Costa P T, McCrae R R
Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, Maryland 21224.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988 May;54(5):853-63. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.54.5.853.
Previous longitudinal studies of personality in adulthood have been limited in the range of traits examined, have chiefly made use of self-reports, and have frequently included only men. In this study, self-reports (N = 983) and spouse ratings (N = 167) were gathered on the NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1985b), which measures all five of the major dimensions of normal personality. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses on data from men and women aged 21 to 96 years showed evidence of small declines in Activity, Positive Emotions, and openness to Actions that might be attributed to maturation, but none of these effects was replicated in sequential analyses. The 20 other scales examined showed no consistent pattern of maturational effects. In contrast, retest stability was quite high for all five dimensions in self-reports and for the three dimensions measured at both times in spouse ratings. Comparable levels of stability were seen for men and women and for younger and older subjects. The data support the position that personality is stable after age 30.
以往针对成年期人格的纵向研究，在所考察的特质范围上存在局限，主要采用自我报告的方式，并且常常仅纳入男性。在本研究中，我们收集了983份自我报告以及167份配偶评价，这些数据来自于《大五人格量表》（科斯塔和麦克雷，1985b），该量表测量了正常人格的所有五个主要维度。对年龄在21岁至96岁之间的男性和女性数据进行的横断面分析和纵向分析表明，活力、积极情绪以及对行动的开放性可能因成熟而出现小幅下降，但在序列分析中，这些影响均未得到重复验证。所考察的其他20个量表均未呈现出一致的成熟效应模式。相比之下，自我报告中所有五个维度以及配偶评价中两次测量的三个维度的重测稳定性都相当高。男性和女性、年轻和年长受试者的稳定性水平相当。这些数据支持了30岁之后人格趋于稳定这一观点。
