality development is the process of socialization.

We Will Write a Custom Case Study Specifically For You For Only $13.90/page!

The environment influences the personality of a child seriously. It is obvious that it is possible to make anyone from a child if one wants. For example, if the child lives in the circle of criminals, he will absorb their values, behaviour, type and manner of thinking. Even if the child has achieved good memory and sound mind hereditary, he will not be smart and sound if these abilities are not developed and trained. On the contrary, it is possible to develop a strong personality due to the proper bringing up, treatment and education even if the child does not possess genetic predisposition to it.So, there are two main factors which influence the process of personality development: genetics and socialization.

When young people research the case for the paper based on personality development, they will need to pay attention to the both sides of the problem of the case. In order to succeed in the investigation of the problem one will need to collect enough data which will be useful for the analysis of the case. Students are supposed to find the reason of the problem which has caused the certain problem in personality development and weigh its consequences. Finally, a student will need to brainstorm effective methods which will help to cope with the problem.Many students face troubles while writing their case studies and the best way out for them is to apply for help in the Internet. There one can find a good free example case study on personality development composed by the experienced writer.

Such kind of assistance is very useful for students, because they get to know many new things about case study writing. Having read a free sample case study on personality development one will catch the idea of the correct formatting and logical construction of the paper.

Related posts:

• Adolescent Development Case Study
• Personality Case Study
• Case Study on Personality Traits
• Case Study on Personality Theory
• Case Study on Personality Types
• Case Study on Personality Disorders
• Case Study on Unique Personality

Quick Links

Privacy Policy

Terms and Conditions

Testimonials

Our Services

Case Study Writing Service

Case Studies For Sale

Our Company

Welcome to the world of case studies that can bring you high grades! Here, at ACaseStudy.com, we deliver professionally written papers, and the best grades for you from your professors are guaranteed!

[email protected] 804-506-0782 350 5th Ave, New York, NY 10118, USA

Acasestudy.com © 2007-2019 All rights reserved.

Hi! I'm Anna

Would you like to get a custom case study? How about receiving a customized one?

Haven't Found The Case Study You Want?

For Only $13.90/page

Personality Development: Michelle Obama Case Study

The term “personality” refers to a sum of character traits in a person. Therefore, personality development implies that the personality traits evolve from the childhood basis to the full development of individual differences in a character of a grown-up. This case study investigates the personality development illustrated by an example of Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States of America. She was chosen due to her prominent personality features, outstanding life experience and the fact that she is a worthy role model for modern society; consequently, such development can be an interesting example to consider.

Michelle LaVaughn Obama, née Robinson, was born on January 17, 1964, in Calumet Park Illinois, to a family of a water plant worker and a housewife. She is now able to trace the history of her family back to a Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, S.C. where her great-great-grandfather worked as a slave, while later his descendants moved North and settled in Illinois. However Mrs. Obama has learned of her ancestry only during a presidential campaign of her husband, and this knowledge has had a great impact on her (Murray, 2008, p. 1).

She graduated from school in1981 as a salutatory student and later studied sociology at Princeton University, from which she graduated BoA cum laude. In 1988, she also graduated from Harvard University as Juris Doctor and began her law practice in Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Later she also worked in various non-profit organizations but reduced her job responsibilities to help her husband, Barak Obama, whom she married in 1992, with his presidential campaign. The couple raises two daughters, and Michelle considers her family the main life priority. Mrs. Obama is regarded as a fashion icon and a trend-setter ( Michelle Obama Biography , n.d., par. 1-21).

For further exploration of Michelle Obama’s personality development, it is important to mention the models, according to which an individual’s personality development can be explained. These models include psychoanalytic and neo-analytic theories, psychosocial theories, trait, evolutionary, genetic/biological approaches, cognitive, behavioral, and social learning theories, and humanistic theories. For the beginning of the analysis, it would be appropriate to use the psychoanalytic / neo-analytic model, as it is one of the most basic and rather comprehensive theories, which can be considered as both advantage and disadvantage because it does not leave much possibility for other explanations.

According to those theories, based on teachings of Sigmund Freud, the parts of psyche, called “id”, “ego” and “superego” are balanced within each individual, but while Freud himself thought ego to be a weak structure, his successors, the neo-analytics, claimed that ego, containing the functions of learning, memory, and cognitive skills is a part that is the strongest from birth. A development, in this case, takes place in solving the so-called “basic conflicts”, which may serve to temper the character, or result in personality problems if such conflicts were not solved.

For Michelle Obama, an example of such conflict would have been an illness that her father suffered, the multiple sclerosis, which, however, did not stop him from pursuing his goals in life and teaching his daughter the same values ( Fraser Robinson III ~ Michelle Obama’s Father , par. 1-16). This probably was also the reason Michelle is often a participant of charity and non-profit organizations – because of her need to help people and treat them with kindness.

The psychosocial theory was first introduced by psychologist Erik Erikson; it suggests that eight stages of development during one’s life, at which the person learns to accept different virtues, such as hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care and wisdom. If one of the stages is missing, the value of its virtue may be lost. This theory encompasses the whole life’s development, but the order of the stages is often argued, and it is not always possible to trace the trajectory of a person’s life. According to this theory, Michelle Obama has successfully passed the stages of life involving purpose, competence (her studies), love and fidelity (her family) and at her adulthood she may be learning again how to care and make her life count, in which she definitely succeeds, both in terms of social and family life.

The trait theory, together with evolutionary and biological theories, presumes that a few fundamental units define the individual’s behavior and that these traits are defined by genetics (McLeod, 2014, par. 22-30). Therefore, further development is defined by these innate factors. These theories place emphasis on conducting psychometric tests (McLeod, par. 24), which can give a high level of precision in defining a character, some critics mention, that “traits are often poor predictors of behavior. While an individual may score high on assessments of a specific trait, he or she may not always behave that way in every situation … trait theories do not address how or why individual differences in personality develop or emerge” (Cherry, 2015, par. 16).

For using this theory, it may be important to investigate the family of Michelle Obama, to understand better, what kind of person she is, and how her legacy could influence her personality development. As it may be seen from her family tree, her ancestors were mostly hard-working people, who were proud of what they did and upheld traditional values; they believed that it was important to educate their children and give them a better life, which was one of the reasons the family moved to the north (Murray, 2008, p.2-4). It is clear that Michelle Obama inherited their dutifulness, perfectionism, independence, but also warmth and liveliness. This is how she became who she is now – a First Lady, a renowned philanthropist, and a trend-setter.

The humanistic or existential approach claims another important focus for a psychologist:

Factors that are specifically human, such as choice, responsibility, freedom, and how humans create meaning in their lives. Human behavior is not seen as determined in some mechanistic way, either by inner psychological forces, schedules of external reinforcement, or genetic endowments, but rather as a result of what we choose and how we create meaning from among those choices. (Beneckson, n.d., par. 42)

It means that understanding oneself and thriving to improve one’s personality may lead to healthy development or the so-called “self-actualization.” Existentialists may also add:

It requires active intention to create authenticity … Man is thrown into the world against his will, and must learn how to coexist with nature, and the awareness of his own death … To be healthy, humans must choose a course of action that leads to … the productive orientation. This is defined as working, loving, and reasoning so that work is a creative self-expression and not merely an end in itself. (Beneckson, n.d., par. 47)

This approach allows to take a different look at human’s psyche, disregarding the doctrines of Freudian, biological and behaviorist theories, however, it is often criticized for being too anthropocentric and idealistic.

For Mrs. Obama, the personal development in terms of humanistic theory may be illustrated with her life experiences, such as life within her family and a brother, which taught her how to listen to other people and get along with them. Later she also developed her working skills after she graduated, and her self-actualization lied in the field of law practice until she made a decision to help her husband. Michelle claimed that her family was her highest priority, and her choice was to work along with her husband and give her love to him and their children, all the while being able to satisfy her own need in self-actualization. The balance between these factors allows a person to find a psychological calm and harmony.

To conclude this research, it would be fair to assume, that although various approaches can be used to better understand an individual’s personality development, all of them can be useful for different scenarios. For example, it may be difficult to use the genetic method, when little or nothing is known about a person’s origins and his or her family. An existential approach should also be used with caution, as this is the least conservative and the newest method in psychology, which means some of its ideas may not have enough proof.

Nevertheless, every method has the right of existence however for a comprehensive and thorough understanding a deep and complex structure, that is the human personality, it may be advisable to unite some of the approaches. It would allow to gather more information, and the cross comparison of the results may highlight the features that previously were not noticed. It is highly important for a psychologist to follow the good practice but also to be versatile and flexible with the use of various tools to achieve better results in assessment and research.

Reference List

Beneckson, R. E. (n.d.) Personality Theory. A Brief Survey of the Field Today and Some Possible Future Directions . Web.

Cherry, K. (2015), Trait Theory of Personality. The Trait Approach to Personality . Web.

Fraser Robinson III ~ Michelle Obama’s Father. (n.d.). Web.

McLeod, S. (2014). Theories of personality . Web.

Michelle Obama Biography . (n.d.). Web.

Murray, S. (2008). A Family Tree Rooted In American Soil. The Washington Post. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, June 28). Personality Development: Michelle Obama. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personality-development-case-study-michelle-obama/

"Personality Development: Michelle Obama." IvyPanda , 28 June 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/personality-development-case-study-michelle-obama/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Personality Development: Michelle Obama'. 28 June.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Personality Development: Michelle Obama." June 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personality-development-case-study-michelle-obama/.

1. IvyPanda . "Personality Development: Michelle Obama." June 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personality-development-case-study-michelle-obama/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Personality Development: Michelle Obama." June 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personality-development-case-study-michelle-obama/.

• "Michelle Obama Calls on You to Serve" Address
• Rhetorical Theory Applied to Michelle Obama’s Speech
• Occupational Asthma: Michelle’s Case
• Ed. Michelle Lee's "Othello" as a Critical Source
• Michelle Kwan: An American Skating Champion
• Michelle Obama’s Remarks on American Dream
• Rasism in "No Telephone to Heaven" by Michelle Cliff
• Michelle Obama American Dream Speech Analysis –
• Story of a Woman: "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
• Self-Actualization: Interpersonal Communication
• Intelligence Theories Critique
• Personality Psychology: Cinderella's Personality
• Study of Values: 'A Scale for Measuring the Dominant Interests in Personality' by G. Allpor
• Heroism Concept and Its Causes
• Criminality and Personality Theory

Handbook of Personality Development

Edited by dan p. mcadams , rebecca l. shiner , and jennifer l. tackett.

• description B ringing together prominent scholars, this authoritative volume considers the development of personality at multiple levels—from the neuroscience of dispositional traits to the cultural shaping of life stories. Illustrated with case studies and concrete examples, the Handbook integrates areas of research that have often remained disparate. It offers a lifespan perspective on the many factors that influence each individual's psychological makeup and examines the interface of personality development with health, psychopathology, relationships, and the family. Contributors provide broad-based, up-to-date reviews of theories, empirical findings, methodological innovations, and emerging trends. See also the authored volume The Art and Science of Personality Development , by Dan P. McAdams. -->

• sample chapter
• Author's website
• All titles by Dan P. McAdams
• All titles by Rebecca L. Shiner
• contributors Jonathan M. Adler , PhD, Department of Psychology, Olin College of Engineering, Needham, Massachusetts Timothy A. Allen , PhD, Campbell Family Mental Health Institute, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Berenice Anaya , MS, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Wiebke Bleidorn , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California Jordan A. Booker , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri Daniel A. Briley , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, Illinois Kristin A. Buss , PhD, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Andrew M. Chanen , PhD, Orygen, National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Marco Del Giudice , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico Colin G. DeYoung , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Michele Dillon , PhD, Department of Sociology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire M. Brent Donnellan , PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan C. Emily Durbin , PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan Amanda M. Durik , PhD, Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois Nancy Eisenberg , PhD, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona Dan Farina , BA, Department of Psychology, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York Robyn Fivush , PhD, Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia Alexandra M. Freund , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Maria A. Gartstein , PhD, Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington Gary S. Gregg , PhD, Department of Psychology, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan Phillip L. Hammack , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California Sarah E. Hampson , PhD, Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon Maciel M. Hernández , PhD, Department of Psychology, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon Patrick L. Hill , PhD, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri Christopher J. Hopwood , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California Nathan W. Hudson , PhD, Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas Joshua J. Jackson , PhD, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri Rachael E. Jones , BA, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Ruthellen Josselson , PhD, School of Psychology, Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, California Margaret L. Kern , PhD, Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Christine A. Lee , MS, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Liliana J. Lengua , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington Jacqueline V. Lerner , PhD, Department of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Richard M. Lerner , PhD, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts Jennifer P. Lilgendahl , PhD, Department of Psychology, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania Richard E. Lucas , PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan Michelle M. Martel , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Dan P. McAdams , PhD, Department of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Kate C. McLean , PhD, Department of Psychology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington Christopher M. Napolitano , PhD, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, Illinois Darcia Narvaez , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana Ulrich Orth , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Koraly Pérez-Edgar , PhD, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Peter Prinzie , PhD, Department of Pedagogical Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Elaine Reese , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand K. Ann Renninger , PhD, Department of Educational Studies, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Richard W. Robins , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California Joshua L. Rutt , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Julia Schüler , PhD, Department of Sports Science, University of Kostanz, Kostanz, Germany Ted Schwaba , MA, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, California Jennifer M. Senia , PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan Kennon M. Sheldon , PhD, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri Rebecca L. Shiner , PhD, Department of Psychology, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York Jeffry A. Simpson , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Helena R. Slobodskaya , MD, PhD, Institute of Physiology and Basic Medicine, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia Luke D. Smillie , PhD, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Tess E. Smith , MS, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Jennifer L. Tackett , PhD, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois Katherine N. Thompson , PhD, Orygen, National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia Erin E. Toolis , MS, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California Elliot M. Tucker-Drob , PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas Mirko Uljarevic , PhD, Department of Psychology and Counseling, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Alicia Vallorani , MS, Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania Paul Wink , PhD, Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts -->

Free Shipping on Online Orders!

• Applies only to prepaid online orders from US customers.
• Packages sent via USPS Media Mail. You may choose to pay for rush shipping instead.
• Shipping charges to Canada are a flat $10.00 per order via CanPar.
• You may return Guilford books (undamaged) within 30 days of receipt for a full refund.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• HHS Author Manuscripts

Personality development in the context of individual traits and parenting dynamics

Associated data.

Our conceptualization of adult personality and childhood temperament can be closely aligned in that they both reflect endogenous, likely constitutional dispositions. Empirical studies of temperament have focused on measuring systematic differences in emotional reactions, motor responses, and physiological states that we believe may contribute to the underlying biological components of personality. Although this work has provided some insight into the early origins of personality, we still lack a cohesive developmental account of how personality profiles emerge from infancy into adulthood. We believe the moderating impact of context could shed some light on this complex trajectory. We begin this article reviewing how researchers conceptualize personality today, particularly traits that emerge from the Five Factor Theory (FFT) of personality. From the temperament literature, we review variation in temperamental reactivity and regulation as potential underlying forces of personality development. Finally, we integrate parenting as a developmental context, reviewing empirical findings that highlight its important role in moderating continuity and change from temperament to personality traits.

At the core of personality psychology is a focus on variability in human behaviors and attitudes that are stable across context and can arise from within the individual. The belief that people are ultimately individuals who bring unique perspective and contributions to their own development began to flourish in the Western world in the 19th century. This new focus on the individual propelled initiatives within philosophy and psychology to focus on dimensions that differentiate us from one another ( Barenbaum & Winter, 2008 ). Over time, this acknowledgement of individual differences permeated other areas of psychology – raising the notion that variation in individual traits can be systematic and predictive, and not simply random noise to be filtered out. Since personality can influence a host of constructs of interest – motivation, achievement, social behavior, decision-making – attempts to examine individual differences in this domain are evident across the field.

Early on, much of the emerging personality research was mired in a debate centered on quantifying what portion of personality was trait-based in contrast to experience-shaped. However, the current review will not fully wade into this debate—which ironically often pointed to broad theories of development, while not necessarily taking on a developmental approach ( Barenbaum & Winter, 2008 ). Rather, we will focus on how transactions between endogenous and contextual factors shape the personality development. Particularly, we want to highlight early emerging forces, such as temperament, that shape the emergence of personality traits within the context of the parenting environment. In doing so, we review how researchers conceptualize personality today, how temperamental reactivity and regulation may be underlying forces of personality development, and the role of the parenting context in moderating continuity and change from temperament to personality traits. Our understanding of these complex, bi-directional, interactions are outlined and illustrated in a simplified conceptual model (Section 3) that guides our interpretation of the currently available literature.

1. Current conceptualization of personality

The Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality has guided research and theory building for almost three decades ( John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008 ). FFM, also known as the Big Five model, contends that the construct of personality includes Basic Tendencies or traits that are biologically-based, as well as Characteristic Adaptations that result from dynamic interactions between Basic Tendencies and experience. The combination of Basic Tendencies and Characteristic Adaptations , give rise to our observed personality phenotypes and directly impact the individual’s self-concept and objective biography (for a review, see McCrae & Costa, 2008 ). The theory postulates that there are five basic tendencies of personality: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness , and Conscientiousness . Briefly explained, Neuroticism reflects emotional instability, and a tendency to display behaviors related to negative emotionality, such as anxiety, tension, and sadness. Extraversion refers to a high desire to approach and engage with the social and material world, and it includes traits of sociability, positive emotionality, and assertiveness. Agreeableness reflects a prosocial orientation and amiability that includes behaviors of altruism and trust, whereas the Openness factor includes dimensions of originality, perceptiveness, and intellect with which individuals experience life. Finally, Conscientiousness refers to a tendency to control impulses in compliance with social order, including task-oriented behaviors such as planning, organizing, as well as following norms or rules ( John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008 ).

In some ways, this conceptualization of personality has been closely aligned with our typical conceptualization of childhood temperament. For example, personality traits have been defined as “endogenous dispositions that follow intrinsic paths of development essentially independent of environmental influences” ( McCrae et al., 2000 , p. 173). The term “endogenous” suggests that these traits are biologically-based and early occurring, much like temperament. In fact, McCrae and colleagues (2000) argued that based on behavioral genetic and heritability studies of personality, we can conclude that personality traits have a large genetic component and that childhood shared environment (e.g., adoptive parents and siblings) has little to no effect on adult personality. Furthermore, they also present cross-cultural analyses of the maturation of personality traits from age 14 to age 50, supporting general declines in Neuroticism and Extraversion , and increases in Conscientiousness with age across five countries. Although these results lend support to the biological and universal aspects of personality traits, we should be careful in making strong inferences. Personality traits are usually assessed at an age when they may have reached a high degree of stability. Thus, these studies may 1) miss potential ways in which context can interact with early expressions of these traits (i.e., temperament) to shape continuity, and 2) miss individual variation or change that cannot be captured at group-level analyses ( Halverson & Deal, 2001 ).

Temperament research typically focuses on the early developmental period, measuring individual differences in behavior and physiology that are expressed in infancy and may lay the foundation for later personality. Indeed, temperament-linked differences are evident as early as four months of age ( Fox, Henderson, Rubin, Calkins & Schmidt, 2001 ; Kagan, 2012 ). By measuring systematic differences in emotional reactions, motor responses, and physiological states (e.g., heart rate variability), we can identify a number of temperament dimensions or temperamental styles that we believe may contribute to the underlying biological components of personality ( Rothbart & Bates, 2012 ). For example, an infant who displays increased limb movement when presented with a toy is rated as highly reactive ( Kagan, 2012 ). If this reactivity is accompanied by smiles and pleasant vocalization, then the infant id also rated as high in positive affect. This pattern of high positive reactivity is linked to the personality trait of Extraversion ( Caspi & Shiner, 2006 ; Slobodskaya & Kozlova, 2016 ), suggesting that this tendency for high approach and engagement of novelty is manifested early in infancy. However, links between temperament and personality traits are rarely strong, suggesting that these biological traits may not follow a path completely independent of environmental influences ( Shiner & Caspi, 2012 ). For example, studies suggest that temperament is influenced by prenatal experiences ( Huizink, 2012 ), and that after birth, early context may continue to influence change and continuity of infant temperament ( van Ijzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012 ). Furthermore, recent findings from epigenetic research has provided the mechanisms by which experience can robustly influence temperamental traits, such as reactivity and regulation ( Roth, 2012 ).

While previous work in infant temperament has provided some insight into the early origins of personality traits, we still lack a rich or cohesive developmental account of how different adult personality profiles emerge (or evolve) from infancy to adulthood. Despite attempts to link temperament dimensions to adult personality profiles, bridging the gap between early individual differences and adult personality traits has proved to be an intricate endeavor. We believe the moderating impact of context could shed some light on the complex trajectory from infant temperament to adult personality. First, however, we more carefully review our current understanding of temperament and the link to personality.

2. Temperament-linked individual differences and personality

Rothbart and Derryberry (1981) defined temperament as individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation that are constitutional or biologically based. Reactivity, or the arousability of emotion, motor, and physiological systems, is evident in behavioral responses to novel stimuli such as increased vocalization, motoric movement, and affective expression. Furthermore, temperamental reactivity can be positive or negative, depending on the affective valence accompanying the infant’s response. Individual differences at these two emotional extremes are characterized as exuberant and fearful temperaments, respectively. Exuberant infants explore novel spaces and toys and are more likely to respond to a stranger or new social interaction with positive affect ( Fox et al., 2001 ). When in the same situation, fearful infants are more likely to cry, kick, or cling to their mothers, and may also show extreme hypervigilance and negative affect compared to non-fearful children ( Kagan, 2012 ). Temperamental regulation functions to modulate reactivity, such that the behavioral expression of high reactivity may be constrained if effective regulation is also present, or exacerbated if regulation abilities are low.

2.1. Temperamental reactivity

Negative reactivity is associated with a low threshold of arousal in limbic structures, particularly the amygdala and the broader threat response system ( Kagan, Reznick, & Snidman, 1987 ). Greater arousal results in heightened sensitivity to context, such that infants with lower thresholds are more sensitive to novel stimuli and thus more likely to show negative responses characterized by fear, even when presented with ostensibly “neutral” stimuli ( White, Lamm, Helfinstein, & Fox, 2012 ). Such negative reactivity is evident in the later emerging temperament profile of Behavioral Inhibition (BI). BI toddlers show longer latencies to interact or approach, respond with negative affect, and remain in close proximity to their mother when presented with a novel toy or in the presence of a stranger, reflecting a highly vigilant response. Furthermore, these behavioral expressions have been associated with physiological differences also originating in the limbic system, such as higher and more stable heart rate and higher cortisol levels ( Kagan et al., 1987 ). Although we cannot extensively describe physiological differences between negative and positive reactivity infants in the current review, a robust collection of studies have identified temperament-linked differences in electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha power, sympathetic tone and baseline rate in the cardiovascular system, cortisol reactivity, the Event Related Negativity (ERN) waveform, and neural response to both threat and reward (for an in-depth description of methodology and group comparisons see Fox, Henderson, Pérez-Edgar, & White, 2008 ; Kagan & Snidman, 2004 ; McDermott et al., 2009 ; Schwartz et al., 2012 ).

Positive reactivity in infants on the other hand, may be the result of a high threshold of arousal, which likely affords infants the ease and comfort to navigate new social situations because they do not perceive such situations as threatening. Typically, Western personality preferences have led us to embrace the exuberant child, while simultaneously believing that fearfulness is a cause for concern ( Pérez-Edgar & Hastings, 2018 ). Although negative reactivity has more generally been associated with negative outcomes, such as anxiety ( Chronis-Tuscano et al., 2009 ; McDermott et al., 2009 ), positive reactivity can also lead to maladaptive outcomes if unregulated (see below). For example, Morales, Pérez-Edgar, and Buss (2016) found that exuberant toddlers who scored low in regulation tasks showed increased attention bias to reward, and their exuberance predicted externalizing behaviors. Externalizing behaviors, in turn, have been associated with traits of low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness , and can manifest behaviorally in aggression and antisocial behavior ( Miller, Lynam, & Jones, 2008 ).

Early temperamental traits can lead to lasting physiological and cognitive profiles particularly when embedded within a context that reinforces and magnifies their expression ( Rothbart & Bates, 2012 ). In contrast, some environments may actively (even if unconsciously) work to mitigate early traits that do not conform to desired behavioral and emotional patterns ( Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn2007 ). The progression from temperament reactivity to later child outcomes – including emergent personality – through environmental mechanisms that shape continuity may explain why a small percentage of BI infants develop acute social difficulties and clinical anxiety as early as adolescence ( Kagan, 2012 ), while most grow to be healthy, if a bit shy.

2.2.Temperamental regulation

Self-regulation is the modulation (upward or downward) of reactivity through the processes of attention, inhibition, approach and avoidance, functioning as a mechanism for reactive control ( Rothbart, Posner, & Kieras, 2006 ). For instance, an infant with high reactive control may be more likely to disengage from an unpleasant or negative stimulus in the environment (a scary toy) and focus attention elsewhere. Early in infancy, reactive control plays a crucial role in the expression of temperament because it directly modulates behavioral manifestations of reactivity. For example, the infant who is more likely to disengage attention from a negative stimulus will display less vocalization and motoric movement in response.

Temperamental regulation can also incorporate effortful control ( Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003 ). Describing control as “effortful” reflects top-down processes that, unlike automatic reactive processes, are recruited voluntarily. For example, BI children with higher effortful control may more easily recruit strategies to regulate negative feelings in social situations, which can facilitate their social interactions. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is one of the main brain structures involved in effortful control, and along with the Executive Attention Network (EAN) have been extensively studied for their role on regulation abilities (for a review, see Rueda, Posner, & Rothbart, 2005 ; Henderson & Wilson, 2017 ). In summary, individual differences are evident in the way infants react to their environment and regulate environmental input. Thus, the behavioral manifestation of temperament is a product of the interplay between the infant’s motoric and emotional reactivity and the infant’s regulation capacity.

2.3.The contextual role of temperament

The interplay between temperamental reactivity and regulation becomes more nuanced as regulation becomes more effortful or voluntary. Recent evidence suggests that not all regulatory processes affect temperamental reactivity in the same fashion. White and colleagues (2011) examined a large sample of infants from 4-months to preschool age. They found that BI children with poor attention shifting were more likely to follow a developmental path to anxiety compared to BI children who were better at shifting their attention. This evidence, on its own, suggests that more robust regulation may buffer risk trajectories from fearful temperament to Neuroticism and psychopathology. However, White et al. (2011) found a different moderation pattern for inhibitory control, an associated, but distinct, component of self-regulation. Inhibitory control is the ability to stop an automatic or dominant impulse and to activate a subdominant response for the purpose of goal completion. Unlike attention shifting, high, and not poor, inhibitory control was associated with development of anxiety problems in BI children, a finding that has since been replicated (see Henderson & Wilson, 2017 ).

A nuanced understanding of regulation provides some explanation for the variability in developmental trajectories from temperamental reactivity to personality, which will depend in part on which regulatory processes are called upon by individual children. For example, training inhibitory control processes in exuberant children may buffer risk for externalizing problems, and, in the absence of externalizing tendencies, children may develop into more Agreeable and Conscientious adults. However, using the same strategy in behaviorally inhibited children could exacerbate negative reactivity and the risk for internalizing behaviors, which has been associated with adult Neuroticism ( Muris, Meesters, & Blijlevens, 2007 ). Together, these findings emphasize the differential effects of specific self-regulation components, and more importantly, point to the important role of temperament in tethering development to a given adult personality profile over others, and to influencing whether regulation comes to buffer or potentiate risk for psychopathology.

3. Developmental links from temperament to personality

There is now increasing evidence for links between temperament dimensions and the Big Five. The Five Factor Theory of personality helped distinguished between basic tendencies of personality ( Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness , and Openness to Experience ) and later emerging components that are largely driven by life events and personal experience (e.g., Characteristic Adaptations and Self-Concept ). The Big Five, which reflect endogenous characteristics driven by biological systems much like temperament, has proven to be a more suitable construct to assess developmental links between temperament and adult personality ( Shiner & Caspi, 2012 ).

The effort to link temperament to personality has mostly focused on how temperament dimensions of Positive Emotionality , Negative Emotionality , and Effortful Control assessed early in childhood predict differences in personality traits later. Positive Emotionality , given a context that reinforces its stability throughout childhood, likely develops into the broader trait of Extraversion , which includes positive emotions, the motivation to engage in social relationships, and the desire to seek rewarding cues in the environment ( Olino, Klein, Durbin, Hayden, & Buckley, 2005 ; Caspi & Shiner, 2006 ).

Negative Emotionality , in contrast is often linked with manifestations of Neuroticism . For example, De Pauw, Mervielde, and Van Leeuwen (2009) assessed 443 preschoolers on their temperament and personality traits concurrently, and found a large overlap between both constructs, and each positively correlated with internalizing behaviors. Furthermore, Slobodskaya and Kozlova (2016) examined longitudinal links between temperament dimensions assessed within infancy and toddlerhood, and personality traits in childhood. They found that high Negative Emotionality along with low Effortful Control in infancy predicted childhood Neuroticism . In fact, results from their path analysis indicated that Effortful Control in infancy predicts all three of the personality traits assessed in childhood: Extraversion , Conscientiousness , and Neuroticism . Although these results are preliminary given the limited sample size and large variation of time intervals between assessments, they support the contextual role of temperamental regulation in the development of later personality. As previously discussed, Effortful Control is characterized by regulatory abilities that facilitate soothability in infancy, and the ability to inhibit dominant impulses and voluntarily shift attention when necessary to achieve a goal. This dimension has been linked to Conscientiousness , Extraversion , and generally adaptive traits in adult personality ( Halverson et al., 2003 ).

The extant literature supports moderate links between individual differences in infant temperament and later personality traits, while also suggesting that temperament does not predict personality in a deterministic way. What then is the developmental trajectory from infant temperament to childhood and adult personality? We believe the dynamic interaction between temperament-linked individual differences in infancy and early contextual factors leads to emergence of personality traits in childhood, as depicted in the left portion of Figure 1 . As these traits continue to actively and evocatively interact with the environment from infancy throughout childhood and adolescence, they increasingly become more context- and person-specific, resulting in the distinct personality profiles observed in adulthood ( Shiner & Caspi, 2012 ).

Mechanisms of change from temperament to personality Development

For example, “goodness of fit” refers to the extent that a child’s temperament is compatible with the context of development. This term was proposed by Chess and Thomas (1991) to describe the relational or dynamic aspect of temperament. The term “fit” implies a synchrony or transaction between temperament and context, and fit is considered “good” when the environment can meet the demands of a child’s temperament and provides opportunities for growth and sets expectations for regulation that are in accordance with that temperament. Dissonance between temperament and contextual demands would be considered a poor fit, and could potentially lead to maladaptive outcomes. The dynamic interaction between temperament and context may buffer or exacerbate the evolution of temperament traits into personality traits ( Shiner & Caspi, 2012 ).

For instance, a recent study by van der Voort and colleagues (2014) reported the longitudinal buffering effects of maternal sensitivity on children’s inhibited temperament. They followed a sample of 160 adopted infants into the adolescent years, assessing patterns of anxious and depressed behaviors. Although inhibited temperament was a strong predictor of socially reticent behaviors in middle childhood and internalizing problems in adolescence, maternal sensitivity measured at both infancy and middle childhood interacted with inhibited temperament to predict less internalizing problems in adolescence. Sensitivity may allow parents to more readily perceive fearful and vigilant cues in their inhibited infant, and provide more support in those instances in which the infant needs reassurance of safety. Conversely, if parenting behaviors do not fit the infant’s temperamental demands, inhibited and fearful tendencies could be further reinforced throughout childhood.

A good example comes from a series of studies from Kiel and Buss (2010 ; 2011 ; 2012 ; 2013) . Initially, they found that the relation between fearful temperament and protective parenting was stronger when mothers were more accurate in predicting or anticipating their children’s fearful responses ( Kiel & Buss, 2010 ). Presumably, this accurate anticipation increased the likelihood that mothers of fearful children would respond with protection in novel situations, which then perpetuated temperamental fearfulness. In a follow-up study, they maternal accuracy in anticipating fearful responses and protective parenting in toddlerhood was linked to social withdrawal at kindergarten entry ( Kiel & Buss, 2011 ). More recently, they have also shown that it is protective parenting in low-threat , but not high-threat situations that relates to fearful temperament ( Kiel & Buss, 2012 ). This pattern implies that ‘overprotective’ parenting behaviors, even if superficially ‘sensitive’, may potentiate risk from fearful temperament to later internalizing behaviors, anxiety, and high levels of Neuroticism .

In summary, we presume that temperament dimensions and the Big Five personality traits share underlying biological systems that drive their commonalities. When these basic, biological tendencies of adult personality are examined in isolation from the influence of life experience, moderate to strong links with temperament begin to emerge ( McCrae et al., 2000 ; Rothbart, 2011 ; Zentner & Bates, 2008 ). Such links suggest that temperament and personality traits may in essence be the same construct, differentiated only by the developmental point at which they are expressed ( Slobodskaya & Kozlova, 2016 ). Supporting this notion, Shiner and Caspi (2012) argue that personality traits are different from temperament dimensions in that the former include components that are only expressed when individuals develop more advanced cognitive abilities and self-awareness. They explain links between temperament and personality traits in terms of an outward expansion of children’s temperament. Specifically, as children develop and continue to be influenced by experience, life events, and social interactions, the expression of temperament expands beyond individual differences in basic reactivity and emotion, to more nuanced differences in intricate systems such as motivation, goal setting, beliefs, and views of self and others. We build on their cognitive-focused model, and argue that parenting practices form part of those experiences, life events, and social interactions that drive the expansion of temperament. Our developmental model in Figure 1 is in line with Shiner and Caspi’s (2012) view, depicting personality traits as biologically rooted in temperament, and interacting with early context and life experience to shape adult personality.

As previously stated, despite moderate links between temperament and personality traits there remains considerable unexplained variance in adult functional profiles after accounting for temperament and personality traits. At the very least we see moderate environmental influences on personality development even beyond the context of early childhood. We depict extended role of the environment in the center portion of Figure 1 , in agreement with McCrae et al.’s (2000) argument that the environment likely conditions the way in which personality evolves through adulthood.

Taking an even broader perspective, we believe the transactions between the individual and the environment depicted in our model are also dynamically embedded within the larger cultural context of family systems, socio-cultural expectations, and intergenerational processes that may exert important influence on child characteristics and contextual expectations ( Poole, Tang, & Schmidt, in press ). In essence, we suggest that context actively shapes the emergence and expression of personality through dynamic transactions between temperament and environmental factors. These transactions may happen via moderating effects of temperament, as well as bidirectional effects in which temperament elicits or evokes the environmental inputs children encounter, and consequently these environmental inputs gradually shape the expression of temperament (Oppenheimer, Hankin, Jenness, Young, & Smolen, 2013), creating a loop of experience-expectant and experience-dependent transactions. We explore this transactional relationship between child temperament and context using parenting as one example of early environmental influences on personality development.

4. The Parenting Context

Parents have direct genetic influences on children’s temperament and personality ( Scott et al., 2016 ). In addition, passive gene-environment correlations mean that parenting practices, as well as the choices parents make in shaping their child’s environment, are influenced by shared genetic characteristics. In this way, parents have both direct and indirect genetic effects on their child’s developmental outcomes. Thus, as we discuss the contextual influences of parenting on child temperament and personality, it is important to keep in mind that any behavioral influence parents have on their children is also likely to carry a genetic component.

Parents create most of the immediate setting in which infants develop, namely the home and the interpersonal environment, including the face-to-face relationships that take place there. These affordances make parents active agents in children’s social and emotional context, specifically through early parenting style and practices ( Belsky et al., 2007 ). For example, when parents respond to their infant’s cry with soothing and support, they are providing the means for infant emotion regulation. Similarly, in the presence of a stranger or novel situation, a parents’ facial cues (e.g., smile) signal to the infant whether the social context is safe or dangerous. Variations in parenting behavior directly impact the formation of the attachment relationship, and attachment relationships, in turn, influence children’s socioemotional competence and personality over time ( Lewis-Morrarty et al., 2015 ; Stevenson-Hinde, Chicot, Shouldice, & Hinde, 2013 ).

Additionally, parents also shape the infant’s social context beyond the immediate family setting, such as the peer environment. For example, before children gain autonomy, their parents choose what play activities children can engage in (e.g., story time at the library), and the playmates children can interact with. Parents continue to influence their children as they pass though important developmental transitions, such as school entrance, puberty and adolescence. These are periods when children undergo identity exploration and active reorganization of their social world (e.g., romantic relationships), which have relevant theoretical implications for the development of personality ( Reitz, Zimmermann, Hutteman, Specht, & Neyer, 2014 ; Syed, & Seiffge-Krenke, 2013 ).

4.1. Theoretical models of parenting influence

Theorists have proposed several mechanisms through which parenting can shape child outcomes, specifically the development of personality. Bowlby was one of the first to discuss the development of “internal working models” based on the parent-child attachment relationship ( Bowlby, 1980 ). The central tenet of working models is that children internalize representations about “the self” from the dynamic and transactional interactions between them and their caregiver ( Bretherton, 1990 ). Furthermore, children adopt working models of behavior based on the quality of these interactions that they then carry onto other contexts (e.g., school). In essence, parenting quality can influence children’s concept of who they are and how others view them. Additionally, parenting quality can also influence children’s manifestation of personality traits. For example, children who experience harsh punishment and controlling parenting may perceive themselves as unworthy or unlovable, and model intrusive and controlling behaviors that could then lead to low agreeableness or high neuroticism.

Environmental elicitation is a second mechanism theorized to explain relations between the parenting context and personality development. Here, a child’s individual characteristics can elicit specific parenting behaviors ( Shiner & Caspi, 2003 ). For example, a “difficult temperament”, which is a term used to describe infants who are easily irritable, cry often, and are hard to sooth, may elicit frustration in the parent and lead to harsh, controlling parenting or even rejection. The environmental elicitation model can be traced back to an organismic view of development, where changes arise from within the organism (e.g., the child) as the organism actively acts on the world and evokes responses from the environment ( Overton, 2015 ).

A caveat to the environmental elicitation model is that research now suggests a more dynamic approach may be at play, where the elicited environmental responses may be as dependent on environmental characteristics as they are on child characteristics ( Lerner, Rothbaum, Boulos, & Castellino, 2002 ). This is reflected in the bidirectional effects between child and context in Figure 1 . Children’s individual characteristics in tandem with parental individual characteristics can influence the type and quality of parenting response. For example, some studies suggest that parents with higher education levels are more likely to show warmth and support in response to a difficult child, whereas parents with low educational attainment are more likely to respond with harsh control and reciprocal negative affect ( Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, & Peetsma, 2007 ). This approach to environment elicitation can be traced back to Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological framework of development, in which developmental change is theorized to occur through dynamic transactions between organism and immediate environment, and where the individual characteristics of the organism and the characteristics of the environment are equally important in these interactions (for an overview, see Rosa & Tudge, 2013 ).

The working model of behavior and the environmental elicitation model are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and there is empirical evidence suggesting that they may in fact work simultaneously within the framework of parenting and personality development. For example, Van den Akker and colleagues (2014) examined personality development from age 6 to age 20 along with maternal over-reactivity and warmth. The sample included 596 children and their mothers, who reported on their children’s personality traits at five different time points throughout the study, as well as their parenting practices. Van Den Akker and colleagues found that high maternal over-reactivity predicted decreases in Conscientiousness at later time points, and high maternal warmth predicted decreases in emotional stability, which would be reflected in high Neuroticism . This finding echoes the earlier work of Buss and Keil (2011 ; 2012) .

Additionally, the authors also reported that increases in benevolence, which is a characteristic of Agreeableness , predicted later increases in maternal warmth and decreases in over-reactivity. Similarly, high Extraversion in childhood predicted increases in maternal over-reactivity and warmth. Although these results merit replication and further investigation of why specific traits are more reinforced or discouraged by different parenting practices, they nonetheless provide valuable evidence for bidirectional effects between temperament and early context. Additionally, they provide convincing evidence that environmental elicitation and working models of behavior are two mechanisms simultaneously at play, producing dynamic transactions between personality traits and parenting.

4.2. Parenting practices and personality development

The literature has largely focused on specific types of parenting behaviors associated with positive or negative child socioemotional outcomes. Although the aim of this paper is to review the parenting context in interaction with intrinsic child factors, it is worth summarizing briefly the findings that initially emerged when examining the main and direct effects of parenting on child outcomes. Two major dimensions have been used to describe parenting quality: parental warmth or sensitivity and parental control. Parental warmth is a global construct that usually reflects positive parenting behaviors. These behaviors may include measures of sensitivity, support, positive affect, and responsiveness among others ( Behrens, Parker, & Kulkofsky, 2014 ). Warm and responsive parenting has been consistently associated with higher levels of social and emotional competence. For example, Raby, Roisman, Fraley, and Simpson (2015) reported on the socioemotional development of 243 individuals followed from infancy to adulthood. Behavioral expressions of maternal sensitivity were also measured at different time points throughout infancy, as early as three months of age. They found that early maternal sensitivity significantly predicted social competence across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Furthermore, these effects remained significant after accounting for potential child-context developmental transactions, such as children independently choosing more aspects of their environment as they grow in autonomy. These results not only highlight the important role of parenting on child outcomes but also the general, enduring impact of early context on children’s social development.

Positive parenting practices have also been associated with more specific aspects of social development, such as prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior encompasses tendencies for sharing, helping, and cooperating for the purpose of benefiting someone other than the self ( Eisenberg, Eggum-Wilkens, & Spinrad, 2015 ), and has been implicated in adolescent and adult Agreeableness ( Habashi, Graziano, & Hoover, 2016 ; Luengo et al., 2014 ). Daniel, Madigan, and Jenkins (2016) assessed parenting warmth in both mothers and fathers in relation to toddlers’ prosocial behavior in a sample of 239 families. They found that both maternal and paternal warmth at 18 months predicted increases in prosocial behavior at 36 and 54 months, which is in line with the enduring effects of sensitivity reported by Raby et al. (2015) . Beyond predicting changes in prosocial behavior, Domitrovich and Bierman (2001) reported that supportive parenting also predicted social competence through associations with low levels of child aggression, and buffered children from the negative effects of peer dislike. Although partially limited by the cross-sectional design, these results and findings previously discussed suggest that warm supportive parenting has lasting positive effects on children’s later ability to navigate their social world. These effects, in turn, impact the form and expression of adult personality.

Multiple forms of parental control have been studied, including measures of parental harsh intrusiveness, dominance, and pressure, in contrast to gentle guidance and scaffolding behaviors that encourage child autonomy ( Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009 ). Harsh control and intrusive parenting predict poor socioemotional competence ( Parker & Benson, 2004 ; van Aken, Junger, Verhoeven, & Dekovic, 2007 ). In a longitudinal study, Taylor, Eisenberg, Spinrad, and Widaman (2013) assessed children’s effortful control and intrusive parenting at 18, 30, and 42 months. Intrusive parenting was behaviorally coded from a series of mother-child interactions, including a teaching task, a free-play task, and a clean-up task. Taylor and colleagues found that parents’ intrusiveness was negatively related to later assessments of child effortful control, which encompasses regulatory skills such as attention shifting and emotion regulation that are relevant for social interactions. Furthermore, effortful control mediated the association between intrusive parenting and poor ego resiliency, which is a personality characteristic that reflects adaptability and flexibility to changes in the environment, and it is associated with social competence ( Hofer, Eisenberg, & Reiser, 2010 ).

Further highlighting the negative effects of harsh control, Wiggins and colleagues (2015) reported on the developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in relation to harsh parenting from a large sample of children assessed at ages 3, 5, and 9 years. They found that a trajectory of increasing harsh parenting uniquely predicted a severe trajectory of externalizing symptoms, and was negatively associated with internalizing symptoms. These results suggest that harsh, controlling parenting may lead children to model these behaviors with their peers, causing social conflict and rejection, which may further reinforce the negative behaviors.

Despite significant contributions made in establishing direct links between parenting quality and child outcomes, a great deal of evidence suggests that parenting dimensions do not affect children in the same way ( Slagt et al., 2016 ). In some cases, parenting may only relate to social development through variables that moderate or mediate its effects, such as gender, genetic variability, or personality ( Lianos, 2015 ; Rabinowitz & Drabick, 2017 ).

In fact, Lianos (2015) assessed preadolescents’ personality traits in relation to the parenting style they received, and found that the association between parenting quality and social competence varied by children’s personality. Specifically, high parental rejection was significantly associated with lower social competence only for preadolescents low in Neuroticism , whereas individuals high in Neuroticism were as socially competent as children who did not experience parental rejection. Similarly, high parental overprotection seemed more detrimental for preadolescents low in Agreeableness and Extraversion , as they were significantly less socially competent than children who scored high on these traits, or children who did not experience overprotective parenting. These transactions between emerging personality traits and environmental factors are theoretically depicted in our developmental model ( Figure 1 ), and may also represent an enduring pattern of transactions carried over from infancy. Lianos’ findings also highlight the importance of examining the role of parenting context as a moderator of developmental links between children’s individual characteristics and later outcomes, including the final piece in our model: Personality Profiles . We next review the intersection of individual differences and parenting context in predicting personality development, describing the theoretical models employed so far, synthesizing the current findings, and suggesting areas that warrant further research.

4.3. Temperament reactivity and parenting

Positive reactivity, which is typically reflected by extreme high approach and excitement in the face of novelty, has been largely understudied in relation to parenting behaviors. There is some cross-sectional evidence to suggest that positive reactivity is associated with parental warmth ( Latzman, Elkovitch, & Clark, 2009 ), but such associations cannot clearly distinguish bidirectional effects and could be explained by gene-environment correlations or heritability of parents’ temperament. Longitudinal studies could elucidate the direction of these associations. However, few studies have reported longitudinal assessments between positive reactivity and parenting, especially in infancy.

Lengua and Kovacs (2005) assessed temperament and parenting using both children’s and parents’ report of these variables at two time points. They found that initial positive reactivity predicted higher levels of maternal acceptance, which supports the elicitation model. The authors suggested that the positive characteristics of these children, such as laughter and approach, may be perceived by parents as rewarding and elicit acceptance and warmth. Interestingly, the authors did not find support for the working model of behavior, as initial parental acceptance did not predict changes in positive reactivity.

Even fewer studies have considered the parenting context as a moderator of links between positive reactivity and later socioemotional adjustment, including personality development. Positive reactivity may have a protective effect against negative parenting behaviors, such as maternal rejection, physical punishment, and harsh control ( Lengua, Wolshick, Sandler, & West 2000 ; Lahey et al., 2008 ). For instance, children who are high in approach and positive emotionality may elicit more engagement and positive reactions from adults. In the face of negative parenting, children’s positive reactivity may facilitate deep and positive connections with other adults, who may then serve as an attachment figure that provides some emotional and social guidance for the child ( Werner, 1993 ). This particular area of study could benefit from longitudinal studies assessing positive reactivity and parenting over longer periods, and perhaps earlier in development. Multiple time point data could more directly examine the working model of behavior and the environmental elicitation model simultaneously, assessing whether changes in positive reactivity are only evident after longer time intervals. Additionally, the lack of parenting effects on positive reactivity may be the result of exploring this association later in childhood, as evident bidirectional effects may be more pronounced earlier in development when parents have greater control over the child’s daily experiences.

Negative reactivity has received far more attention than positive reactivity in this literature, perhaps because of its intuitive links to maladaptive outcomes. As previously explained, the global dimension of “difficult temperament” includes characteristics of irritability, high fear, and soothing difficulty, and it has been associated with lower maternal support and responsiveness, and higher parental disapproval and hostility ( Boivin et al., 2005 ; Gauvain, 1995 ). However, a meta-analysis of this relation ( Paulussen-Hoogeboom et al., 2007 ) suggests that results are mixed, and in some cases, may depend on other child characteristics (e.g., gender), and demographic variables (e.g., mother education).

In the case of fearfulness, some findings indicate a positive association with parental warmth and acceptance ( Lengua & Kovacs, 2005 ), whereas others have found longitudinal links to less negative parenting. Lengua (2006) assessed children’s temperamental fear and irritability as well as maternal rejection and discipline practices at three different time points over the course of three years. The sample included 190 children between the ages of 8 and 12, and their mothers. Latent growth modeling revealed that although initial levels of fear were concurrently related to higher levels of maternal rejection and inconsistent discipline, they predicted decreases in these negative parenting dimensions at later time points. Interestingly, initial irritability was also concurrently associated with higher maternal rejection, but it did not uniquely predict changes in rejection. In fact, irritability was associated with higher inconsistent discipline and it also predicted later increases in this dimension.

This interesting pattern of results point to the differential effects of specific temperamental characteristics on parenting, and to the potential for change in temperament given elicited changes in parenting toward higher warmth and less over-reactive control. For example, an infant who is extremely fearful to novelty and high in negative affect may be at risk for early internalizing problems given temperamental stability. However, if such fearful temperament elicits higher maternal warmth and support, coupled with more scaffolding and gentle control, changes in parenting could elicit decreases in fearfulness and negative emotionality, and might decrease the risk of developing adult personality traits of high Neuroticism and low Agreeableness . This is the central developmental pattern we depict in the first and second stages of Figure 1 , with bidirectional effects between child intrinsic characteristics and contextual factors.

This transaction pattern is in line with Differential Susceptibility Theory (DST; Ellis, Boyce, Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2011 ). DST postulates that some individual characteristics of an organism (e.g., temperament) may render it more sensitive to contextual influences (e.g., parenting) such that when faced with a negative context, the organism will show a worse outcome. However when embedded in a positive environment, the organism will benefit the most and perform the best. Children who possessed characteristics that increase sensitivity to context then develop “for better or for worse”, because they either thrive in privileged environments or struggle in adverse circumstances. Our theoretical model can encompass DST because we purposefully leave strength and valence of effects unspecified, acknowledging that the strength and direction of contextual influence may be conditioned by child characteristics. The extant literature supports a pattern in which children high in negative reactivity show high socioemotional competence in the context of maternal warmth and autonomy-supporting parenting ( Bradley & Corwyn, 2008 ). However, the other side of the coin has also been reported. Children high in negative reactivity whose parents report harsh control and low warmth show further continuity of negative reactivity and behavioral problems (Engle & McElwain, 2011; Feng, Shaw, & Moilanen, 2011 ), lower social adjustment ( Stright, Gallagher, & Kelley, 2008 ), and higher neurophysiological risk for anxiety ( Brooker & Buss, 2014 ). These overall patterns suggest that children high in reactivity may present with typically positive personality traits, such as Agreeableness or Conscientiousness , or more negative traits, such as Neuroticism , based on their developmental context. However, as noted above, there are limits to both sensitivity and the power of the environment. As such, it is very unlikely that a child sensitive to the environment due to negative reactivity will, even under the best of circumstances, show high levels of Extraversion .

4.4. Temperament regulation and parenting

Studies of temperament regulation usually include behavioral measures of effortful control, which is manifested on attention sustaining, perseverance, and low frustration in the face of difficulty ( Rueda, 2012 ). A large number of studies suggest that maternal warmth and supportive parenting are associated with higher levels of effortful control (for a meta-analysis, see Karreman, Van Tuijl, van Aken, & Deković, 2006 ). A study by Chang and colleagues (2015) investigated relations between effortful control and proactive parenting from age two to five. Initial levels of proactive parenting, characterized by practices of scaffolding and structured play, predicted increases in effortful control at age five. This result remained significant even after accounting for language skills, which is a significant predictor of effortful control.

There is also some empirical support for the eliciting effects of effortful control on parenting. Higher levels of self-regulation have been associated with more maternal support and less rejection ( Kennedy, Rubin, Hastings, & Maisel, 2004 ; Lengua, 2006 ). However, the studies are scarce and some of the results have been moderated by child’s gender or have systematically varied by parent (e.g., father vs. mother; Lifford, Harold, & Thapar, 2009 ). Future studies should further examine the circumstances in which effortful control predicts changes in parenting, especially because a more recent study did not find support for such elicitation effects ( Taylor et al., 2013 ). Overall, both elicitation and shaping effects between parenting and temperament regulation are important to personality development, because early effortful control has been associated with later personality traits of high Conscientiousness and Agreeableness ( Rueda, 2012 ).

Besides exploring bidirectional effects, the literature has narrowed in on the interaction between self-regulation and parenting to predict child outcomes. A consistent pattern of results has emerged in the past 15 years: parenting practices appear especially important for the socioemotional development of children with low effortful control (for a meta-analysis, see Slagt et al., 2016 ). Other studies have replicated this pattern and provided support for unique environmental effects of the parenting context. For instance, Reuben et al. (2004) examined parenting, effortful control, and externalizing behaviors using a longitudinal adoption design in 225 families, including adoptive and birth parents. Adoptive maternal warmth predicted decreases in externalizing behaviors only for children with low effortful control. This study in particular highlights the importance of the parenting context and points to its contextual influence on children’s development independent from any shared genetic variance.

5. Conclusions

Personality has for decades been theorized to originate from temperament. However, we rarely see direct links between temperament and personality, suggesting that biologically determined profiles of temperament are not the only forces at work in shaping developmental trajectories. Instead, the current body of evidence suggests that adult personality develops along pathways influenced by environmental factors, such as the parenting context, that shape the continuity and manifestation of early-appearing biological differences.

Infant temperament probably begins to interact with parenting practices early in development, and these transactions can reinforce or discourage continuity of temperament and personality development. Infants’ behavioral and emotional reactivity elicits an array of parenting responses in order to meet the infant’s needs. Additionally, more recent findings also suggest that the elicited parenting behaviors and practices are dependent on the parent’s individual characteristics, and they can in turn shape the child’s temperamental characteristics. Empirical evidence that parenting can explain changes in temperament and that temperament can elicit changes in parenting is compatible with the “goodness of fit” transactional model proposed by Thomas and Chess (1991) . This model can also account for the moderating effects of infants’ temperament on the association between parenting behaviors and child outcomes. Both the theoretical model and the extant evidence highlight that a match between parenting and temperament, rather than a universal construct of “good parenting”, seems to be relevant in predicting personality development.

A growing literature suggests that parenting interacts with temperament to affect socioemotional development, especially pointing to the possibility that some temperament dimensions may be more vulnerable than others to the detrimental effects of a negative parenting context ( Slagt et al., 2016 ). Although the patterns are not always consistent across developmental periods, specific temperament dimensions, or parenting practices ( Rabinowitz & Drabick, 2017 ), the evidence is nonetheless indisputable that context, in the form of parenting, can moderate the relationship between temperament-linked individual differences and child outcomes. Additionally, the extant findings suggest that the intersection of temperament and parenting should be investigated as a dynamic, transactional relation. If it is to be fully understood, investigators should employ more longitudinal studies where both child temperament and parenting behaviors are observed at multiple time points, and their transactions considered to predict personality development ( Slagt et al., 2016 ). Finally, the complexity of temperament-parenting transactions also implies the possibility of simultaneous child and parent individual characteristics playing a functional role in the personality traits that children later express. Bronfenbrenner emphasized the importance of such simultaneously occurring characteristics:

Proximal processes that affect development vary systematically as a joint function of the characteristics of the developing person and the environment (both immediate and more remote) in which the processes are taking place ( Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993 , p. 317).

To the extent that we consider personality to be a developmental process, Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory informs our current understanding of how personality develops in context. By his account, individual characteristics of the child and the context will inevitably affect the nature of their transaction, and therefore should be carefully considered in our designs. For example, child gender has occasionally been found to moderate the influence of effortful control on later parenting practices ( Lifford, Harold, & Thapar, 2008 ). This moderation calls for a comprehensive, holistic account of the child in our designs and measurement models, rather than including isolated individual characteristics that may only represent one portion of the child’s experienced “truth”. Similarly, caregiver role, parent psychopathology, education level, and household size are all characteristics of the parenting context that could influence “proximal processes” or parent-child transactions, and thus should be reflected in our studies. In conclusion, when examining personality development, transactions between child and parent over time are crucial, and these complex, dynamic relations can only inform the trajectory to adult personality when multiple individual characteristics of both entities (i.e., organism and context) are carefully considered.

Supplementary Material

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

• Barenbaum NB, Winter DG. History of modern personality theory and research. In: John OP, Robin RW, Pervin LA, editors. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. 3. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2008. pp. 3–28. [ Google Scholar ]
• Behrens KY, Parker AC, Kulkofsky S. Stability of maternal sensitivity across time and contexts with Q-Sort Measures. Infant and Child Development. 2014; 23 :532–541. doi: 10.1002/icd.1835. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Belsky J, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, van IJzendoorn MH. For better and for worse: Differential susceptibility to environmental influences. Current directions in Psychological Science. 2007; 16 :300–304. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00525.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Boivin M, Perusse D, Dionne G, Saysset V, Zoccolillo M, Tarabulsy GM, Tremblay RE. The genetic-environmental etiology of parents' perceptions and self-assessed behaviours toward their 5-month-old infants in a large twin and singleton sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2005; 46 :612–630. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00375.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bowlby J. Attachment and Loss: Volume3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NewYork: Basic Books; 1980. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bradley RH, Corwyn RF. Infant temperament, parenting, and externalizing behavior in first grade: a test of the differential susceptibility hypothesis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2008; 49 :124–131. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01829.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bretherton I. Communication patterns, internal working models, and the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships. Infant Mental Health Journal. 1990; 11 :237–252. doi: 10.1002/1097-0355(199023)11. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bronfenbrenner U, Ceci SJ. Heredity, environment, and the question “how?” A first approximation. In: Plomin R, McClern GG, editors. Nature, Nurture, and Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 1993. pp. 313–323. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brooker RJ, Buss KA. Harsh parenting and fearfulness in toddlerhood interact to predict amplitudes of preschool error-related negativity. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 2014; 9 :148–159. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2014.03.001. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Caspi A, Shiner RL. Personality development. In: Damon W, Lerner R, Eisenberg N, editors. Handbook of Child Psychology. 6. New York, NY: Wiley; 2006. pp. 300–365. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chang H, Shaw DS, Dishion TJ, Gardner F, Wilson MN. Proactive parenting and children’s effortful control: Mediating role of language and indirect intervention effects. Social Development. 2015; 24 :206–223. doi: 10.1111/sode.12069. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chess S, Thomas A. Temperament and the concept of goodness of fit. In: Strelau J, Angleitner A, editors. Explorations in Temperament: Perspectives on Individual Differences. Boston, MA: Springer; 1991. pp. 15–28. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chronis-Tuscano A, Degnan KA, Pine DS, Pérez-Edgar K, Henderson HA, Diaz Y, Fox NA. Stable early maternal report of behavioral inhibition predicts lifetime social anxiety disorder in adolescence. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2009; 48 :928–935. doi: 10.1097/CHI.0b013e3181ae09df. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Daniel E, Madigan S, Jenkins J. Paternal and maternal warmth and the development of prosociality among preschoolers. Journal of Family Psychology. 2016; 30 :114–124. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• De Pauw SS, Mervielde I, Van Leeuwen KG. How are traits related to problem behavior in preschoolers? Similarities and contrasts between temperament and personality. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2009; 37 :309–325. doi: 10.1007/s10802-008-9290-0. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Domitrovich CE, Bierman KL. Parenting practices and child social adjustment: Multiple pathways of influence. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. 2001; 47 :235–263. doi: 10.1353/mpq.2001.0010. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Edwards A, Eisenberg N, Spinrad TL, Reiser M, Eggum-Wilkens ND, Liew J. Predicting sympathy and prosocial behavior from young children’s dispositional sadness. Social Development. 2015; 24 :76–94. doi: 10.1111/sode.12084. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Eisenberg N, Eggum-Wilkens ND, Spinrad TL. The development of prosocial behavior. In: Schroeder DA, Graziano WG, editors. The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial behavior. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2015. pp. 114–136. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ellis BJ, Boyce WT, Belsky J, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, van Ijzendoorn MH. Differential susceptibility to the environment: An evolutionary- neurodevelopmental theory. Development and Psychopathology. 2011; 23 :7–28. doi: 10.1017/S0954579410000611. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Feng X, Shaw DS, Moilanen KL. Parental negative control moderates the shyness-emotion regulation pathway to school-age internalizing symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2011; 39 :425–436. doi: 10.1007/s10802-010-9469-z. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fox NA, Henderson HA, Pérez-Edgar K, White L. The biology of temperament: An integrative approach. In: Nelson CA, Luciana M, editors. The Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2008. pp. 839–854. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fox NA, Henderson HA, Rubin KH, Calkins SD, Schmidt LA. Continuity and discontinuity of behavioral inhibition and exuberance: Psychophysiological and behavioral influences across the first four years of life. Child Development. 2001; 72 :1–21. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00262. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gauvain M. Child temperament as a mediator of mother-toddler problem solving. Social Development. 1995; 4 :257–276. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.1995.tb00065.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Greenberg MT, Cicchetti D, Cummings EM. Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; 1993. [ Google Scholar ]
• Grolnick WS, Pomerantz EM. Issues and challenges in studying parental control: Toward a new conceptualization. Child Development Perspectives. 2009; 3 :165–170. doi: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2009.00099.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Habashi MM, Graziano WG, Hoover AE. Searching for the prosocial personality: A big five approach to linking personality and prosocial behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2016; 42 :1177–1192. doi: 10.1177/0146167216652859. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Halverson CF, Deal JE. Temperamental change, parenting, and the family context. In: Wachs TD, Kohnstamm GA, editors. Temperament in Context. Mahwah, NI: Erlbaum; 2001. pp. 61–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Halverson CF, Havill VL, Deal J, Baker SR, Victor JB, Pavlopoulos V, Wen L. Personality structure as derived from parental ratings of free descriptions of children: The Inventory of Child Individual Differences. Journal of Personality. 2003; 71 :995–1026. doi: 10.1111/1467-6494.7106005. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Henderson HA, Wilson MJ. Attention Processes Underlying Risk and Resilience in Behaviorally Inhibited Children. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports. 2017; 4 :99–106. doi: 10.1007/s40473-017-0111-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hofer C, Eisenberg N, Reiser M. The role of socialization, effortful control, and ego resiliency in french adolescents’ social functioning. Journal of Research on Adolescence. 2010; 20 :555–582. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00650.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Huizink A. Prenatal influences on temperament. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 297–314. [ Google Scholar ]
• John OP, Naumann LP, Soto CJ. The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In: John OP, Robin RW, Pervin LA, editors. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. 3. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2008. pp. 114–158. [ Google Scholar ]
• Miller JD, Lynam DR, Jones S. Externalizing behavior through the lens of the five-factor model: A focus on agreeableness and conscientiousness. Journal of Personality Assessment. 2008; 90 :158–164. doi: 10.1080/002238907018452. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kagan J. The biography of behavioral inhibition. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 69–82. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kagan J, Reznick JS, Snidman N. The physiology and psychology of behavioral inhibition in children. Child Development. 1987; 58 :1459–1473. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kagan J, Snidman N. The Long Shadow of Temperament. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2004. [ Google Scholar ]
• Karreman A, van Tuijl C, van Aken MAG, Deković M. Parenting and self-regulation in preschoolers: A meta-analysis. Infant and Child Development. 2006; 15 :561–579. doi: 10.1002/icd.478. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kennedy AE, Rubin KHD, Hastings P, Maisel B. Longitudinal relations between child vagal tone and parenting behavior: 2 to 4 years. Developmental Psychobiology. 2004; 45 :10–21. doi: 10.1002/dev.20013. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kiel EJ, Buss KA. Maternal accuracy and behavior in anticipating children's responses to novelty: Relations to fearful temperament and implications for anxiety development. Social Development. 2010; 19 :304–325. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2009.00538.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kiel EJ, Buss KA. Prospective relations among fearful temperament, protective parenting, and social withdrawal: The role of maternal accuracy in a moderated mediation framework. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2011; 39 :953–966. doi: 10.1007/s10802-011-9516-4. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kiel EJ, Buss KA. Associations among context-specific maternal protective behavior, toddlers' fearful temperament, and maternal accuracy and goals. Social Development. 2012; 21 :742–760. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00645.x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kiel EJ, Buss KA. Toddler inhibited temperament, maternal cortisol reactivity and embarrassment, and intrusive parenting. Journal of Family Psychology. 2013; 27 :512–517. doi: 10.1037/a0032892. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lahey BB, Hulle CAV, Keenan K, Rathouz PJ, D’Onofrio BM, Rodgers JL, Waldman ID. Temperament and parenting during the first year of life predict future child conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2008; 36 :1139–1158. doi: 10.1007/s10802-008-9247-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Latzman RD, Elkovitch N, Clark LA. Predicting parenting practices from maternal and adolescent sons’ personality. Journal of Research in Personality. 2009; 43 :847–855. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.05.004. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lengua LJ. Growth in temperament and parenting as predictors of adjustment during children’s transition to adolescence. Developmental Psychology. 2006; 42 :819–832. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.819. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lengua LJ, Kovacs EA. Bidirectional associations between temperament and parenting and the prediction of adjustment problems in middle childhood. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 2005a; 26 :21–38. doi: 10.1016/j.appdev.2004.10.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lengua LJ, Wolchik SA, Sandler IN, West SG. The additive and interactive effects of parenting and temperament in predicting adjustment problems of children of divorce. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology. 2000; 29 :232–244. doi: 10.1207/S15374424jccp2902_9. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lerner RM, Rothbaum F, Boulos S, Castellino DR. Developmental systems perspective on parenting. In: Bornstein MH, editor. Handbook of Parenting. Vol. 2. Mawah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2002. pp. 315–344. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lewis-Morrarty E, Degnan KA, Chronis-Tuscano A, Pine DS, Henderson HA, Fox NA. Infant attachment security and early childhood behavioral inhibition interact to predict adolescent social anxiety symptoms. Child Development. 2015; 86 :598–613. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12336. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lianos PG. Parenting and social competence in school: The role of preadolescents’ personality traits. Journal of Adolescence. 2015; 41 :109–120. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.03.006. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lifford KJ, Harold GT, Thapar A. Parent-child relationships and ADHD symptoms: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2008; 36 :285–296. doi: 10.1007/s10802-007-9177-5. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lifford KJ, Harold GT, Thapar A. Parent-child hostility and child ADHD symptoms: a genetically sensitive and longitudinal analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2009; 50 :1468–1476. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02107.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Luengo Kanacri BP, Pastorelli C, Eisenberg N, Zuffianò A, Castellani V, Caprara GV. Trajectories of prosocial behavior from adolescence to early adulthood: Associations with personality change. Journal of Adolescence. 2014; 37 :701–713. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.03.013. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McCrae RR, Costa PT. The Five-Factor Theory of personality. In: John OP, Robin RW, Pervin LA, editors. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. 3. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2008. pp. 159–181. [ Google Scholar ]
• McCrae RR, Costa PT, Jr, Ostendorf F, Angleitner A, Hřebíčková M, Avia MD, Saunders PR. Nature over nurture: Temperament, personality, and life span development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2000; 78 :173. 1O.1037//O022-3514.7S.1.173. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McDermott JM, Pérez-Edgar K, Henderson HA, Chronis-Tuscano A, Pine DS, Fox NA. A history of childhood behavioral inhibition and enhanced response monitoring in adolescence are linked to clinical anxiety. Biological Psychiatry. 2009; 65 :445–448. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.10.043. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miller JD, Lynam DR, Jones S. Externalizing behavior through the lens of the five-factor model: A focus on agreeableness and conscientiousness. Journal of Personality Assessment. 2008; 90 :158–164. doi: 10.1080/00223890701845245. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miskovic V, Schmidt LA. Frontal brain electrical asymmetry and cardiac vagal tone predict biased attention to social threat. International Journal of Psychophysiology. 2010; 75 :332–338. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Morales S, Pérez-Edgar K, Buss K. Longitudinal relations among exuberance, externalizing behaviors, and attentional bias to reward: the mediating role of effortful control. Developmental Science. 2016; 19 :853–862. doi: 10.1111/desc.12320. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Muris P, Meesters C, Blijlevens P. Self-reported reactive and regulative temperament in early adolescence: Relations to internalizing and externalizing problem behavior and “Big Three” personality factors. Journal of Adolescence. 2007; 30 :1035–1049. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.03.003. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Olino TM, Klein DN, Durbin CE, Hayden EP, Buckley ME. The structure of extraversion in preschool aged children. Personality and Individual Differences. 2005; 39 :481–492. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2005.02.003. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Overton WF. Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2015. Processes, Relations, and Relational-Developmental-Systems. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Parker JS, Benson MJ. Parent-adolescent relations and adolescent functioning: Self-esteem, substance abuse, and delinquency. Adolescence. 2004; 39 (155):519–30. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Paulussen-Hoogeboom MC, Stams GJJM, Hermanns JMA, Peetsma TTD. Child negative emotionality and parenting from infancy to preschool: A meta-analytic review. Developmental Psychology. 2007; 43 (2):438. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.438. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pérez-Edgar K, Hastings PD. Emotion development from an experimental and individual differences lens. In: Wixted JT, editor. The Stevens’ Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Fourth. Vol. 4. New York: Wiley; 2018. pp. 289–321. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pérez-Edgar K, Schmidt LA, Henderson HA, Schulkin J, Fox NA. Salivary cortisol levels and infant temperament shape developmental trajectories in boys at risk for behavioral maladjustment. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2008; 33 :916–925. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Poole KL, Tang A, Schmidt LA. The temperamentally shy child as the social adult: An exemplar of multifinality. In: Pérez-Edgar K, Fox NA, editors. Behavioral Inhibition: Integrating Theory, Research, and Clinical Perspectives. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; (in press) [ Google Scholar ]
• Rabinowitz JA, Drabick DAG. Do children fare for better and for worse? Associations among child features and parenting with child competence and symptoms. Developmental Review. 2017; 45 :1–30. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2017.03.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Raby KL, Roisman GI, Fraley RC, Simpson JA. The enduring predictive significance of early maternal sensitivity: Social and academic competence through age 32 years. Child Development. 2015; 86 :695–708. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12325. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reitz AK, Zimmermann J, Hutteman R, Specht J, Neyer FJ. How peers make a difference: The role of peer groups and peer relationships in personality development. European Journal of Personality. 2014; 28 :279–288. doi: 10.1002/per.1965. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reuben JD, Shaw DS, Neiderhiser JM, Natsuaki MN, Reiss D, Leve LD. Warm parenting and effortful control in toddlerhood: independent and interactive predictors of school-age externalizing behavior. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2016; 44 :1083–1096. doi: 10.1007/s10802-015-0096-6. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosa EM, Tudge J. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Theory of Human Development: Its evolution from ecology to bioecology. Journal of Family Theory & Review. 2013; 5 :243–258. doi: 10.1111/jftr.12022. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Roth TL. Epigenetics of neurobiology and behavior during development and adulthood. Developmental Psychobiology. 2012; 54 :590–597. doi: 10.1002/dev.20550. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rothbart MK. Becoming Who We Are: Temperament and Personality in Development. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rothbart MK, Bates JE. Advances in temperament: History, concepts, and measures. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 3–20. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rothbart MK, Derryberry D. Development of individual differences in temperament. In: Lamb ME, Brown AL, editors. Advances in Developmental Psychology. Vol. 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1981. pp. 37–86. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rothbart MK, Ellis LK, Rosario Rueda M, Posner MI. Developing mechanisms of temperamental effortful control. Journal of Personality. 2003; 71 :1113–1144. doi: 10.1111/1467-6494.7106009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rothbart MK, Posner MI, Kieras J. Temperament, attention, and the development of self-regulation. In: McCartney K, Phillips D, editors. Blackwell Handbook of Early Childhood Development. Malden, MA: Blackwell; 2006. pp. 338–357. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rueda MR. Effortful control. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 145–167. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rueda MR, Posner MI, Rothbart MK. The development of executive attention: Contributions to the emergence of self-regulation. Developmental Neuropsychology. 2005; 28 :573–594. doi: 10.1207/s15326942dn2802. 2. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schwartz CE, Kunwar PS, Greve DN, Kagan J, Snidman NC, Bloch RB. A phenotype of early infancy predicts reactivity of the amygdala in male adults. Molecular Psychiatry. 2012; 17 :1042–1050. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Scott BG, Lemery-Chalfant K, Clifford S, Tein J-Y, Stoll R, Goldsmith HH. A twin factor mixture modeling approach to childhood temperament: Differential heritability. Child Development. 2016; 87 :1940–1955. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12561. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shiner R, Caspi A. Personality differences in childhood and adolescence: measurement, development, and consequences. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2003; 44 :2–32. doi: 10.1111/1469-7610.00101. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shiner RL, Caspi A. Temperament and the development of personality traits, adaptations, and narratives. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 3–20. [ Google Scholar ]
• Slagt M, Dubas J, Deković M, Aken M. Differences in sensitivity to parenting depending on child temperament: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 2016; 142 :1068–1110. doi: 10.1037/bul0000061. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Slobodskaya HR, Kozlova EA. Early temperament as a predictor of later personality. Personality and Individual Differences. 2016; 99 :127–132. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.094. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Souza GGL, Mendonça-de-Souza ACF, Barros EM, Coutinho EFS, Oliveira L, Mendlowicz MV, Volchan E. Resilience and vagal tone predict cardiac recovery from acute social stress. Stress. 2007; 10 :368–374. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stevenson-Hinde J, Chicot R, Shouldice A, Hinde CA. Maternal anxiety, maternal sensitivity, and attachment. Attachment & Human Development. 2013; 15 :618–636. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2013.830387. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stright AD, Gallagher KC, Kelley K. Infant temperament moderates relations between maternal parenting in early childhood and children’s adjustment in first grade. Child development. 2008; 79 :186–200. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01119.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Syed M, Seiffge-Krenke I. Personality development from adolescence to emerging adulthood: linking trajectories of ego development to the family context and identity formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2013; 104 :371–384. doi: 10.1037/a0030070. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Taylor ZE, Eisenberg N, Spinrad TL, Widaman KF. Longitudinal relations of intrusive parenting and effortful control to ego-resiliency during early childhood. Child Development. 2013; 84 :1145–1151. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12054. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van Aken C, Junger M, Verhoeven M, van Aken MAG, Deković M. The interactive effects of temperament and maternal parenting on toddlers’ externalizing behaviours. Infant and Child Development. 2007; 16 :553–572. doi: 10.1002/icd.529. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van den Akker AL, Deković M, Asscher J, Prinzie P. Mean-level personality development across childhood and adolescence: A temporary defiance of the maturity principle and bidirectional associations with parenting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2014; 107 :736–750. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van der Voort A, Linting M, Juffer F, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ, Schoenmaker C, van IJzendoorn MH. The development of adolescents’ internalizing behavior: Longitudinal effects of maternal sensitivity and child inhibition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 2014; 43 :528–540. doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-9976-7. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• van Ijzendoorn MH, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ. Intergrating temperament and attachment: The differential susceptibility paradigm. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 403–424. [ Google Scholar ]
• Werner EE. Risk, resilience, and recovery: Perspectives from the Kauai longitudinal study. Development and Psychopathology. 1993; 5 :503–515. doi: 10.1017/S095457940000612X. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• White LK, Lamm C, Helfinstein SM, Fox NA. Neurobiology and neurochemistry of temperament in children. In: Zentner M, Shiner RL, editors. Handbook of Temperament. New York, NY: Guilford Press; 2012. pp. 347–367. [ Google Scholar ]
• White LK, McDermott JM, Degnan KA, Henderson HA, Fox NA. Behavioral inhibition and anxiety: The moderating roles of inhibitory control and attention shifting. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2011; 39 :735–747. doi: 10.1007/s10802-011-9490-x. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wiggins JL, Mitchell C, Hyde LW, Monk CS. Identifying early pathways of risk and resilience: The codevelopment of internalizing and externalizing symptoms and the role of harsh parenting. Development and Psychopathology. 2015; 27 :1295–1312. doi: 10.1017/S0954579414001412. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zentner M, Bates JE. Child temperament: An integrative review of concepts, research programs, and measures. International Journal of Developmental Science. 2008; 2 :7–37. doi: 10.3233/DEV-2008-21203. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons
• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

