Sunday Times 2
We are neurotic in our thirties and honest in our forties
It is great news for those in their thirties and forties worried life is over.
Researchers say that in fact, our personalities develop until well into our fifities.
Researchers say our personalities develop into our fifties - and that middle age is peak time for them (AFP)
They say our personality becomes most stable during middle age – but then begins to decline again.
Experts found that the stability of personality increases through youth, peaks in mid-life and then gradually reduces again into old age, presumably in response to the variations in social and biological pressures we experience at the different stages of life.
Petar Milojev and Chris Sibley at the University of Auckland in New Zealand recruited 4,000 men and women aged 20 to 80 to complete a personality questionnaire twice, with a gap of two years in between.
The survey measured a person’s honesty-humility factor as well as five major personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience.
They compared how people’s scores varied between years, and analyzed how all of the participants personalities related to one another, depending on age.
Most people’s personalities were generally stable, they found, but the stability of those trait followed a bell curve over time, peaking at middle-age and then dropping again.
For certain traits-conscientiousness, openness to experience, and honesty-humility, the oldest participants’ personality stability matched those of the youngest.
Extraversion was the most stable trait, and agreeableness the least, according to the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest.
People in their 30s, for example, showed high levels of neuroticism, but by the time they reached their 50s that had been replaced by conscientiousness, openness and honesty-humility.
© Daily Mail, London