Personality-Situation Transactions From Adolescence to Old Age

People presumably choose and create their daily environments according to their personality. Prior research shows that, for example, more extraverted people engage more often in social situations, and more conscientious people engage more often in work-related activities compared with less extravert...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 2016-05, Vol.110 (5), p.782-799
Main Authors: Wrzus, Cornelia, Wagner, Gert G., Riediger, Michaela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of Daily Living
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Child development
Ecological Momentary Assessment
Female
Five Factor Personality Model
Human
Human Development
Human Development - physiology
Humans
Life Span
Male
Middle Aged
Older Adulthood
Older people
Personality
Personality - physiology
Personality Development
Personality psychology
Personality Traits
Social Behavior
Teenagers
Young Adult
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Summary:People presumably choose and create their daily environments according to their personality. Prior research shows that, for example, more extraverted people engage more often in social situations, and more conscientious people engage more often in work-related activities compared with less extraverted or less conscientious people, respectively. The current study examined such personality-situation transactions in people's daily life. Based on the assumption that older people know themselves and their personality better than younger people, we investigated whether momentary and proximate personality-situation associations (i.e., changing from 1 type of situation into another) increase with older age. Three-hundred and 78 people aged 14 to 82 years described their Big Five traits and took part in a 3-week experience-sampling phase. Using mobile-phone based assessments in daily life, participants reported on average 55 times on their momentary situation. Multilevel modeling results showed that personality-situation associations varied with the age of participants. Some of the "established" personality-situation associations, such as for extraversion and time spent with friends or conscientiousness and time spent with work activities, were only observed in adolescence and young adulthood. In contrast, other personality-situation associations appeared only in late adulthood, such as for openness and time spent with friends. Yet most personality-situation associations did not vary significantly with people's age. In addition, personality traits predicted maintaining or entering personality-congruent situations. The latter results point to the active role of personality in shaping one's environment. The findings imply that some personality-situation transactions may be largely similarly across the life span.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/pspp0000054