1.4: Methods of Studying Personality

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 12176

• Mark D. Kelland
• Lansing Commnunity College via OpenStax CNX

In all types of research, we need to consider two closely related concepts: hypothesis vs. theory. An hypothesis can loosely be defined as an educated guess about some relationship or circumstance that we have observed, and the purpose of the hypothesis is to explain what we have experienced and to provide a starting point for further research. When a set of observations seems to come together, especially as the result of testing our hypotheses, we might then propose a theory to bring those observations together. However, a theory is not necessarily our end point, since the theory itself may generate new hypotheses and more research. In this way, all scientific endeavors continue to develop, expand, clarify, change, whatever the case may be, over time. As a result, we have many different personality theories, since different theorists have viewed the human condition differently, and they have also used different techniques to study personality.

A variety of methods have been used to study personality. Much of the early research was based on clinical observations, which were not done according to strict experimental methods. Today, ethical restrictions on the types of research we can conduct with people limit our ability to re-evaluate many of those classic studies. So we are left with a field that is rich in theory, but somewhat poor in the validation of those theories. Of course some personality theorists have approached personality in a more scientific manner, or at least they have tried, but that has limited the questions they have been able to ask. Since a detailed analysis of experimental psychology and research design is beyond the scope of this textbook, we will only cover this topic briefly (though it may come up again within individual chapters).

Case Studies

Many of the best-known personality theorists relied on case studies to develop their theories. Indeed, it was after seeing a number of patients with seemingly impossible neurological complaints that Freud began to seek an explanation of psychological disorders. Basically, the case study approach relies on a detailed analysis of interesting and unique individuals. Because these individuals are unique, the primary criticism of the case study approach is that its results may not generalize to other people. Of greater concern, is the possibility that early theorists chose to report only those cases that seemed to support their theories, or perhaps they only recognized those elements of a patient’s personality that fit their theory? Another problem, as mentioned above, is that two different theorists might view the same cases in very different ways. For example, since Carl Rogers worked initially with children, he found it difficult to accept Freud’s suggestions that even children were motivated primarily by sexual and aggressive urges. Consequently, Rogers sought a more positive view of personality development, which led to the establishment of the humanistic perspective. Thus, the case study approach can lead to very different conclusions depending on one’s own perspective while conducting research. In other words, it can easily be more subjective than objective, and psychologists who focus on our field as a scientific discipline always strive for more objective research.

Correlational Designs

When conducting correlational research psychologists examine the relationships that exist between variables, but they do not control those variables. The measure that is typically used is the correlation coefficient , which can range from –1.0 to 0.0 to +1.0. A value close to zero suggests that there is no relationship between the variables, whereas a value closer to –1.0 or +1.0 suggests a strong relationship, with the direction of the relationship determining whether the value is positive or negative. It is important to remember that the strength of the correlation is determined by how far the correlation coefficient is from zero, not whether it is positive or negative. For example, we would most likely find a positive correlation between the number of hours you study for a test and the number of correct answers you get (i.e., the more you study, the more questions you get right on the test). On the other hand, the exact same data will give us a negative correlation if we compare the number of hours you study to the number of questions you get wrong (i.e., the more you study, they fewer questions you get wrong). So the way in which you ask the question can determine whether you have a positive or negative correlation, but it should not affect the strength of the relationship.

Since the investigator does not control the variables in correlational research, it is not possible to determine whether or not one variable causes the relationship. In the example used above, it certainly seems that studying more would lead to getting a better grade on a test. But consider another example: can money buy happiness? There is some evidence that wealthy people are happier than the average person, and that people in wealthy countries are happier than those in poorer countries. But does the money affect happiness? Certainly a million dollars in cash wouldn’t help much if you were stranded on a desert island, so what can it do for you at home? People with money can live in nicer, safer communities, they have access to better health care (so they may feel better physically), they may have more time to spend with their family and friends, and so in many ways their lives might be different. We can also look at the correlation the other way around; maybe happy people get more money. If you ran a company, and were going to hire or promote someone, wouldn’t you want to find someone who is friendly and outgoing? Wouldn’t you look for someone who other people will enjoy working with? So, maybe happy people do find it easier to be successful financially. Either way, we simply can’t be sure about which variable influences the other, or even if they influence each other at all. In order to do that, we must pursue experimental research.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)

In these figures, adapted from research conducted by the author (Kelland et al., 1989), we see two correlations reported in an actual study. In the figure on the left, we can see a significant positive correlation between the firing rate of dopamine neurons in the rat brain and the dose of the drug quinpirole needed to inhibit those cells. In the figure on the right, we can see that the correlation is eliminated (the dose of quinpirole needed is not related to the firing rate of the cell) following administration of the drug MDMA (more commonly known as Ecstasy!).

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs

The experimental design is usually preferred within psychology, as with any other science. The goal is to control every aspect of the experiment and then manipulate a single variable, thus allowing us to attribute the results to that single manipulation. As a result, experiments allow us to make cause-and-effect statements about the relationships between the variables.

A simple experiment begins with defining the independent variable , the factor that will be manipulated, and the dependent variable , the factor that will be measured. Ideally, we then select our subjects in a random fashion, and assign them randomly to a control group and an experimental group . The experimental group is then exposed to the independent variable, whereas the control group is not. If we have successfully controlled all other variables through random selection of subjects (i.e., all subjects in a specified population have an equal chance of being selected for the study) and random assignment to the control and experimental groups (so that hopefully each group has an equal representation of gender, races, age, intelligence, personal habits, etc.), we should see a difference in the dependent variable that was caused by the independent variable.

Unlike the natural sciences, however, we can seldom control human behavior in the precise ways that true experimental designs require. For example, if we want to study the effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine on personality development, we certainly cannot ask pregnant women to use cocaine. Unfortunately, there are pregnant women who abuse cocaine and other illegal drugs. Therefore, we can try to identify those women, and subsequently study the development of their children. Since a variety of other factors led these women to abuse illegal drugs, we lose the control that is desired in an experiment. Such studies are called quasi-experimental, because they are set up as if we did an experiment, and can be analyzed in similar ways. The quasi-experimental approach has many applications, and can provide valuable information not available otherwise, so long as the investigators keep in mind the limitations of the technique (for the classic discussion of this design see Campbell & Stanley, 1963).

Cross-Cultural Approaches to the Study of Personality

Cross-cultural approaches to studying personality do not really represent a different type of research, but rather an approach to research that does not assume all people are influenced equally by the same factors. More importantly, cross-cultural psychologists recognize that seemingly common factors may, in reality, be quite different when viewed by people of very different cultures. The most obvious problem that arises when considering these issues is the potential difference between cross-cultural and multicultural research. Cross-cultural research is based on a comparison of cultures; two well-known categorizations are Eastern vs. Western perspectives and the somewhat related topic of individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures. However, a multicultural approach tells us that we must consider the true complexity of the human race. What is “Eastern,” is it Asia, China, Japan, does it include India, and what about Muslim groups of people? Should Buddhism be viewed as an Eastern perspective or a religious perspective? This book will address a variety of spiritual paths toward positive psychological development, but none of the associated religions are indigenous to Africa, so will our discussions be complete? The list goes on and on, because there are so many different cultures in the world. And finally, is it practical to really try coming up with a theory of personality that can encompass all the different groups of people throughout the world? Only by pursuing an understanding of different cultures can psychology truly be considered a global science, and that pursuit has only just begun. Since we have a long way to go, the future is ripe for new students to pursue careers in psychology and the study of personality.

Discussion Question: Do you consider psychology to be a science? Has psychology successfully applied the scientific method to the study of mind and behavior, particularly the study of personality and personality development?

Case Study Research Method in Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Case studies are in-depth investigations of a person, group, event, or community. Typically, data is gathered from various sources using several methods (e.g., observations & interviews).

The case study research method originated in clinical medicine (the case history, i.e., the patient’s personal history). In psychology, case studies are often confined to the study of a particular individual.

The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual’s past (i.e., retrospective), as well as to significant events that are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.

The case study is not a research method, but researchers select methods of data collection and analysis that will generate material suitable for case studies.

Freud (1909a, 1909b) conducted very detailed investigations into the private lives of his patients in an attempt to both understand and help them overcome their illnesses.

This makes it clear that the case study is a method that should only be used by a psychologist, therapist, or psychiatrist, i.e., someone with a professional qualification.

There is an ethical issue of competence. Only someone qualified to diagnose and treat a person can conduct a formal case study relating to atypical (i.e., abnormal) behavior or atypical development.

 Famous Case Studies

• Anna O – One of the most famous case studies, documenting psychoanalyst Josef Breuer’s treatment of “Anna O” (real name Bertha Pappenheim) for hysteria in the late 1800s using early psychoanalytic theory.
• Little Hans – A child psychoanalysis case study published by Sigmund Freud in 1909 analyzing his five-year-old patient Herbert Graf’s house phobia as related to the Oedipus complex.
• Bruce/Brenda – Gender identity case of the boy (Bruce) whose botched circumcision led psychologist John Money to advise gender reassignment and raise him as a girl (Brenda) in the 1960s.
• Genie Wiley – Linguistics/psychological development case of the victim of extreme isolation abuse who was studied in 1970s California for effects of early language deprivation on acquiring speech later in life.
• Phineas Gage – One of the most famous neuropsychology case studies analyzes personality changes in railroad worker Phineas Gage after an 1848 brain injury involving a tamping iron piercing his skull.

Clinical Case Studies

• Studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy approaches with an individual patient
• Assessing and treating mental illnesses like depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD
• Neuropsychological cases investigating brain injuries or disorders

Child Psychology Case Studies

• Studying psychological development from birth through adolescence
• Cases of learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD
• Effects of trauma, abuse, deprivation on development

Types of Case Studies

• Explanatory case studies : Used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. Helpful for doing qualitative analysis to explain presumed causal links.
• Exploratory case studies : Used to explore situations where an intervention being evaluated has no clear set of outcomes. It helps define questions and hypotheses for future research.
• Descriptive case studies : Describe an intervention or phenomenon and the real-life context in which it occurred. It is helpful for illustrating certain topics within an evaluation.
• Multiple-case studies : Used to explore differences between cases and replicate findings across cases. Helpful for comparing and contrasting specific cases.
• Intrinsic : Used to gain a better understanding of a particular case. Helpful for capturing the complexity of a single case.
• Collective : Used to explore a general phenomenon using multiple case studies. Helpful for jointly studying a group of cases in order to inquire into the phenomenon.

Where Do You Find Data for a Case Study?

There are several places to find data for a case study. The key is to gather data from multiple sources to get a complete picture of the case and corroborate facts or findings through triangulation of evidence. Most of this information is likely qualitative (i.e., verbal description rather than measurement), but the psychologist might also collect numerical data.

1. Primary sources

• Interviews – Interviewing key people related to the case to get their perspectives and insights. The interview is an extremely effective procedure for obtaining information about an individual, and it may be used to collect comments from the person’s friends, parents, employer, workmates, and others who have a good knowledge of the person, as well as to obtain facts from the person him or herself.
• Observations – Observing behaviors, interactions, processes, etc., related to the case as they unfold in real-time.
• Documents & Records – Reviewing private documents, diaries, public records, correspondence, meeting minutes, etc., relevant to the case.

2. Secondary sources

• News/Media – News coverage of events related to the case study.
• Academic articles – Journal articles, dissertations etc. that discuss the case.
• Government reports – Official data and records related to the case context.
• Books/films – Books, documentaries or films discussing the case.

3. Archival records

Searching historical archives, museum collections and databases to find relevant documents, visual/audio records related to the case history and context.

Public archives like newspapers, organizational records, photographic collections could all include potentially relevant pieces of information to shed light on attitudes, cultural perspectives, common practices and historical contexts related to psychology.

4. Organizational records

Organizational records offer the advantage of often having large datasets collected over time that can reveal or confirm psychological insights.

Of course, privacy and ethical concerns regarding confidential data must be navigated carefully.

However, with proper protocols, organizational records can provide invaluable context and empirical depth to qualitative case studies exploring the intersection of psychology and organizations.

• Organizational/industrial psychology research : Organizational records like employee surveys, turnover/retention data, policies, incident reports etc. may provide insight into topics like job satisfaction, workplace culture and dynamics, leadership issues, employee behaviors etc.
• Clinical psychology : Therapists/hospitals may grant access to anonymized medical records to study aspects like assessments, diagnoses, treatment plans etc. This could shed light on clinical practices.
• School psychology : Studies could utilize anonymized student records like test scores, grades, disciplinary issues, and counseling referrals to study child development, learning barriers, effectiveness of support programs, and more.

How do I Write a Case Study in Psychology?

Follow specified case study guidelines provided by a journal or your psychology tutor. General components of clinical case studies include: background, symptoms, assessments, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Interpreting the information means the researcher decides what to include or leave out. A good case study should always clarify which information is the factual description and which is an inference or the researcher’s opinion.

1. Introduction

• Provide background on the case context and why it is of interest, presenting background information like demographics, relevant history, and presenting problem.
• Compare briefly to similar published cases if applicable. Clearly state the focus/importance of the case.

2. Case Presentation

• Describe the presenting problem in detail, including symptoms, duration,and impact on daily life.
• Include client demographics like age and gender, information about social relationships, and mental health history.
• Describe all physical, emotional, and/or sensory symptoms reported by the client.
• Use patient quotes to describe the initial complaint verbatim. Follow with full-sentence summaries of relevant history details gathered, including key components that led to a working diagnosis.
• Summarize clinical exam results, namely orthopedic/neurological tests, imaging, lab tests, etc. Note actual results rather than subjective conclusions. Provide images if clearly reproducible/anonymized.
• Clearly state the working diagnosis or clinical impression before transitioning to management.

3. Management and Outcome

• Indicate the total duration of care and number of treatments given over what timeframe. Use specific names/descriptions for any therapies/interventions applied.
• Present the results of the intervention,including any quantitative or qualitative data collected.
• For outcomes, utilize visual analog scales for pain, medication usage logs, etc., if possible. Include patient self-reports of improvement/worsening of symptoms. Note the reason for discharge/end of care.

4. Discussion

• Analyze the case, exploring contributing factors, limitations of the study, and connections to existing research.
• Analyze the effectiveness of the intervention,considering factors like participant adherence, limitations of the study, and potential alternative explanations for the results.
• Identify any questions raised in the case analysis and relate insights to established theories and current research if applicable. Avoid definitive claims about physiological explanations.
• Offer clinical implications, and suggest future research directions.

