title: Age trends and age norms for the NEO Personality Inventory-3 in adolescents and adults.
abstract: The NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3) is a modification of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) designed to be more understandable to adolescents. Data from adults aged 21 to 91 showed that the NEO-PI-3 also functions as well or better than the NEO-PI-R in adults. Age trends from combined adolescent (n = 500) and adult (n = 635) samples confirmed previous cross-sectional findings and demonstrated the importance of studying age changes especially at the facet level and during the decade of the 20s. Normative data for self-report and observer rating forms for adolescents, younger and older adults, and all adults are discussed, as well as for a combined-age group. It is argued that combined-age norms may be most appropriate for depicting the personality scores of individuals, but the utility for some purposes of within-age group scores is also acknowledged.
authors.affiliation: National Institute on Aging. mccraej@grc.nia.nih.gov
authors.forename: Robert R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: McCrae
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Paul T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010553:Personality Development; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors