After conducting an online study of 130,000 people aged 21 to 60, researchers at Stanford University, led by Sanjay Srivastava, say those key personality characteristics change throughout our lives.
"The Big Five" personality characteristics that are not dependent on mood are:
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
Extroversion
So how do we change with age? "We found a mixture of different patterns of how people change," Srivastava told New Scientist. "On average people were getting better at dealing with the ups and downs of life. In particular they were more responsive and more caring [with age]."
This is how our personalities tend to change with age:
- Conscientiousness: Our ability to handle tasks and our organizational skills grow dramatically in our 20s and continue to improve as we age. The initial growth in our 20s is likely due to new work and family commitments.
What's the takeaway? On average, we get better as we get older. We care more about work, family, and our responsibilities. At the same time, we become less open to meeting new people. Women, but not men, worry less and as they age. "People are getting better at things as they age," Srivastava told Reuters. "They're not becoming grumpy old men."
The study findings, which are considered quite controversial, were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Paul Costa Jr., a researcher with the National Institute on Aging who has done pioneering work with the ''big five'' model, told USA Today that he is critical of the study. Instead of major personality changes after age 30, he thinks we only see ''nuanced'' changes.