5. Additional Items

• Thank specific assistants for writing support only. No patient acknowledgments.
• References should directly support any key claims or quotes included.
• Use tables/figures/images only if substantially informative. Include permissions and legends/explanatory notes.
• Provides detailed (rich qualitative) information.
• Provides insight for further research.
• Permitting investigation of otherwise impractical (or unethical) situations.

Case studies allow a researcher to investigate a topic in far more detail than might be possible if they were trying to deal with a large number of research participants (nomothetic approach) with the aim of ‘averaging’.

Because of their in-depth, multi-sided approach, case studies often shed light on aspects of human thinking and behavior that would be unethical or impractical to study in other ways.

Research that only looks into the measurable aspects of human behavior is not likely to give us insights into the subjective dimension of experience, which is important to psychoanalytic and humanistic psychologists.

Case studies are often used in exploratory research. They can help us generate new ideas (that might be tested by other methods). They are an important way of illustrating theories and can help show how different aspects of a person’s life are related to each other.

The method is, therefore, important for psychologists who adopt a holistic point of view (i.e., humanistic psychologists ).

Limitations

• Lacking scientific rigor and providing little basis for generalization of results to the wider population.
• Researchers’ own subjective feelings may influence the case study (researcher bias).
• Difficult to replicate.
• Time-consuming and expensive.
• The volume of data, together with the time restrictions in place, impacted the depth of analysis that was possible within the available resources.

Because a case study deals with only one person/event/group, we can never be sure if the case study investigated is representative of the wider body of “similar” instances. This means the conclusions drawn from a particular case may not be transferable to other settings.

Because case studies are based on the analysis of qualitative (i.e., descriptive) data , a lot depends on the psychologist’s interpretation of the information she has acquired.

This means that there is a lot of scope for Anna O , and it could be that the subjective opinions of the psychologist intrude in the assessment of what the data means.

For example, Freud has been criticized for producing case studies in which the information was sometimes distorted to fit particular behavioral theories (e.g., Little Hans ).

This is also true of Money’s interpretation of the Bruce/Brenda case study (Diamond, 1997) when he ignored evidence that went against his theory.

Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895).  Studies on hysteria . Standard Edition 2: London.

Curtiss, S. (1981). Genie: The case of a modern wild child .

Diamond, M., & Sigmundson, K. (1997). Sex Reassignment at Birth: Long-term Review and Clinical Implications. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine , 151(3), 298-304

Freud, S. (1909a). Analysis of a phobia of a five year old boy. In The Pelican Freud Library (1977), Vol 8, Case Histories 1, pages 169-306

Freud, S. (1909b). Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose (Der “Rattenmann”). Jb. psychoanal. psychopathol. Forsch ., I, p. 357-421; GW, VII, p. 379-463; Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis, SE , 10: 151-318.

Harlow J. M. (1848). Passage of an iron rod through the head.  Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 39 , 389–393.

Harlow, J. M. (1868).  Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head .  Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 2  (3), 327-347.

Money, J., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972).  Man & Woman, Boy & Girl : The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Money, J., & Tucker, P. (1975). Sexual signatures: On being a man or a woman.

Further Information

• Case Study Approach
• Case Study Method
• Enhancing the Quality of Case Studies in Health Services Research
• “We do things together” A case study of “couplehood” in dementia
• Using mixed methods for evaluating an integrative approach to cancer care: a case study

Learn More Psychology

• Freudian Psychology

Case Studies of Sigmund Freud

Introduction to sigmund freud's case histories, including little hans, anna o and wolf man..

Permalink Print   |  

Accounts of Freud ’s treatment of individual clients were key to his work, including the development of psychodynamic theory and stages of psychosexual development . Whilst the psychoanalyst’s use of case studies to support his ideas makes it difficult for us to prove or disprove Freud’s theories, they do provide fascinating insights into his day-to-day consultations with clients and offer clues as to the origins of his influential insights into how the human mind functions:

Little Hans

Perhaps the best known case study published by Freud was of Little Hans. Little Hans was the son of a friend and follower of Freud, music critic Max Graf. Graf’s son, Herbert, witnessed a tragic accident in which a horse carrying a heavily loaded cart collapsed in the street. Five year old Little Hans developed a fear of horses which led him to resist leaving the house for fear of seeing the animals. His father detailed his behavior in a series of letters to Freud and it was through these letters that the psychoanalyst directed the boy’s treatment. Indeed, the therapist and patient only met for a session on one occasion, but Freud published his case as a paper, Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy (1909), in support of his theory of the Oedipus complex and his proposed stages of psychosexual development.

Freud Cases

• Rat Man: A Case of 'Obsessional Neurosis'
• Dora Case Study
• Inside the Mind of Daniel Schreber
• The Case of Little Hans

Little Hans’ father relayed to Freud his development and noted that he had begun to show an intense interest in the male genitals, which the therapist attributed to him experiencing the phallic stage of psychosexual development. During this stage, the erogenous zone (the area of the body that one focuses on to derive pleasure) switches to the genitals. At this stage, signs of an Oedipus complex may also be observed, whereby a child competes with their father to retain their position as the central focus of their mother’s affection. Freud believed that this was supported by a fantasy which Little Hans had described, in which a giraffe and another, crumpled, giraffe entered the room. When the boy took the latter from the first giraffe, it objected. Freud believed that the giraffes symbolised his parents - the crumpled giraffe represented his mother, whom he would share a bed with when his father was absent, and the first giraffe was symbolic of his father. Children may also develop castration anxiety resulting from a fear that the father will castrate them in order to remove the threat that they pose to the parents’ relationship.

The boy’s fear of horses, according to Freud, was caused by a displacement of fear for his father onto the animals, whose blinkers made them resemble the man wearing his glasses.

Freud believed that Little Hans’ fear of horses disappeared as his described fantasies that indicated the resolution of his castration anxiety and an acceptance of his love for his mother.

Read more about Little Hans here

Dr. Sergeï Pankejeff (1886-1979) was a client of Sigmund Freud , who referred to him as “Wolf Man” owing to a symbolic dream which he described to him. Freud detailed his sessions with Wolf Man, which commenced in February of 1910, in a 1918 paper entitled From the History of an Infantile Neurosis .

Wolf Man first saw Freud having suffered from deteriorating health since experiencing gonorrhea at the age of eighteen. He described how he was unable to pass bowel movements without the help of an enema, and felt as though he was separated from the rest of the world by a veil.

Freud persuaded Wolf Man to undergo treatment until a set date, after which their sessions should cease, in the belief that his patient would lower his resistance to the therapist’s investigation. Wolf Man agreed, and described to Freud the events of his childhood.

Initially, Wolf Man had been an agreeable child but became combative when his parents returned from their travels. He had been cared for by a new nanny whilst they had been absent and his parents blamed their relationship for his misbehavior. He also recalled developing a fear of wolves, and his sister would taunt him with an illustration in a picture book. However, Wolf Man’s fears extended towards other creatures, including beetles, caterpillars and butterflies. On one occasion, whilst he was pursuing a butterfly, fear overcame him and he was forced to end his pursuit. The man’s conflicting account suggested an early alternation between a phobia of, and taunting of, insects and animals such as horses.

Wolf Man’s unusual behavior was not limited to a fear of animals, and he developed a zealous religious worship routine, kissing every icon in the house before bed time, whilst experiencing blasphemous thoughts.

Wolf Man recalled a dream which had caused him some distress when he had awoken. In the dream, he was laid in bed when he looked out of the window and noticed six or seven white wolves sat in a tree outside. The wolves, which had tails that did not match their bodies, were watching him in his room.

Freud linked this nightmare to a story which Wolf Man’s grandfather had told him, in which a wolf named Reynard lost his tail whilst using it as bait for fishing. He believed that Wolf Man suffered from castration anxiety, which explained the fox-like tails of the wolves in the dream, and his fear of caterpillars, which he used to dissect. The man had also witnessed his father chopping a snake into pieces, which Freud believed had contributed to this anxiety.

Read more about Wolf Man here

The obsessive thoughts of Rat Man were discussed in 1909 paper Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis . Rat Man’s true identity is unclear, but many believe him to have been Ernst Lanzer (1978-1914), a law graduate of the University of Vienna.

Rat Man suffered from obsessive thoughts for years and underwent hydrotherapy before consulting Freud in 1907, having been impressed by the understanding that the psychoanalyst had professed in his published works. The subject of his thoughts would often involve a sense of anxiety that misfortune would affect a close friend or relative and he felt that he needed to carry out irrational behavior in order to prevent such a mishap from occurring. The irrationality of such thoughts was demonstrated by his fears for the death of his father, which continued even after his father had passed away.

Freud used techniques such as free association in order to uncover repressed memories . Rat Man’s recollection of past events also proved useful to Freud. He described one occasion during his military service, when a colleague revealed to him the morbid details of a torture method that he had learnt of. This form of torture involved placing a container of live rats onto a person and allowing the animals to escape the only way that they could - by burrowing through the victim.

This description stayed with Rat Man and he began to fear that this torture would be imposed upon a relative or friend. He convinced himself that the only way to prevent it would be to pay an officer whom he believed had collected a parcel for him from the post office. When he was prevented from satisfying this need, Rat Man began to feel increasingly anxious until his colleagues agreed to travel to the post office with him in order for the officer to be paid in the order that Rat Man felt was necessary.

Freud attributed Rat Man’s anxieties to a sense of guilt resulting from a repressed desire that he had experienced whilst younger to see women he knew unclothed. As our ego develops, our moral conscience leads us to repress the unreasonable or unacceptable desires of the id , and in the case of Rat Man, these repressed thoughts left behind “ ideational content ” in the conscious. As a result, the subject of anxiety and guilt that he felt whilst younger was replaced with fear of misfortune occurring when he was older.

Read more about Rat Man here

Other Influential Accounts

Whilst Freud saw many clients at his practise in Vienna, and cases such as Wolf Man, Rat Man and Dora are well documented, the psychoanalyst also applied psychodynamic theory to his interpretation of other patients, such Anna O, a client of his friend, Josef Breuer. The autobiographical account of Dr. Daniel Schreber also formed the basis of a 1911 paper by Freud detailing his interpretation of the man’s fantasies.

Anna O (a pseudonym for Austrian feminist Bertha Pappenheim) was a patient of Freud’s close friend, physician Josef Breuer. Although Freud never personally treated her (Anna’s story was relayed to him by Breuer), the woman’s case proved to be influential in the development of his psychodynamic theories. Freud and Breuer published a joint work on hysteria, Studies on Hysteria , in 1895, in which Anna O’s case was discussed.

Seeking treatment from Breur for hysteria in 1880, Anna O experienced paralysis in her right arm and leg, hydrophobia (an aversion to water) which left her unable to drink for long periods, along with involuntary eye movements, including a squint. She also found herself mixing languages whilst speaking to carers and would see hallucinations such as those of black snakes and skeletons, and would wake anxiously from her daytime sleep with cries of “tormenting, tormenting”.

During her talks with Breuer, Anna enjoyed telling fairytale-like stories, which would often involve sitting next to the bedside of a sick person. A dream that she recalled was also of a similar nature: she was sat next to the bed of an ill person in bed when a black snake approached the invalid. Anna wanted to protect the person from the snake but felt paralysed and was unable to warn off the snake.

Freud and Breuer considered the subject of this dream to be linked to an earlier experience. Prior to her own illness, Anna’s father had contracted tuberculosis and she had spent considerable lengths of time caring for him by his bedside. During this period, Anna had fallen ill, preventing her from accompanying her father in his final days and he passed away on April 1881. The trauma of caring for her father may have affected Anna, and Breuer believed that the paralysis she experienced in reality was a result of that which she had experienced in the dream. Furthermore, he linked her hydrophobia to another traumatic event some time previously, when she had witnessed a dog drinking from a glass of water that she was supposed to use. The revulsion she felt had stayed with her and manifested in a later aversion to water.

The conscious realisation of the causes behind her suffering, according to Breuer, helped Anna to make a recovery in 1882. She valued the “talking therapy” that he had provided, describing their sessions as “chimney sweeping”.

Read more about Anna O here

Dr. Daniel Schreber

Freud’s interpretation of client’s past experiences and dreams was not limited to the patients he saw at his Vienna clinic. German judge Dr. Daniel Schreber (1842-1911) wrote a book, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903) - in which he detailed the fantasies that he experienced during the second of three periods of illness - whilst confined in the asylum of Sonnenstein Castle.

Upon reading the book, Freud offered his own thoughts on the causes of Schreber’s fantasies, which were published in his 1911 paper Notes upon an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (dementia paranoides) .

Initially suffering whilst standing as a candidate in the 1884 Reichstag elections, Schreber had begun to experience hypochondria, for which he sought the help of Professor Paul Flechsig. After six months, treatment ended, but he returned to Flechsig in 1893, bothered again by hypochondria and now sleeplessness also. Schreber recalled thoughts during a half-asleep state in which he noted that “it really must be very nice to be a woman submitting to the act of copulation” (Freud, 1911). He would eventually turn against Professor Flechsig, accusing him of being a “soul murderer”, and thoughts of emasculation also developed into extended fantasies - Schreber convinced himself that he had been assigned a role of savior of the world, and that he must be turned in a woman in order for God to impregnate with him, creating a new generation which would repopulate the planet.

In his response to Schreber’s account, Freud focussed on the religious nature of the fantasies. Whilst Schreber was agnostic, his thoughts suggested religious doubts and what Freud described as “redeemer delusion” - a sense of being elevated to the role of redeemer of the world. The process of emasculation that Schreber felt was necessary was attributed by Freud to “homosexual impulses”, which the psychoanalyst suggests were directed towards the man’s father and brother. However, feelings of guilt for experiencing such desires led to them being repressed.

Freud also understood Schreber’s sense of resentment towards Flechsig in terms of transference - his feelings towards his brother had been subconsciously transferred to the professor, whilst those towards his father had been transferred to a godly figure.

Read more about Daniel Schreber here

Which Archetype Are You?

Are You Angry?

Windows to the Soul

Are You Stressed?

Attachment & Relationships

Memory Like A Goldfish?

31 Defense Mechanisms

Slave To Your Role?

Are You Fixated?

Interpret Your Dreams

How to Read Body Language

How to Beat Stress and Succeed in Exams

More on Freudian Psychology

A look at common defense mechanisms we employ to protect the ego.

31 Psychological Defense Mechanisms Explained

What's your personality type? Find out with this test.

Test Your Freudian Knowledge

Test your knowledge of Sigmund Freud and Freudian psychology with this revision...

Defense Mechanisms Quiz

Test your knowledge of defense mechanisms in psychology with this revision quiz.

The Case Of Little Hans

How Freud used a boy's horse phobia to support his theories.

Sign Up for  Unlimited Access

• Psychology approaches, theories and studies explained
• Body Language Reading Guide
• How to Interpret Your Dreams Guide
• Self Hypnosis Downloads
• Plus More Member Benefits

You May Also Like...

Making conversation, master body language, nap for performance, persuasion with ingratiation, why do we dream, psychology of color, brainwashed, dark sense of humor linked to intelligence, psychology  guides.

Learn Body Language Reading

How To Interpret Your Dreams

Overcome Your Fears and Phobias

Psychology topics, learn psychology.

• Access 2,200+ insightful pages of psychology explanations & theories
• Insights into the way we think and behave
• Body Language & Dream Interpretation guides
• Self hypnosis MP3 downloads and more
• Behavioral Approach
• Eye Reading
• Stress Test
• Cognitive Approach
• Fight-or-Flight Response
• Neuroticism Test

© 2024 Psychologist World. Home About Contact Us Terms of Use Privacy & Cookies Hypnosis Scripts Sign Up

• Anxiety Disorder
• Bipolar Disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Adjustment Disorder
• Agoraphobia
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Childhood ADHD
• Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Panic Attack
• Postpartum Depression
• Schizoaffective Disorder
• Seasonal Affective Disorder
• Sex Addiction
• Social Anxiety
• Specific Phobias
• Teenage Depression
• Black Mental Health
• Emotional Health
• Sex & Relationships
• Understanding Therapy
• Workplace Mental Health
• My Life with OCD
• Caregivers Chronicles
• Empathy at Work
• Sex, Love & All of the Above
• Parent Central
• Mindful Moment
• Mental Health News
• Live Town Hall: Mental Health in Focus
• Inside Mental Health
• Inside Schizophrenia
• Inside Bipolar
• ADHD Symptoms Quiz
• Anxiety Symptoms Quiz
• Autism Quiz: Family & Friends
• Autism Symptoms Quiz
• Bipolar Disorder Quiz
• Borderline Personality Test
• Childhood ADHD Quiz
• Depression Symptoms Quiz
• Eating Disorder Quiz
• Narcissim Symptoms Test
• OCD Symptoms Quiz
• Psychopathy Test
• PTSD Symptoms Quiz
• Schizophrenia Quiz
• Attachment Style Quiz
• Career Test
• Do I Need Therapy Quiz?
• Domestic Violence Screening Quiz
• Emotional Type Quiz
• Loneliness Quiz
• Parenting Style Quiz
• Personality Test
• Relationship Quiz
• Stress Test
• What's Your Sleep Like?
• Find Support
• Suicide Prevention
• Drugs & Medications
• Find a Therapist

Theories of Personality: These Are the 6 Main Frameworks

Psychodynamic, humanistic, and evolutionary are just a few of the many personality theories that have attempted to explore and explain human personality traits.

Personality theories in psychology aim to provide a framework to understand human personality, including the causes and motivation for thoughts, behaviors, and social interactions.

Like many concepts in psychology, theories of personality have evolved over time, often building and incorporating pieces of prior work.

What makes you who you are? Is it your facial features? Your accomplishments? Your job position? Your ancestors? Or is it something less tangible, like how your brain responds to life’s everyday situations?

The answer isn’t simple, and that’s why more than one personality theory exists.

What’s a personality theory?

Personality theories are the result of hypotheses, experiments, case studies, and clinical research led by scientists in the psychology and human behavior field.

Personality is your unique set of behaviors, experiences, feelings, and thought patterns that make you you.

While it may change subtly over time , your personality remains fairly consistent throughout your life after a certain age.

Personality theories look to answer why specific features and traits develop in one person over another — or develop at all. The goal is to identify what makes everyone so similar and so different at the same time.

What personality isn’t

Personality isn’t your set of skills. It’s not your biological or physical differences. It’s not transient states, like hunger or sadness.

You may be a championship football player, for example, but that’s not a part of your personality. Your reliability, extroversion, and ambition, instead, may be personality traits that may incline you to perform well at team sports.

6 theories of personality

The field of personality theories continues to grow and change as more research opportunities arise and studies are completed.

As research has evolved, so have the theories themselves. Certain theories may have lost some validity, due to inconclusive research or new findings by experts.

1. Psychodynamic theories

Sigmund Freud laid the foundation for psychodynamic personality theories with his proposal of the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud saw these three parts of the mind as the basis of human personality.

According to Freud, these concepts could explain individual behavior.

The id was about your irrational and emotional impulses, while the ego weighed all the rational pros and cons. The superego then sought to apply social norms, rules, and other personal values that ultimately encouraged you to act based on your core beliefs .

Later, in the psychosexual personality development part of Freud’s theory, he explained how a person came to those beliefs and ideals.

Freud thought early childhood experiences played the most important role in how personality developed. Early life, he said, was defined by five psychosexual stages based on the pleasure sensations in erogenous zones:

• oral: mouth and sucking reflexes
• anal: bladder and bowel control
• phallic: genitals and gender identification
• latency: sexuality is paused and latent, and gives room to social skills
• genital: mature sexuality and defined sexual interest and orientation

Freud suggested that each stage presented you with a developmental conflict. If you successfully overcame it, you would move into the next phase of development.

According to Freud’s personality theory, being unable to move past a phase resulted in certain psychological challenges, like the Oedipus complex , later in life.

Carl Jung and Erik Erikson are other names commonly associated with important work in the field of psychodynamic theory, although Erikson particularly marked a significant switch from Freud’s theories.

2. Trait theories

Trait theory is one of the most popular types of personality theories. It proposes that people’s personalities vary according to which basic personality traits are more dominant.

In this sense, each trait is seen as a continuum.

Take kindness, for example. Rather than viewing this as an optional personality trait — some people are kind while others are not — you can think of it as a sliding scale. Everyone falls somewhere on the kindness continuum. And you’re either more kind or less kind, compared with someone else.

One of the best-known trait theories is the five-factor theory, also known as the Big 5 , proposed by Donald W. Fiske . This theory states that personality is made up of five distinct traits:

• agreeableness
• conscientiousness
• extraversion
• neuroticism
• openness to experience

Each trait has a range that goes from one extreme to another, and each person falls somewhere along that range.

Other known trait theories include those developed by Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell, and Hans Eysenck. Eysenck’s theory , for example, focused on just three trait continuums for everyone: extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.

3. Humanistic theories

The humanistic approach to theories of personality involves understanding not only behavior and thought patterns, but also what someone believes gives their life meaning.

Humanistic theories propose that someone’s personality depends heavily on what they think of themselves — who they believe they are.

Abraham Maslow’s humanistic hierarchy of needs, for example, suggested that personality is the result of someone being able to meet — or not meet — basic needs like safety, self-esteem, and belongingness.

Carl Rogers explored the concept of self-actualization. This theory asserts that people are driven by their need for personal growth. The quest for learning and growing is what structures someone’s personality.

4. Social cognitive theories

Social cognitive theories of personality include several schools of thought like behaviorism, social learning theory, and expectancy-value theory.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism theory proposes that human behavior is the direct result of facing rewards and punishments.

In other words, you’re conditioned to respond a certain way because of a reward-punishment pattern in your life.

If being generous in school gained you social admiration, later in life, you might continue to be generous because of that early positive reinforcement.

John B. Watson is often credited with pioneering the work in behavior theory, though William Carpenter, Alexander Bain, and Sigmund Freud also have ties to its early conceptualization, according to 2014 research .

Social learning theory

Closely related to behaviorism is Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, which takes behavioral models and adds the component of thought. In other words, the theory proposes that your thought process plays an essential part in deciding if you should imitate or not a certain behavior (learning).

According to the social learning theory , how you perceive behavioral reinforcement is more important than the reinforcement itself.

A child who loves candy might see it as a reward, whereas a child who doesn’t like candy would see it as a punishment.

Bandura also believed that environment influences a person’s personality and vice versa.

Being cooperative, for example, might gain you job opportunities. It might also increase the cooperativeness of those around you — creating an environment of cooperation.

Bandura changed the name of the model from social learning to social cognitive theory in 1986.

3. Expectancy-value theory

Another behaviorism-based model of human personality is Julian Rotter’s framework.

