Up and down in middle age: monotonic and nonmonotonic changes in roles, status, and personality.
It is proposed that personality (conceptualized in terms of motives and psychological resources) changes normatively not only from young adulthood to middle age but also within middle age and that these changes take place in relation to social and biosocial change over the same period. Data from 123 women studied at ages 27, 43, 52, and 61 largely supported hypotheses about change in social roles, status, health, motives, personality characteristics, emotion regulation, and relationships. Noteworthy aspects of the findings were substantial curvilinear change within middle age and associations of work involvement and physical health with personality change during late middle age.
Helson
Ravenna
R
Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-5050, USA. helson@berkeley.edu
Soto
Christopher J
CJ
D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006803:Human Development; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008875:Middle Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D009042:Motivation; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010551:Personality; D010553:Personality Development; D012380:Role; D012923:Social Class; D012931:Social Environment; D014481:United States; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology