Stability of personality during adolescence and its relationship to stage of drug use.

The purpose of this study was to examine how stability of personality, measured at two points during adolescence, relates to adolescents' stage of drug use, measured at the second point in time. The subjects were 704 black and white high school freshmen and sophomores who participated again two years later. Results indicated that the earlier measures of personality were significantly associated with the later measures of personality, which in turn were associated with the adolescents' stage of drug use. In addition, the adolescents' personality attributes showed a fair amount of stability over the two-year span of the study.