Rotter proposed human behavior is motivated by the expected rewards or punishment it can gain. This expectation comes from past experiences and whether or not you thought the consequences of your actions were under your control.

When someone believes they have control over an outcome, they’re more motivated to action. This is particularly so when they anticipate a positive outcome because similar actions have been rewarded in the past.

You’ve learned that studying at least 4 hours before a test leads to you passing said test.

The next time a test is scheduled, you’re more motivated to study for 4 hours to achieve a pass.

5. Biological theories

Biological personality theories assert that brain structures and neurophysiology are what determine your personality traits, according to 2016 research .

In other words, something as simple as higher neurotransmitter levels might provide you with a more positive outlook, for example, than someone else.

Hans J. Eysenck and Jeffrey A. Gray both included neuropsychology in their personality theories.

6. Evolutionary theories

Charles Darwin first introduced the concepts of evolution and natural selection in the mid-1800s. His work sparked an entire field of evolutionary biology.

Later, other scientists explored Darwin’s premises to explain human behavior. According to this framework of evolutionary theories, human personality is primarily the result of genes and most useful traits.

Ultimately, evolutionary theory states that personality characteristics that increased your ancestors’ chances for survival are the traits you may have at the core of your personality today.

Your fear of snakes may feel instinctual, but evolutionary theory states it may result from your ancestors learning that snakes could be dangerous.

Personality theories and controversy

Personality is immeasurable. It’s different for everyone. This makes personality challenging to study. How do you control an environment and prove that personality develops in a specific way?

You can’t — at least not yet.

For this reason, personality development exists in theory only and is subject to controversy, though some research does support (or debunk) current theory models.

One of the biggest controversies in personality theory revolves around Sigmund Freud’s theories on personality and development. Even as far back as 1987, researchers wrote about how they are male-dominant, with references to females that may be interpreted as demeaning.

Let’s recap

Theories of personality aim to provide a framework to explain the differences and similarities in human behavior and personality. They often overlap or complement each other, and sometimes they may be contradictory when compared.

Each personality theory offers a structure to analyze human personality, and most of them have extensive research backing up some of their premises. This is one of the reasons why the study of personality in psychology is still a developing field with no conclusive findings.

Last medically reviewed on May 20, 2022

14 sources collapsed

• Aruma EO, et al. (2017). Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and assessment of needs in community development. https://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Abraham-Maslow%E2%80%99s-Hierarchy-of-Needs-and-Assessment-of-Needs-in-Community-Development.pdf
• Darwin C. (1859). On the origin of the species. London, UK: John Murray. https://www.vliz.be/docs/Zeecijfers/Origin_of_Species.pdf
• Ismail NAH, et al. (2015). Rediscovering Rogers’s self theory and personality. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286456614_Rediscovering_Rogers's_Self_Theory_and_Personality
• Khatibi M, et al. (2016). Biological basis of personality: A brief review. http://jlsb.science-line.com/attachments/article/44/J.%20Life%20Sci.%20Biomed.%206%282%29%2033-36,%202016.pdf
• Lantz SE, et al. (2021). Freud developmental theory. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557526/
• Malone JC. (2014). Did John B. Watson really “found” behaviorism? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4883453/
• Maranges HM, et al. (2020). Evolutionary theory of personality. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118970843.ch32
• Matthews G, et al. (1999). The personality theories of H.J. Eysenck and J.A. Gray: A comparative review. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerald-Matthews/publication/223164626_The_personality_theories_of_H_J_Eysenck_and_J_A_Gray_A_comparative_review/links/5a5fc25c458515b4377b750e/The-personality-theories-of-H-J-Eysenck-and-J-A-Gray-A-comparative-review.pdf
• Nolan M, et al. (1987). Freud and feminism. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30090854
• Personality. (2014). https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/topss/lessons/personality.pdf
• Rotter JB. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0092976
• Rumjaun A, et al. (2020). Social learning theory — Albert Bandura. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43620-9_7
• Shrout PE, et al. (1995). Personality research, methods, and theory. A festschrift honoring Donald W. Fiske. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. https://projects.ori.org/lrg/PDFs_papers/what.the.hell.pdf
• Taub JM. (1998). Eysenck’s descriptive and biological theory of personality: A review of construct validity. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00207459808986443

Read this next

Do babies have personalities? Or does personality depend on experience? Here’s what experts say about personality development.

How does the evolutionary perspective explain human behavior? Here's what the theory says and why it's been controversial.

Albert Bandura's social learning theory talks about modeling and positive reinforcement. How can it explain behaviors and mental health conditions?

Body-focused repetitive behaviors are repetitive behaviors, like hair-pulling, nail-biting or skin-picking. If you’re living with BFRBs, support is…

Temper tantrums are outbursts of intense anger or frustration that children aged 1 to 4 often have. Identifying the signs can help you deal with these…

Biting your nails can indicate unaddressed psychological or emotional issues. If you have a habit of biting your nails, you're not alone. Help is…

Excessive yawning can occur for many reasons, such as fatigue, sleep issues, stress, or serious medical conditions. But treatment is available to help…

Dermatophagia is a condition often linked with OCD, where people chew and bite their skin. More research is needed, but help is available to help you…

The inability to ejaculate or taking a long time to ejaculate is a sexual dysfunction that can cause distress. But treatment is available to help…

Building empathy and helping others are a few ways you can be a better person. But becoming a “better” person doesn’t mean you’re a “bad” person.

Personality Development Case Study

Introduction A person’s body works in an extraordinary way. One’s behaviour and personality can either be shaped or even influences by internal (psychological development) or external factors (environment). In this assignment theories that contribute to personality will be dealt with in depth but first one has to understand what personality is. Personality can be defined, according to Meyer, Moore & Viljoen (2008), “as the constantly changing but nevertheless relatively stable organisation of all physical, psychological and spiritual characteristics of the individual which determine his or her behaviour in interaction within the context in which the individual finds himself or herself ’’ ¬(p.11). Later in this assignment we will go through …show more content…

Thus the concept of personality has been used to explain what causes people to behave differently in some situations and to explain individual’s consistency in responding across situations. The basic assumptions of a person caught up in a constant conflict between drives within psyche and the demands and norms of the society (Meyer et al, 2008). Based on the case study, Susan once got angry when the neighbour’s grass went flying into her yard when they were mowing it and she did not talk to them for a long time. When it comes to biological and psychic determinism Freud describes human drives as physiologically primarily based and frozen inside the body. Susan was trained from an early age to clean; when she did not clean properly she was punished as her parents believed in physical punishment. He then explains the mechanistic assumption of physical principles of energy consumption; conversation and transformation are regarded as valid for human functioning. Susan is always ready to clean, after her retirement she took cleaning as her daily job and she spends her days …show more content…

In learning of behaviour, people learn from one another by how they behave and looking at their attitudes towards others (Meyer et al, 2008). Human behaviour is learnt by viewing across modelling. Through this people grab ideas of how they should behave and they learn it. Modelling has important surroundings which are attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Attention is components that increase or lower concentration given, retention is not forgetting what you have concentrated on which includes mental functioning, reproduction is the ability to duplicate the image and motivation is being driven and having purpose (Anon, 2016). Susan learnt her behaviour of cleaning from her mother and she grew up in an environment which was cleaned daily. Susan pays attention to cleaning and she never forgets to clean. She is always motivated to clean as sees it as a means of her life. The view of the

Fahrenheit 451 Character Analysis

Every aspect of life impacts the human existence. The people within a man’s life, his traditions, his environment, specific events that occur within his life, and his experiences all play a significant role in shaping and molding a man into a distinct individual. These are just some of the components that attribute to a man’s thoughts, beliefs, inclinations, innermost desires, dreams and fears. Then there is an outward manifestation of these inner attributes in a man’s attitude, behaviors and actions. Some experiences and individuals are definitely influential, but then there are those that can alter a man’s life forever.

Ap Psychology Fact Sheet

1. Personality- individual differences in characteristic 2. Psychodynamic theories- views that defends personality of conscious and unconscious 3. Psychoanalysis-

Serial Killers: A Case Study Of Ivan Millat's Backpack Killer

By the time Ivan Milat was finally accused and convicted for murder, at least seven known people had their lives taken by him in the Belanglo State Forest. Ivan Milat quickly became one of Australia’s most notorious serial killers, earning the title of the Backpack killer. This case study will take Ivan Millat’s crimes from a young age and his eventual escalation into murder and linking it to Bandura social learning theory. Bandura’s social learning theory states that people’s behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. It is believed children observe the people around them behaving in various ways and process that behaviour as the acceptable way of behaving even though it may be classified as socially

Eysenck's Theory Of Personality

The counter-argument to this is that individuals will adapt their behaviour to fit the situation, and generally demonstrate some pare of their personality in a given situation (Coaley, 2014). However, personality is a broad and rather ambiguous concept, meaning that is it difficult to define succinctly; and yet how we define it plays a crucial part in how we investigate it. Eysenck’s theory of personality concluded that there were 3 dimensions: extraverted-introverted, neuroticism-stability, psychoticism-socialisation (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964). With the broadening field of psychometrics, the Eysencks were the first to make their approach more quantifiable and legitimate than others had been in the past. Eysenck published the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) in 1964 – a uni-dimensional self-report questionnaire consisting of 57 items.

Traditional Western Approach To Modern Psychology

If we look at the aim of psychology from this perspective, the aim is to look beyond superficial differences such as gender, race and culture to unveil these processes. In traditional psychology the “Self” is seen as a restricted or bounded and autonomous being. Internal attributes such as emotions, independence, thoughts, contextual factors as well as social factors defines the

The Aviator: The Various Perspectives Of Personality

The Various Perspectives of Personality There have been numerous studies of the factors that can affect a person’s personality. Typically, these studies always reflected on what role a child’s early life played in their adult personalities. The character of Howard Hughes from the movie The Aviator was a fitting example of the many effective factors (Scorsese, 2004). This paper’s purpose is to examine and describe theories such as the psychoanalysis perspective, physiological perspective, and biological perspective of personality traits. Psychoanalysis Perspective Erik Erikson was a student of Freud whose approach to psychoanalysis was called ego psychology (Larsen & Buss, 2008).

Kurt Lewin's Group Dynamics, Field Theory And Group Theory

In his field theory, a ‘field’ is defined as ‘the totality of coexisting facts which are conceived of as mutually interdependent’ (Lewin 1951: 240). Individuals were seen to behave differently according to the way in which tensions between perceptions of the self and of the environment were worked through. The whole psychological field, or ‘life space’, within which people acted, had to be viewed, in order to understand behaviour. (Lewin 1952). Thus, it can be concluded that an individual’s performance is strongly affected by his environment.

Bruce Tuckman's Theory Of Behavior Management

" Behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning." The behaviour we observed is models. In social life, children encompassed with effective people like parents, siblings, friends, tv characters and teachers etc. They attract to certain people and encode the behaviour and later imitate the behaviour interest to them regardless whether it is appropriate or inappropriate for them.

Eysenck's Theory Of Personality Development

This research essay would focus in the different causes of individual differences in personality. According to Hans Eysenck, a psychologist, he believed that personality develops from the inherited genes that are from our parents. He developed Big 5 theory which consisted of 5 basis traits that he believed to make up personality.

Personal Social And Emotional Development Case Study

Introduction- My case study is about Personal Social and Emotional Development (PSED) and the importance of it in the lives of children and the key role it plays as part of their growth and development. The child I am observing is a 3 years 8 months old girl called Emily. She lives at home with both of her parents and an older brother who is 10. Her father is Irish and works fulltime 5 days a week and her Mother is Spanish and works at the weekends.

Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Introduction of the Theory (History) Social Learning Theory was introduced by Albert Bandura in year 1977 ( McLeod, 2011). Social Learning Theory was mainly talking about how environmental factor influence the social behavior of an individual. An individual will simply observe and imitate the behaviors or actions of nearby people.

Models In Human Science

Models are generalizations of processes, patterns and systems of human interactions and experience. Models can be seen and used in our everyday life. They make life easier in a way – they help us in understanding concepts that can be related to all the parts in our lives. The good thing with models is that they can provide a very clear explanation of a certain concept, because they leave out the things that might make the explanation more complex. This gives us general rules that are widely used.

Carl Rogers Theory Of Personality: A Psychological Case Study

The Carl Rogers theory of the self-concept will explain the development and structure of personality, whereas Victor Frankl’s theory will explain the meaning of life as a dynamic of personality. Carl Rogers’s personality

Reflection Of Personality Theory

Personality is defined as the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual 's unique character. Personality theory is the approaches to understanding the “What”, “How” and “When” of characteristics and features that make up an individual 's personality. An insight into personality is important to understand the function of a person’s mind. By doing this you would be able to understand and observe your own psyche from an outside perspective, interact with others better and understand why they do what they do or predict how someone may react to something. My personality can be describe as Introverted since I am reserved, practical and quiet.

Reflection On Personality Development

1.0 Introduction This is an individual assignment. This assignment is for KMC1093 Personality Development course in order to pass the course. First of all, personality development is associated with psychological aspects which are included cognitive, behaviour and emotion. It is believed that everybody has their own way to interacting with the other people and with their social environment. There are three components in the nature of personality.

More about Personality Development Case Study

Related topics.

• Personality psychology
• Big Five personality traits
• Trait theory

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2023 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

What Is a Case Study?

Weighing the pros and cons of this method of research

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

Verywell / Colleen Tighe

• Pros and Cons

What Types of Case Studies Are Out There?

Where do you find data for a case study, how do i write a psychology case study.

A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in many different fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.

The point of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, we got you—here are some rules of APA format to reference.  

At a Glance

A case study, or an in-depth study of a person, group, or event, can be a useful research tool when used wisely. In many cases, case studies are best used in situations where it would be difficult or impossible for you to conduct an experiment. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a lot of˜ information about a specific individual or group of people. However, it's important to be cautious of any bias we draw from them as they are highly subjective.

What Are the Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies?

A case study can have its strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.

One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult or impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:

• Allows researchers to capture information on the 'how,' 'what,' and 'why,' of something that's implemented
• Gives researchers the chance to collect information on why one strategy might be chosen over another
• Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research

On the other hand, a case study can have some drawbacks:

• It cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
• It may not be scientifically rigorous
• It can lead to bias

Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they want to explore a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. Through their insights, researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.

It's important to remember that the insights from case studies cannot be used to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.

Case Study Examples

There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of  Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
• Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
• Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language learning was possible, even after missing critical periods for language development. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse denied her the opportunity to learn a language at critical points in her development.

This is clearly not something researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.

There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might use:

• Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those who live there.
• Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
• Explanatory case studies : These   are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
• Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
• Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
• Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic case study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.

The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.

The type of case study that psychology researchers use depends on the unique characteristics of the situation and the case itself.

There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:

• Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
• Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
• Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
• Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
• Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
• Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.

If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines you need to follow. If you are writing your case study for a professional publication, check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.

Here is a general outline of what should be included in a case study.

Section 1: A Case History

This section will have the following structure and content:

Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.

Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.

Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.

Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.

Section 2: Treatment Plan

This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.

• Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
• Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
• Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
• Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.

This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.

When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research. 

In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?

Need More Tips?

Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:

• Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, use their name or a pseudonym.
• Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
• Remember to use APA format when citing references .

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach .  BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011;11:100.

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100

Gagnon, Yves-Chantal.  The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Personality development in emerging adulthood—how the perception of life events and mindset affect personality trait change.

• 1 Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
• 2 Division HR Diagnostics AG, Stuttgart, Germany

Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of experiencing two major life events: graduating from school and moving away from home. Thereby, we examined the occurrence of the two life events per se and the subjective perception of the critical life event in terms of valence. In addition, we postulate a moderation effect of the construct of mindset, which emphasizes that beliefs over the malleability of global attributes can be seen as predictors of resilience to challenges. This suggests that mindset acts as a buffer for these two distinct events. In a large longitudinal sample of 1,243 people entering adulthood, we applied latent structural equation modeling to assess mean-level changes in the Big Five, the influence of life events per se , the subjective perception of life events, and a moderating role of mindset. In line with maturity processes, results showed significant mean-level changes in all Big Five traits. While no changes in the Big Five dimensions were noted when the mere occurrence of an event is assessed, results indicated a greater increase in extraversion and diminished increase in emotional stability when we accounted for the individual's (positive/negative) perception of the critical life event. In case of extraversion, this also holds true for the moderator mindset. Our findings contribute valuable insights into the relevance of subjective appraisals to life events and the importance of underlying processes to these events.

Introduction

People change as they age. Individuals experience not only physical but also psychological changes across the entire lifespan. However, the exact course of internal and external changes depends on various criteria. In recent years, researchers have expended considerable effort in studying how personality develops across the lifespan; this has, in turn, incited a controversy about the stability and variability of specific personality traits. Personality traits are considered to be relatively stable individual differences in affect, behavior, and/or cognition ( Johnson, 1997 ). Whereas, the Big Five traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness appear to be rather stable and continuously increase across adulthood, levels of openness to experience appear to change in an inverted U-shape function, which increases between the ages of 18 and 22 and decreases between 60 and 70 ( McCrae and Costa, 1999 ; Roberts and DelVecchio, 2000 ; Specht et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, some studies have shown that trait change can be associated with particular life stages. For example, the findings of Roberts and Mroczek (2008) suggest that young adults tend to exhibit increases in traits that are indicative of greater social maturity. More specifically, in emerging adulthood, the average individual experiences an increase in emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness ( Arnett, 2000 ; Roberts et al., 2006 ; Bleidorn, 2015 ), and self-esteem ( Orth et al., 2018 ), while openness to experience seems to decrease in advancing age ( Roberts et al., 2006 ). Taken together, this comprises evidence that personality develops throughout the lifespan and consequently, several theories have been introduced to explain when and why personality change occurs (e.g., Cattell, 1971 ; Baltes, 1987 ; Caspi and Moffitt, 1993 ; McCrae and Costa, 1999 ; Roberts and Mroczek, 2008 ).

Critical Life Events

Theory and research support the idea that personality can change as a result of intrinsic factors such as genetics and extrinsic factors such as the environment around us ( Bleidorn and Schwaba, 2017 ; Wagner et al., 2020 ). More specifically, there is ample evidence that personality is linked to certain external influences such as critical life events (e.g., Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Bleidorn et al., 2018 ). These can be defined as “transitions that mark the beginning or the end of a specific status” ( Luhmann et al., 2012 ; p. 594) and include leaving the parental home or major changes in one's status such as employment or duty. These transitions often require adaptation processes involving new behavioral, cognitive, or emotional responses ( Hopson and Adams, 1976 ; Luhmann et al., 2012 , 2014 ). Profound adaptations are assumed to have lasting effects, as “life events can modify, interrupt or redirect life trajectories by altering individuals' feelings, thoughts and behaviors” ( Bleidorn et al., 2018 , p. 83). Building upon this assumption, many studies have sought to determine how certain Big Five traits change because of critical life events. For instance, increases in emotional stability were found to result from transitioning into one's first romantic relationship ( Lehnart et al., 2010 ). Emotional stability might also increase in anticipation of gain-based events such as childbirth or paid employment, which, in turn, lead to increases in conscientiousness and openness to experience ( Denissen et al., 2018 ).

In the present study, we focus on two critical life events that are highly relevant for emerging adults: moving away from home and graduating from school. Both events represent a personal development milestone for the transition into adulthood and are typically associated with great educational or occupational challenges ( Arnett, 2000 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Few studies have highlighted these two events and how they influence life trajectories in emerging adulthood. Lüdtke et al. (2011 ) focused on the broader superordinate section of work-related life events and personality change and found that the transition from high school to college, university, or vocational training is associated with substantial normative increases in emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. With regard to graduation from school, Bleidorn (2012) found significant mean-level changes in certain Big Five traits over an observation period of 1 year. Specifically, senior students experienced increases in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness after graduation. In a later review by Bleidorn et al. (2018) , the authors found that graduation constitutes an almost universal life event in Western societies and that related change in adult personality is likely to be observable, because young adulthood is a period in which personality traits have been shown to be most open to change ( Roberts and DelVecchio, 2000 ; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011 ).

There are fewer investigations into the personality effects of moving away from home. Pusch et al. (2018) compared age differences in emerging vs. young adults and found that, among other life events, leaving the parental home did not reveal significant age effects with respect to personality change. However, they found significant age-invariant effects for individuals who left their parental home recently, indicating positive changes in agreeableness. Jonkmann et al. (2014) investigated living arrangements after college with regard to personality differences and found that, for example, the choice of living arrangement (living with roommates vs. living alone) predicted the development of conscientiousness and—to a lesser extent—openness and agreeableness. Similarly, according to a study by Niehoff et al. (2017) , living and studying abroad after college led to increases in extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Interestingly, Specht et al. (2011) found a significant sex effect on leaving the parental home and argued that only women become more emotionally stable when moving. Taken together, this evidence suggests that moving away from home is a major life event that has not yet been deeply investigated but represents a distinct developmental task that has the potential to shape individuals' personalities.

The Perception of Life Events

While these studies provide valuable information about the impact of critical life events, one important issue has been hitherto neglected. Many past studies have focused on life events per se , but comparatively little effort has been made to examine the subjective appraisal of such events and its effect on the processes underlying personality change ( Roberts, 2009 ). Moreover, methodological approaches to life events are sometimes misleading, because the valence of experienced events is rated by either researchers or other people who cannot sufficiently reflect inter- and intra-individual experiences of events ( Headey and Wearing, 1989 ; Kendler et al., 2003 ; Luhmann et al., 2020 ). However, there is ample evidence that people perceive the same event or situation very differently. For example, according to a comprehensive review of person-situation transactions by Rauthmann et al. (2015) , situations can be characterized by their physical (e.g., location, activity, persons) and/or psychological (e.g., task-related, threatening, pleasant) properties. Rauthmann et al. (2015) further state that “situations only have consequences for people's thinking, feeling, desiring, and acting through the psychological processing they receive” (p. 372). Thus, people's individual experiences of psychological situations may deviate from how these situations are experienced by most other people (reality principle). This assumption aligns with the TESSERA framework conceived by Wrzus and Roberts (2017) . According to the authors, events and single situations can trigger expectancies about how to act and adjust in similar situations. These expectancies then determine which state occurs after the corresponding trigger by choosing a response from a variety of possible states ( Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ). Conjointly, two people can perceive the same situation or event very differently, leading to diverse reactions and psychological meanings.

A first step toward this important distinction was proposed by Luhmann et al. (2020) , who aimed to systematically examined the effects of life events on psychological outcomes. To do so, the authors proposed a dimensional taxonomy which that considers nine perceived characteristics of major life events. I this way, the study uniquely emphasizes the difference between assessing the mere occurrence of a critical life event and taking into account subjective appraisal. However, significantly more research is needed to fully explore how this causes lasting personality trait change.

In conclusion, two aspects of person-situation transactions should be highlighted. First, one situation can be interpreted very differently by two individuals. Expectations and individual goals—as well as variable expressions of personality traits—influence the extent to which a situation is perceived as meaningful and, therefore, determine how people approach it ( Bleidorn, 2012 ; Denissen et al., 2013 , 2018 ). Second, this is also true for life events. Two people can reasonably experience the same major life event as completely differently. Therefore, we focus the present study on the valence of two distinct life events and use this characteristic as our central parameter. In particular, in emerging adulthood, individuals might perceive the behavioral expectations and demands associated with a life event as more pressing than others ( Pusch et al., 2018 ). What remains less clear is how situational perceptions affect personality change after a major life event, but with respect to the current string of literature, it seems reductive to only ask if, but not how, critical life events are experienced.

The Moderating Role of Mindset

In the previous section, we examined how diverse critical life events can be perceived. Here, we extend our theoretical approach by focusing on the underlying processes that might account for the different perception and spotlight causes of individual personality trait changes. One construct that is highly relevant to the aforementioned regulatory mechanisms is the individual belief system mindset. According to Dweck (1999) , an individual's mindset refers to the implicit belief about the malleability of personal attributes. Dweck (1999) distinguishes between growth and fixed mindsets. The growth mindset emphasizes the belief that attributes like intelligence and personality are changeable. Conversely, the fixed mindset refers to the belief that such attributes are immutable. According to Dweck (2012) , the individual mindset is not static and can be changed throughout one's life. Actively changing one's mindset toward a growth mindset was found to decrease chronic adolescent aggression, enhance people's willpower, and redirect critical academic outcomes ( Dweck, 2012 ; Yeager et al., 2019 ). Moreover, Blackwell et al. (2007) found that the belief that intelligence is malleable (incremental theory) predicted an upward trajectory in grades over 2 years of junior high school, while the belief that intelligence is fixed (entity theory) predicted a flat trajectory. Yet, according to a meta-analysis from Sisk et al. (2018) , mindset interventions for academic achievement predominately benefitted students with low socioeconomic status or who are at-risk academically. Mindset has also been linked to business-related outcomes (e.g., Kray and Haselhuhn, 2007 ; Heslin and Vandewalle, 2008 ). That is, individuals with a growth mindset tend to use “higher-order” cognitive strategies and adapt to stress more easily ( Heslin and Vandewalle, 2008 ). Likewise, mindset has been linked to health outcomes and even mental illness, with the assumption that a growth mindset buffers against psychological distress and depression (e.g., Biddle et al., 2003 ; Burnette and Finkel, 2012 ; Schroder et al., 2017 ). Therefore, a growth mindset can be considered a predictor of psychological resilience ( Saeed et al., 2018 ).

With regard to changes in personality traits, the findings have been mixed. Hudson et al. (2020) investigated college students' beliefs by adapting a personality measure into a mindset measure and administering it within a longitudinal study. They found that the mere belief that personality is malleable (or not) did not affect trait changes. However, in her Unified Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development, Dweck (2017) suggests that basic needs, mental representations (e.g., beliefs and emotions), and action tendencies (referred to as BEATs) contribute to personality development. Dweck further argues that mental representations shape motivation by informing goal selection and subsequently form personality traits by creating recurring experiences ( Dweck, 2017 ). Thus, there might be more information about indicators such as the integration of mindset, motivation, and environmental influences necessary to understand how personality traits change according to belief systems.

In summary, there is evidence that a belief in the malleability of global attributes allows individuals to adapt to life circumstances in a goal-directed way and that individuals' mindsets determine responses to challenges ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Building upon the existing literature around environmental influences on personality traits and the diverse effects of mindset, we argue that after experiencing a critical life event, individuals with a growth mindset will adapt to a new situation more easily and accordingly exhibit greater change in relating personality traits. In contrast, individuals with a fixed mindset might react in a more rigid way to unknown circumstances and thus don't experience the need adapt, resulting in no personality trait change.

The Present Study

This study aims to contribute to the literature around external and internal influences on personality development in emerging adulthood by analyzing changes in the Big Five, the influences of the occurrence of life events per se vs. their subjective perception, and the possible moderating effects of mindset in a longitudinal study with a large sample. Most prior studies have focused on personality development in adulthood (e.g., Roberts and Jackson, 2008 ; Lucas and Donnellan, 2011 ; Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ; Damian et al., 2018 ; Denissen et al., 2018 ), but emerging adulthood is marked by tremendous changes; thus, we focus our analyses on this period. According to Arnett (2000 , 2007) , emerging adulthood is considered a distinct stage between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood. This is seen as a critical life period because it is characterized by more transformation, exploration, and personality formation than any other life stage in adulthood ( Arnett, 2000 ; Ziegler et al., 2015 ; Bleidorn and Schwaba, 2017 ). With regard to beliefs systems, Yeager et al. (2019) argue that beliefs that affect how, for example, students make sense of ongoing challenges are most important and salient during high-stakes developmental turning points such as pubertal maturation. For this reason, it is particularly compelling to investigate environmental influences such as major life events that shape the trajectory of personality trait change in emerging adulthood.

To do so, we examined whether two major critical life events (graduating from school and moving away from home) affect personality development. We chose these two major life events because they are uniquely related to emerging adulthood and because existing research has found mixed results regarding their influence on personality trait change (e.g., Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Specht et al., 2011 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Based on prior findings, we constructed three hypotheses. First, we expect that an increase in personality trait change will occur in individuals who graduate from school/move away from home but not in those who did not experience such events. Second, subjective perceptions of the two critical life events will influence personality trait changes in the Big Five. Third, we look at the underlying processes that influence personality and argue, that mindset will moderate the impact of the two stated life events/perception of life events on personality trait change.

Sample and Procedure

For this study, we created the German Personality Panel (GEPP) by collecting data from a large German sample in cooperation with a non-profit online survey provided by berufsprofiling.de . This organization assists emerging adults by providing job opportunities and post-graduation academic pathways. After completing the questionnaire, participants received feedback and vocational guidance. In 2016 and 2017, a total of 11,816 individuals between 13 and 30 years old ( M = 17.72 years; SD = 3.22, 50.71% female) took this survey. We used this first round of data-gathering as our longitudinal measurement occasion T1. If participants consented to be contacted again, we reached out via email in October 2018 to request their participation in a second survey. A total of 1,679 individuals between 14 and 26 years old ( M = 17.39, SD = 2.37, 64.82% female) agreed to participate and filled in a second online survey (second measurement occasion of GEPP, T2). The test battery at T2 took approximately 30–40 min, and we provided personalized feedback on personality development, as well as a monetary compensation, to all participants.

Because we were interested in emerging adults who were about to graduate from school?and thus found themselves in a critical time period?we excluded all participants older than 21 at T2. On the other hand, we included 14-year-old participants because they could have entered school in Germany at the age of five and thus graduated from secondary school and/or moved away from home by this age. At T2, 12% had not yet finished school, 32% held a secondary school certificate, and 57% held a university entrance diploma.

To further improve data quality, we obtained an indicator for careless responding by asking about self-reported diligence (“Did you work conscientiously on the test?”). Participants were informed that their answer had no impact on their compensation. At T2, 41 (3%) participants answered “No.” After excluding participants meeting this criterion, a sample of n = 1,243, aged 14–21 years ( M = 16.92, SD = 1.75, 67.23% women), remained for subsequent data analyses. All data and further materials are available via osf ( https://osf.io/xc6d4/?view_only=5b913c97553d48a290b75a3f725aca3d ).

Sample Attrition

Numerous email accounts were invalid at the second measurement point—for example, because students' personalized school email accounts were deleted following their graduation or because certain institutions used only a single email account to offer vocational counseling to college students ( N = 3,495). Those who did not participate at the second measurement point (dropouts) were slightly younger than those who participated (continuers) [ M (ageD) = 17.39; M (ageC) = 17.76; p ≤ 0.000, d = −0.12] and more women filled in the second questionnaire (dropouts = 50.9% women, continuers = 64.8% women; p ≤ 0.000, d = 0.31). Only modest selectivity effects (measured by Cohen's d ) in terms of mean differences in personality traits between dropouts and continuers were found at T1; thus, there was negligible systematic attrition ( Specht et al., 2011 ; Pusch et al., 2018 ). Continuers had slightly higher scores in agreeableness ( d = 0.17), conscientiousness ( d = 0.19), and openness ( d = 0.16) than dropouts, but they almost identical in terms of extraversion ( d = −0.08) and emotional stability ( d = 0.01).

Personality

Personality traits were assessed on both measurement occasions using a short version of the Big Five personality inventory for the vocational context (TAKE5; S&F Personalpsychologie Managementberatung GmbH, 2005 ). The TAKE5 has been shown to be a highly reliable and valid personality measure ( Mussel, 2012 ). In the short version of the test, each of the Big Five subscales (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability) consists of three items and was measured on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ). Example items for conscientiousness include (translated from German): “Nothing can stop me from completing an important task,” “People around me know me as a perfectionist,” and “My work is always carried out the highest quality standards.” Items were selected to cover the different aspects of each domain therefore internal consistencies provide no valuable indicator. Test-retest reliabilities for the TAKE5 between T1 and T2 were 0.69 for extraversion, 0.52 for openness to experience, 0.57 for conscientiousness, 0.58 for agreeableness, and 0.50 for emotional stability. Small to moderate reliability levels can be explained by the heterogeneity of the items and our attempt to capture rather broad personality constructs. Similar results have been reported for other brief personality scales ( Donnellan et al., 2006 ; Rammstedt et al., 2016 ). All descriptive statistics and correlations can be found in Table 1 , and bivariate correlations of all items can be found at osf ( https://osf.io/xc6d4/?view_only=5b913c97553d48a290b75a3f725aca3d ).

Table 1 . Correlations and descriptive statistics among variables.

Life Events

In the present study, we focus on two major life events that are highly characteristic of the critical period between the late teens and young adulthood ( Arnett, 2000 ; Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Bleidorn, 2012 ): moving away from home and graduating from school. At T2, after completing the personality questionnaire, participants rated their subjective perception of each of the two life events on a dimensional 7-point Likert scale (1 = very negatively , 7 = very positively ). Of the initial sample, 68.38% of the participants had graduated from school, 47.66% had moved away from home, and 46.96% had experienced both life events. Participants who had graduated from school were older ( M = 17.32 years, SD = 1.84, female = 68.80%) compared to those who had not yet finished school ( M = 15.30 years, SD = 1.09, female = 68.21%). Those who had moved away from home were approximately 1 year older ( M = 17.53, SD = 1.89, female = 69.30%) compared to those did not yet moved away ( M = 16.29, SD =1.69, female = 66.91%). To avoid potential confounding effects, we only asked about events that had happened within the past year (after the first measurement occasion). This allowed us to account for experiences that took place before T1.

In the second step, in order to obtain a fuller picture, participants also had the option of rating an additional significant life event from a list of 18 potential life events from various domains—such as love and health—based on the Munich Life Event List (MEL; Maier-Diewald et al., 1983 ). However, the number of individuals who experienced these other life events was too small to allow for further analyses.

Participants' mindset was measured with a questionnaire based on Dweck's Mindset Instrument (DMI). The 16-item DMI was developed and created by Dweck (1999) and is used examine how students view their own personality and intelligence. In the current study, only items concerning beliefs about the malleability of personality were used. The mindset inventory items were “Personality traits are something a person cannot change,” “You have a certain personality and you really can't do much to change it,” and “You can learn new things, but you can't really change your basic personality.” At T2, participants were presented a 7-point response scale, ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ) ( M = 3.60, SD = 1.45). Items were reversed such that higher levels indicated a growth mindset. This short inventory was found to be highly reliable ( M = 3.60, SD = 1.45, ω = 0.81, 95% CI [0.70, 0.84]).

Statistical Analyses

Analyses were carried out in four steps. First, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses to test for measurement invariance across time points T1 and T2. Second, we constructed latent difference score models for all Big Five scales to test for mean differences in personality traits. Third, we investigated the impact of the life events moving away from home and graduating from school, as well as the perception of these two events on changes in the Big Five. Fourth, we added mindset as a moderator to the model. All statistical analyses were carried out in R and R Studio 1.2.1335 ( R Core Team, 2018 ).

Measurement invariance

To ensure that the same construct was being measured across time, we first tested for measurement invariance. For weak measurement invariance, we fixed the factor loadings for each indicator to be equal across measurement occasions and compared this model to the configural model, where no restrictions were applied. The same procedure was followed to assess strong measurement invariance, with the weak invariant model compared to a model with constrained intercepts to equality across time (e.g., the same intercept for Item 2 at T1 and Item 2 at T2) ( Newsom, 2015 ). To evaluate the model fit, comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) were inspected. Good fit was considered to be indicated when CFI and TLI values were 0.90 or higher, RMSEA below 0.08, and SRMR values below 0.05 ( Hu and Bentler, 1999 ; Marsh et al., 2005 ). The configural model showed good fit for all of the Big Five traits (All χ 2 [4 24], df = 5, CFI > [0.98 1.00], TLI > [0.94 1.00], RMSEA < [0.0 0.06], SRMR < [0.0 0.02]). Model fit for partial strong measurement invariance revealed similar fit (all χ 2 [9 50], df = 8, CFI > [0.96 1.00], TLI > [0.92 1.00], RMSEA < [0.01 0.07], SRMR < [0.01 0.03]) when freely estimating the intercept of the first manifest OCEAN item ( Cheung and Rensvold, 2002 ; Little et al., 2007 ). All further analyses are based on this model and full results for fit indices are presented in Table S1 .

Latent Change Score Models

To test for changes in personality over time, we applied latent structural equation modeling analysis with the R package lavaan (version 0.5-23.1097; Rosseel, 2012 ). Required sample size for the specified latent change score model was estimated by the R-toolbox semTools ( MacCallum et al., 2006 ; Jorgensen et al., 2018 ) for RMSEA = 0.05, df = 16, α = 0.05, and a statistical power of 90% to N = 672 individuals. Therefore, we consider our sample size to be sufficiently large.

As we were first interested in the rate of change, we built a multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model for each of the Big Five domains ( Figure 1 ). Each latent construct of interest (OCEAN) consisted of three observed measures (X1, X2, and X3) at two waves. Equality constraints were imposed on factor loadings and intercepts ( Newsom, 2015 ). Moreover, the autoregressive path was set equal to 1. The means, intercepts, and covariances at the first occasion and for the difference score factor were freely estimated, and all measurement residuals were allowed to correlate among the sets of repeated measurements ( McArdle et al., 2002 ). We accounted for missing data by applying robust maximum likelihood estimation. Finally, after specifying this basic model, the variables of interest—the occurrence of the life event, perception of the life event, and the moderator mindset—were added to the model.

Figure 1 . Schematic model of the multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model. The latent construct of interest (each personality trait) was measured at two time points (T1 and T2), using three indicators each time (X1, X2, X3). The lower part of the model constitutes the assessment of measurement invariance. “Δ latent change” captures change from the Big Five trait from T1 to T2. Latent regressions from “Δ latent change” on Mod→ Δ reflect the influence of the covariate perception of life event or the moderator mindset on the development of the Big Five. Straight arrows depict loadings and regression coefficients, curved arrows co-variances.

Standardized mean differences were calculated as an average of all intra-individual increases and decreases in a given personality trait over time. As illustrated in Figure 2 , all latent mean scores for the Big Five increased from T1 to T2. Conscientiousness and openness to experience exhibited the largest mean-level changes from T1 to T2, whereas agreeableness ( d = 0.02) and emotional stability ( d = 0.07) remained nearly the same. To test for changes in personality, we employed a multiple-indicator univariate latent change score model. Separate models for each of the Big Five all fit the data well (all CFI > 0.95, TLI > 0.93, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.04). Inspecting the intercepts of the change factors revealed that all Big Five scores changed between T1 and T2, with less increase among individuals with high compared to low levels at T1. The latent means for each personality dimension at each time point, along with their fit indices, are reported in Table 2 .

Figure 2 . Mean-level changes in Big Five dimensions over measurement occasions T1 and T2.

Table 2 . Big Five mean-level change from T1 to T2 with fit indices, n = 1,243.

Life Events and Perception of Life Events

To assess personality trait change resulting from experiencing a life event, we included a standardized dichotomized variable “experiencing the life event vs. not” into the model. Again, the model fit the data well for both critical life events (all CFI > 0.94, TLI > 0.92, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.04). However, comparing participants who had experienced one of the critical life events (moving away from home or graduating from school) to those who had not revealed that neither life event had a significant impact on changes in personality traits between T1 and T2 ( p >0.05).

To assess personality trait change resulting from perception of a life event, we included the standardized variable “perception of the life event” for each of the two events into the model and regressed the latent change score on the covariate. This time, results regarding the subjective perception of the life event graduating from school indicated a significant impact on personality change for emotional stability (χ 2 [16] = 94.07, CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.05, λ = 0.05, p [λ] < 0.05). Specifically, participants who had experienced graduating from school more negatively exhibited a diminished increase in emotional stability than compared to individuals who had experienced graduating from school more positively. We also found evidence that subjective perceptions are relevant for extraversion. A greater positive change in extraversion was observed when participants experienced graduating from school more positively than compared to negatively (χ 2 [16] = 23.90, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.02, SRMR = 0.03, λ = 0.10, p [λ] = 0.05). Subjective perceptions moving away from home had no impact on trait changes in any of the Big Five traits. Descriptive statistics for the life events along with model fit indices can be found in Table S2 .

To test for a moderating role of mindset, an interaction term between mindset and each of the two critical life events was constructed. First, we built an interaction term between mindset and the dichotomous variable “experienced the life event” and regressed the latent change factor on the interaction term. Separate models for each of the Big Five all fit the data well (all CFI > 0.94, TLI > 0.92, RMSEA < 0.05, SRMR < 0.05). As shown in Table S3 , no effects for the Big Five traits were significant for the distinction between experienced the life event vs. did not experience the life event ( p > 0.05). Second, for each of the two life events an interaction term between mindset and perception of the life event was built analogously. For extraversion, we found a significant influence of the moderator when assessing the perception of graduating from school (χ 2 [16] = 25.62, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.03, SRMR = 0.03, λ = −0.09, p [λ] = 0.05). Hence, a fixed mindset indicates less change in extraversion when experiencing the critical life event graduation from school. More specifically, regarding manifest means of extraversion, participants with a growth mindset experienced almost the same amount of increase in extraversion over time, regardless of their perception (positive or negative) of the critical life event. On the other hand, participants with a fixed mindset only show an increase in extraversion when they experienced the life event more positively (see Figure 3 ). No effects for the interaction between mindset and the critical life event moving away from home were significant.

Figure 3 . Change in trait extraversion for people with a fixed vs. growth mindset with regard to the perception of life event graduation from school .

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of external sources such as life events and internal dispositions like the mindset on personality trait change. We assert that exploring whether the subjective experience of life events is associated with personality trait development constitutes an important future directions in various domains of personality research. Therefore, we took a closer look at the underlying processes, particularly as they relate to individual differences in situational perceptions and belief systems. We investigated how two critical life events (moving away from home and graduating from school) influence personality trait change, the role of subjective perceptions of these events, and how internal belief systems like mindset moderate the impact of life events on trait change.

Mean-Level Change

Since our sample was selected to be between 14 and 21 years of age, most of our participants were classified as emerging adults Arnett, 2000 , 2007 . A large body of research has consistently demonstrated that emerging adulthood is characterized by trait changes related to maturity processes (for an overview, see Roberts et al., 2006 ). Thus, emerging adults tend to experience increases in conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, and (to a lesser degree) agreeableness. This pattern is often called the “maturity principle” of personality development, and it has been found to hold true cross-culturally ( Roberts and Jackson, 2008 ; Bleidorn, 2015 ). Although the effects were small, we found evidence for mean-level changes in line with the maturity principle and functional personality trait development. Extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability significantly increased over the 1-year period. The largest changes were found for openness and conscientiousness. These changes are most likely to be explained by attempts to satisfy mature expectations and engage in role-congruent behavior. While increases in openness might be due to identity exploration, higher scores on conscientiousness could reflect investment in age-related roles. Individuals might, for instance, take increased responsibility for social or career-related tasks that require more mature functioning ( Arnett, 2000 , 2007 ).

First, we analyzed whether the occurrence of a life event per se had an influence on personality trait change. In our study, neither of the critical life events?moving away from home or graduating from school?affected Big Five trait change over the two measurement occasions. One possible explanation is that the two chosen life events were not prominent enough to evoke far-reaching changes in personality traits ( Magnus et al., 1993 ; Löckenhoff et al., 2009 ). In line with a study by Löckenhoff et al. (2009 ), more stressful, adverse events might have triggered more pronounced and predictable effects on personality traits. Moreover, the period between the late teens and early adulthood is characterized by a large number of stressful events and daily hassles ( Arnett, 2000 , 2007 ). In a comprehensive review of emerging adulthood by Bleidorn and Schwaba (2017) , graduates also experienced changes in other personality traits, such as openness and emotional stability, which suggests that many developmental tasks and major life transitions contribute to changes in Big Five trait domains. Furthermore, according to Luhmann et al. (2014) and Yeager et al. (2019) , life events may not only independently influence the development of personality characteristics, they might also interact with one another. Researchers must address the interpretation of other challenges that adolescents experience. This notion is also supported in a study by Wagner et al. (2020) , who introduced a model that integrates factors that are both personal (e.g., genetic expressions) and environmental (e.g., culture and society). The authors assert that the interactions and transactions of multiple sources are responsible for shaping individuals' personalities, and, in order to understand how they interact and develop over time, more integrated research is needed. Future studies should focus on a wider range of important life events and environmental influences during emerging adulthood and account for possible accumulating effects.

Second, and perhaps most remarkably, our findings revealed a different picture after we analyzed how the two critical life events were perceived. When participants experienced graduating from school negatively, a greater decrease in emotional stability was observed. Conversely, when the event was evaluated positively, a greater positive change in extraversion was reported. There are clear theoretical links between these two traits and the perception of life events in terms of emotional valence. While low emotional stability encompasses a disposition to experience negative emotions such as fear, shame, embarrassment, or sadness (especially in stressful situations), extraverted individuals are characterized by attributes such as cheerfulness, happiness, and serenity ( Goldberg, 1990 ; Depue and Collins, 1999 ). In line with the notion of a bottom-up process of personality development ( Roberts et al., 2005 ), experiencing a major life event as either positive or negative might lead to a prolonged experience of these emotions and, thus, ultimately to altered levels of the corresponding personality traits. These findings are in line with previous research on subjective well-being (SWB). In fact, variance in SWB can be explained by emotional stability and extraversion, indicating a robust negative relationship between low emotional stability and SWB and a positive relationship between extraversion and SWB ( Costa and McCrae, 1980 ; Headey and Wearing, 1989 ). Moreover, Magnus et al. (1993) found selection effects for these traits, suggesting that high scorers in extraversion experience more subjectively positive events, and low scorers in emotional stability experience many (subjectively) negative events (see also Headey and Wearing, 1989 ).

In the present study, we found evidence of a moderating influence of mindset on the impact of the life event graduating from school for the trait extraversion. Our results indicate that people with a growth mindset show greater change in extraversion, almost regardless of whether they experienced the life event more negatively or more positively. On the other hand, the present results indicate that people with a fixed mindset show an increase in extraversion after experiencing a life event more positively, but almost no change in extraversion when experiencing graduating from school negatively.

Interestingly, we only found effects for extraversion. As previously mentioned, trait extraversion stands for behavioral attributes such as how outgoing and social a person is, and this is related to differences in perceived positive affect ( Goldberg, 1990 ; Magnus et al., 1993 ; Roberts et al., 2005 ). The characteristics of extraversion can be linked to the assumption that people with a growth mindset show greater resilience ( Schroder et al., 2017 ; Yeager et al., 2019 ), especially in the face of academic and social challenges ( Yeager and Dweck, 2012 ). Thus, people who believe that their internal attributes are malleable confront challenges such as graduation by adapting and learning from them; our findings suggest that this results in an increase in extraversion. By contrast, people who believe that they cannot change their personality characteristics might attribute a negatively experienced graduation to external circumstances out of their control. Thus, they do not rise from a negative life event and experience no impetus to become more extraverted.

The above notwithstanding, more research is needed, as we found no evidence for the other Big Five personality traits. Further, the relationship between mindset and personality is complex to disentangle. We examined only two major life events in this first attempt. More attention is needed with respect to other life events and their interplay with internal belief systems and implicit theories to explore possible far-reaching effects on behavior.

In summary, the present study makes an important contribution to the literature on personality development in emerging adulthood with a special focus on external and internal influences and the assessment of critical life events. Our findings support the notion of a dimensional approach to life events, as introduced by Luhmann et al. (2020) , in contrast to a typological approach. With regard to research on situational perception, it seems reductive to examine the occurrence of certain life events rather than their subjective perceptions. As previously mentioned, many studies emphasize that (1) events and single situations can trigger expectancies about how to act and adjust in similar situations (TESSERA framework, Wrzus and Roberts, 2017 ); (2) psychological situations and person-situation transactions deviate from one another ( Rauthmann et al., 2015 ); and (3) regulatory mechanisms influence the variability in individual personality trait change ( Denissen et al., 2013 ).

Again, further research is needed to explore the underlying processes behind critical life events and their impact on personality trait changes. In doing so, great care should be taken in selecting life events with a strong social and emotional component with respect to individual perceptions. Finally, there is also a need for more research into the selection of life events being assessed with regard to their interplay.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our research demonstrates the importance of examining the underlying processes behind personality changes that arise from external influences such as life events. One of the strengths of this study was our large sample, which comprised N = 1,679 German emerging adults and allowed us to use powerful statistical methods. One limitation was that we gathered data across a 1-year time interval with only two measurement occasions. As noted by Luhmann et al. (2014) , the inclusion of more than two measurement points makes it easier to distinguish between sudden short- or long-term shifts and more gradual linear changes. With this in mind, it is possible that critical life events correlate with temporary disruptions of personality maturation; tracing the impact of a single life event on personality trait change might not be as straightforward as is often assumed. Moreover, two measurement occasions can only reveal the immediate effect of life events on personality traits and may, therefore, neglect long-term effects that become salient after more time has passed. Future studies should also incorporate more characteristics of life events. We concentrated our study on the valence of critical life events, but other features—such as impact, challenge, and predictability—could reveal a more comprehensive picture ( Luhmann et al., 2020 ).

Another limitation of the present study is that all our data relied on self-report personality measures. Even though almost all research on personality change is based on self-report measures, the influence of (for example) self-concepts cannot be neglected. Self-reported data might thus depart from other types of data in terms of differential stability, for example ( Wagner et al., 2020 ). Hence, changes in the Big Five domains might reflect subjective rather than observable changes in personality. At the same time, we believe that our approach of assessing personality traits and the perception of life events gives valuable insights into personality development, since we focused on how individuals consciously understand their experiences. Nevertheless, it would be informative to compare both approaches (observer and self-reported data) to examine how they complement one another (see also: Bleidorn et al., 2020 ).

Yet another important issue that must be mentioned are our attrition effects. As previously stated, the data for the first measurement occasion was gathered through a non-profit self-assessment test intended to help students explore post-graduation occupational opportunities. Hence, our sample might be prone to selection effects and confounding preexisting differences: only emerging adults who were concerned about their future might have taken the test in the first place. The self-selection to voluntarily participate in a research study might also explain the higher percentage of female participants. Moreover, some of the Big Five traits from T2 dropouts were correlated with T1 personality traits. Therefore, our results should be interpreted with caution; participants with low conscientiousness, for example, might have been more likely to drop out or have been excluded from our study due to the diligence check, and thus conscientiousness could have risen over the study period because the sample composition shifted between T1 and T2. Nevertheless, the noted differential attrition effects were rather small and reflect only modest selectivity (see also Lüdtke et al., 2011 ; Specht et al., 2011 ).

Finally, we did not examine cultural differences. With our German sample, we only investigated patterns in a modern Western industrialized country. Hence, we did not control for different cultural and demographic backgrounds, and our results might thus not be applicable to a broader range of individuals.

The present research improves our understanding of personality trait development during the critical period of emerging adulthood and demonstrates the importance of examining the underlying processes behind personality changes that arise from external influences such as life events. We showed how two critical life events can shape and adjust life trajectories, which is a necessary step toward gaining a comprehensive picture of the underlying processes of personality trait change across the life course. In addition to changes in the operationalization of life event research, larger and more diverse samples over more measurement occasions are needed to further explore how individual perceptions and internal belief systems influence our personality during and after experiencing critical life events.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: All data, further materials, and items are available via OSF at: https://osf.io/xc6d4/ .

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the ethic commission of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

JHDV and PM designed the study and formulated the hypotheses. MS and AF provided the testing platform and set up the test battery. JHDV, MS, and AF were responsible for recruiting the sample and administrating the panel. JHDV and PM conducted the data analysis. JHDV designed the figures and drafted the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

This work was funded by a research grant to Professor Patrick Mussel by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany (Mu3045/6-1).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671421/full#supplementary-material

Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: a theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. Am. Psychol . 55, 469–480. doi: 10.1037//0003-066X.55.5.469

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Arnett, J. J. (2007). Emerging adulthood: what is it, and what is it good for? Child Dev. Perspect. 1, 68–73. doi: 10.1111/j.17508606.2007.00016

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life span develop-mental psychology: on the dynamics between growth and decline. Dev. Psychol. 23, 611–626.

Google Scholar

Biddle, S. J. H., Wang, J., Chatzisarantis, N., and Spray, C. M. (2003). Motivation for physical activity in young people: entity and incremental beliefs about athletic ability. J. Sports Sci. 21, 973–989. doi: 10.1080/02640410310001641377

Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., and Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Dev. 78, 246–263. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.00995.x

Bleidorn, W. (2012). Hitting the road to adulthood: short-term personality development during a major life transition. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 38, 1594–1608. doi: 10.1177/0146167212456707

Bleidorn, W. (2015). What accounts for personality maturation in early adulthood? Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 24, 245–252. doi: 10.1177/0963721414568662

Bleidorn, W., Hill, P. L., Back, M. D., Denissen, J. J. A., Hennecke, M., Hopwood, C. J., et al. (2020). Why stop at two opinions? Reply to McCrae (2020). Am. Psychol . 75, 731–732. doi: 10.1037/amp0000676

Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., and Lucas, R. E. (2018). Life events and personality trait Change. J. Pers. 86, 83–96. doi: 10.1111/jopy.12286

Bleidorn, W., and Schwaba, T. (2017). “Personality development in emerging adulthood,” in Personality Development Across The Lifespan , ed J. Specht (Elsevier Academic Press), 39–51. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-804674-6.00004-1

Burnette, J. L., and Finkel, E. J. (2012). Buffering against weight gain following dieting setbacks: an implicit theory intervention. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 48, 721–725. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.020

Caspi, A., and Moffitt, T. (1993). When do individual differences matter? A paradoxical theory of personality coherence. Psychol. Inq. 4, 247–271. doi: 10.1207/s15327965pli0404_1

Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their Structure Growth and Action . Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.

Cheung, G. W., and Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Struct. Equat. Model. Multidiscipl. J. 9, 233–255. doi: 10.1207/S15328007sem0902_5

Costa, P. T., and McCrae, R. R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: happy and unhappy people. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 38, 668–678. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.38.4.668

Damian, R. I., Spengler, M., Sutu, A., and Roberts, B. W. (2018). Sixteen going on sixty- six: a longitudinal study of personality stability and change across 50 years. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol . 117, 674–695. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000210

Denissen, J. J. A., Luhmann, M., Chung, J. M., and Bleidorn, W. (2018). Transactions between life events and personality traits across the adult lifespan. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol . 116, 612–633. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000196

Denissen, J. J. A., van Aken, M. A., Penke, L., and Wood, D. (2013). Self-regulation underlies temperament and personality: an integrative developmental framework. Child Dev. Perspect. 7, 255–260. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12050

Depue, R. A., and Collins, P. F. (1999). Neurobiology of the structure of personality: dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation, and extraversion. Behav. Brain Sci. 22, 491–569. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X99002046

Donnellan, M., Oswald, F., Baird, B., and Lucas, R. (2006). The mini-IPIP scales: tiny-yet-effective measures of the big five factors of personality. Psychol. Assess. 18, 192–203. doi: 10.1037/1040-3590.18.2.192

Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development . Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets and human nature : promoting change in the Middle East, the schoolyard, the racial divide, and willpower. Am. Psychol. 67, 614–622. doi: 10.1037/a0029783

Dweck, C. S. (2017). From needs to goals and representations: foundations for a unified theory of motivation, personality, and development. Psychol. Rev. 124, 689–719. doi: 10.1037/rev0000082

Dweck, C. S., and Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychol. Rev. 95, 256–273. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.95.2.256

Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: the Big-Five factor structure. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 59, 1216–1229. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216

Headey, B., and Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: toward a dynamic equilibrium model. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 57, 731–739

Heslin, P., and Vandewalle, D. (2008). Managers' implicit assumptions about personnel. Curr. Direct. Psychol. Sci. 17, 219–223. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00578.x

Hopson, B., and Adams, J. (1976). “Towards an understanding of transition: defining some boundaries of transition dynamics,” in Transition: Understanding and Managing Personal Change , eds J. Adams, J. Hayes, and B. Hopson (London: Martin Robertson), 3–25.

Hu, L., and Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Struct. Equat. Model. 6, 1–55. doi: 10.1080/10705519909540118

Hudson, N. W., Fraley, R. C., Briley, D. A., and Chopik, W. J. (2020). Your personality does not care whether you believe it can change: beliefs about whether personality can change do not predict trait change among emerging adults. Euro. J. Pers. 35, 340–357. doi: 10.1002/per.2289

Johnson, J. (1997). “Units of analysis for the description and explanation of personality,” in Handbook of Personality Psychology , eds R. Hogan and S. Briggs (San Diego, CA: Academic Press), 73–93. doi: 10.1016/B978-012134645-4/50004-4

Jonkmann, K., Thoemmes, F., Lüdtke, O., and Trautwein, U. (2014). Personality traits and living arrangements in young adulthood, selection and socialization. Dev. Psychol. 50, 683–698. doi: 10.1037/a0034239

Jorgensen, T. D., Pornprasertmanit, S., Schoemann, A. M., and Rosseel, Y. (2018). semTools: Useful Tools for Structural Equation Modeling. R Package Version 0.5-1 . Available online at: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=semTools

Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C. O., and Prescott, C. A. (2003). Personality and the experience of environmental adversity. Psychol. Med. 33, 1193–1202. doi: 10.1017/s0033291703008298

Kray, L. J., and Haselhuhn, M. P. (2007). Implicit negotiation beliefs and performance: experimental and longitudinal evidence. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 93, 49–64. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.49

Lehnart, J., Neyer, F. J., and Eccles, J. (2010). Long-term effects of social investment: the case of partnering in young adulthood. J. Pers. 78, 639–670. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00629.x

Little, T., Preacher, K., Selig, J. P., and Card, N. A. (2007). New developments in latent variable panel analyses of longitudinal data. Int. J. Behav. Dev. 31, 357–365. doi: 10.1177/0165025407077757

Löckenhoff, C., Terracciano, A., Patriciu, N., Eaton, W., and Costa, P. (2009). Self-reported extremely adverse life events and longitudinal changes in five-factor model personality traits in an urban sample. J. Trauma. Stress 22, 53–59. doi: 10.1002/jts.20385

Lucas, R. E., and Donnellan, M. B. (2011). Personality development across the life span: longitudinal analyses with a national sample from Germany. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 101, 847–861. doi: 10.1037/a0024298

Lüdtke, O., Roberts, B. W., Trautwein, U., and Nagy, G. (2011). A random walk down university avenue: life paths, life events, and personality trait change at the transition to university life. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 101, 620–637. doi: 10.1037/a0023743

Luhmann, M., Fassbender, I., Alcock, M., and Haehner, P. (2020). A dimensional taxonomyof perceived characteristics of major life events. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol . doi: 10.1037/pspp0000291

Luhmann, M., Hofmann, W., Eid, M., and Lucas, R. E. (2012). Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: a meta-analysis. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 102, 592–615. doi: 10.1037/a0025948

Luhmann, M., Orth, U., Specht, J., Kandler, C., and Lucas, R. E. (2014). Studying changes in life circumstances and personality: it's about time. Eur. J. Pers. 28, 256–266. doi: 10.1002/per.1951

MacCallum, R. C., Browne, M. W., and Cai, L. (2006). Testing differences between nested covariance structure models: power analysis and null hypotheses. Psychol. Methods 11, 19–35. doi: 10.1037/1082-989X.11.1.19

Magnus, K., Diener, E., Fujita, F., and Pavot, W. (1993). Extraversion and neuroticism as predictors of objective life events: a longitudinal analysis. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 65, 1046–1053. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.65.5.1046

Maier-Diewald, W., Wittchen, H.-U., Hecht, H., and Werner-Eilert, K. (1983). Die Münchner Ereignisliste (MEL) - Anwendungsmanual . München: Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie, Klinische Psychologie und Epidemiologie.

Marsh, H. W., Hau, K.-T., and Grayson, D. (2005). “Goodness of fit in structural equation models,” in Multivariate Applications Book Series. Contemporary Psychometrics: A Festschrift for Roderick P. McDonald , eds A. Maydeu-Olivares and J. J. McArdle (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers), 275–340.

McArdle, J. J., Ferrer-Caja, E., Hamagami, F., and Woodcock, R. W. (2002). Comparative longitudinal structural analyses of the growth and decline of multiple intellectual abilities over the life span. Dev. Psychol. 38, 115–142. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.38.1.115

McCrae, R. R., and Costa, P. T. Jr. (1999). “A Five-Factor theory of personality,” in Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research , eds L. A. Pervin and O. P. John (New York, NY: Guilford Press), 139–153.

Mussel, P. (2012). Introducing the construct curiosity for predicting job performance. J. Organ. Behav. 34, 453–472. doi: 10.1002/job.1809

Newsom, J. T. (2015). Multivariate Applications Series. Longitudinal Structural Equation Modeling: A Comprehensive Introduction . New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.

Niehoff, E., Petersdotter, L., and Freund, P. A. (2017). International sojourn experience and personality development: selection and socialization effects of studying abroad and the Big Five. Pers. Individ. Dif. 112, 55–61. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2017.02.043

Orth, U., Erol, R. Y., and Luciano, E. C. (2018). Development of self-esteem from age 4 to 94 years: a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol. Bull. 144, 1045–1080. doi: 10.1037/bul0000161

Pusch, S., Mund, M., Hagemeyer, B., Finn, C., and Wrzus, C. (2018). Personality development in emerging and young adulthood: a study of age differences. Eur. J. Pers. 33, 245–263. doi: 10.1002/per.2181

R Core Team (2018) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing . Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available online at: https://www.R-project.org

Rammstedt, B., Danner, D., and Martin, S. (2016). The association between personality and cognitive ability: going beyond simple effects. J. Res. Pers. 62, 39–44. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2016.03.005

Rauthmann, J. F., Sherman, R. A., and Funder, D. C. (2015). Principles of situation research: towards a better understanding of psychological situations. Eur. J. Pers. 29, 363–381. doi: 10.1002/per.1994

Roberts, B. W. (2009). Back to the future: personality and assessment and personality development. J. Res. Pers. 43, 137–145. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.015

Roberts, B. W., and DelVecchio, W. F. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: a quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychol. Bull. 126, 3–25. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.126.1.3

Roberts, B. W., and Jackson, J. J. (2008). Sociogenomic personality psychology. J. Pers. 76, 1523–1544. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00530.x

Roberts, B. W., and Mroczek, D. (2008). Personality trait change in adulthood. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 17, 31–35. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00543.x

Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., and Viechtbauer, W. (2006). Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: a meta- analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol. Bull. 132, 1–25. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1

Roberts, B. W., Wood, D., and Smith, J. L. (2005). Evaluating five factor theory and social investment perspectives on personality trait development. J. Res. Pers. 39, 166–184. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2004.08.002

Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: an R package for structural equation modeling. J. Stat. Softw. 48, 1–36. doi: 10.18637/jss.v048.i02

S&F Personalpsychologie Managementberatung GmbH (2005). TakeFive . Unpublished test.

Saeed, G., Oshio, A., Taku, K., and Hirano, M. (2018). Resilience and big five personality traits: a meta-analysis. Pers. Individ. Dif. 127, 54–60. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2018.01.048

Schroder, H. S., Yalch, M. M., Dawood, S., Callahan, C. P., Donnellan, M. B., and Moser, J. S. (2017). Growth mindset of anxiety buffers the link between stressful life events and psychological distress and coping strategies. Pers. Individ. Dif. 110, 23–36. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2017.01.016

Sisk, V. F., Burgoyne, A. P., Sun, J., Butler, J. L., and Macnamara, B. N. (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth mind-sets important to academic achievement? Two meta-analyses. Psychol. Sci. 29, 549–571. doi: 10.1177/0956797617739704

Specht, J., Egloff, B., and Schmukle, S. C. (2011). Stability and change of personality across the life course: the impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 101, 862–882. doi: 10.1037/a0024950

Wagner, J., Orth, U., Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., and Kandler, C. (2020). Toward an integrative model of sources of personality stability and change. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 29, 438–444. doi: 10.1177/0963721420924751

Wrzus, C., and Roberts, B. (2017). Processes of personality development in adulthood: the TESSERA framework. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 21, 253–277. doi: 10.1177/1088868316652279

Yeager, D., and Dweck, C. (2012). Mindsets that promote resilience: when students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. Educ. Psychol . 47, 302–314. doi: 10.1080/00461520.2012.722805

Yeager, D. S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G. M., Murray, J. S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., et al. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y

Ziegler, M., Cengia, A., Mussel, P., and Gerstorf, D. (2015). Openness as a buffer against cognitive decline: the Openness-Fluid-Crystallized-Intelligence (OFCI) model applied to late adulthood. Psychol. Aging 30, 573–588. doi: 10.1037/a0039493

Keywords: personality development, life events, big five, mindset, emerging adulthood

Citation: De Vries JH, Spengler M, Frintrup A and Mussel P (2021) Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood—How the Perception of Life Events and Mindset Affect Personality Trait Change. Front. Psychol. 12:671421. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671421

Received: 23 February 2021; Accepted: 11 May 2021; Published: 10 June 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 De Vries, Spengler, Frintrup and Mussel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jantje Hinrika De Vries, jantje.de.vries@fu-berlin.de

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Module 12: Personality Disorders

Case studies: personality disorders, learning objectives.

• Identify personality disorders in case studies

Case Study: Latasha

Latasha was a 20-year-old college student who lived in the dorms on campus. Classmates described Latasha as absent-minded and geeky because she didn’t interact with others and rarely, if ever, engaged with classmates or professors in class. She usually raced back to her dorm as soon as classes were over. Latasha primarily stayed in her room, did not appear to have any friends, and had no interest in the events happening on campus. Latasha even asked for special permission to stay on campus when most students went home for Thanksgiving break.

Now let’s examine some fictional case studies.

Case Study: The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter, from Alice in Wonderland , appears to be living in a forest that is part of Alice’s dream. He appears to be in his mid-thirties, is Caucasian, and dresses vibrantly. The Mad Hatter climbs on a table, walks across it, and breaks plates and teacups along the way. He is rather protective of Alice; when the guards of the Queen of Hearts come, he hides Alice in a tea kettle. Upon making sure that Alice is safe, Mad Hatter puts her on his hat, after he had shrunk her, and takes her for a walk. While walking, he starts to talk about the Jabberwocky and becomes enraged when Alice tells him that she will not slay the Jabberwocky. Talking to Alice about why she needs to slay the Jabberwocky, the Mad Hatter becomes emotional and tells Alice that she has changed.

The Mad Hatter continues to go to lengths to protect Alice; he throws his hat with her on it across the field, so the Queen of Heart’s guards do not capture her. He lies to the Queen and indicates he has not seen Alice, although she is clearly sitting next to the Queen. He decides to charm the Queen, by telling her that he wants to make her a hat for her rather large head. Once the White Queen regained her land again, the Mad Hatter is happy.

Case Study: The Grinch

The Grinch, who is a bitter and cave-dwelling creature, lives on the snowy Mount Crumpits, a high mountain north of Whoville. His age is undisclosed, but he looks to be in his 40s and does not have a job. He normally spends a lot of his time alone in his cave. He is often depressed and spends his time avoiding and hating the people of Whoville and their celebration of Christmas. He disregards the feelings of the people, knowingly steals and destroys their property, and finds pleasure in doing so. We do not know his family history, as he was abandoned as a child, but he was taken in by two ladies who raised him with a love for Christmas. He is green and fuzzy, so he stands out among the Whos, and he was often ridiculed for his looks in school. He does not maintain any social relationships with his friends and family. The only social companion the Grinch has is his dog, Max. The Grinch had no goal in his life except to stop Christmas from happening. There is no history of drug or alcohol use.

• Modification, adaptation, and original content. Authored by : Julie Manley for Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Case Studies: The Grinch. Authored by : Dr. Caleb Lack and students at the University of Central Oklahoma and Arkansas Tech University. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/abnormalpsychology/chapter/antisocial-personality-disorder/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• The Mad Hatter. Authored by : Loren Javier. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/4031000212/ . License : CC BY-ND: Attribution-NoDerivatives
• The Grinch. Located at : https://pixy.org/1066311/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved