PERSONALITY
ACROSS CULTURES:
STUDIES FOCUS ON AGE FACTOR
PAUL T. COSTA and
ROBERT R. McCRAE
It probably comes as no surprise to hear that the latest research on personality traits across the lifespan confirms that adolescents are less conscientious than middle-aged adults: Teenagers and college students today are less neat and orderly, less dutiful, poorer in self-discipline, and less goal-oriented than adults of their parents' generation.
However, it is somewhat more surprising to learn that this is true not only in America, but also in Turkey, South Korea, Estonia and Portugal. It is true for Germans, who grew up in a prosperous democracy; for Croatians, who lived through Communism and a violent civil war; and for Chinese, who endured the Cultural Revolution and the recent plunge into emerging capitalism. Where and when people live doesn't seem to matter much; from youth through adulthood, almost everyone becomes more conscientious with age.
FIVE BASIC FACTORS
Conscientiousness is one of five basic personality factors that psychologists now believe are needed to summarize individual differences in styles of thinking, feeling and acting. Each of the five factors includes a number of specific personality traits. For example, the extroversion factor includes interpersonal warmth, assertiveness, high energy level and cheerfulness. The other three factors are neuroticism (high scorers are prone to experience worry, dejection and other negative emotions); openness to experience (high scorers are curious, imaginative and responsive to art and beauty); and agreeableness (high scorers are trusting, helpful and modest).
Gerontologists in the United States have studied personality traits using these five factors for several decades, first employing cross-sectional comparisons of younger and older adults, then utilizing longitudinal studies that followed the same group of individuals over a period of years. The most dramatic discovery made by these studies was that by age 30, personality is generally as stable as right or left handedness and eye color. Introverted, inquisitive and cooperative 30-year-olds tend to become introverted, inquisitive and cooperative 80-year-olds. These studies dispelled a number of myths of aging. For example, they showed that few people experience anything like a "midlife crisis" and that old age does not typically lead to depression and social withdrawal.
Research in the United States and Canada, however, has also provided evidence of age differences in personality between adolescents and those of age 30. College-age men and women consistently score lower than older adults on conscientiousness. They also score higher on neuroticism, extroversion and openness, and lower in agreeableness. Adults in North America are less emotional and inquisitive, but more socially responsible than adolescents.
Cross-sectional results are notoriously hard to interpret, though. Are these age differences the result of maturational changes or generational differences? Perhaps today's older Americans are more conscientious because they grew up in a more disciplined and less affluent era and learned to value hard work. That would make age differences in conscientiousness a generational or cohort effect. A few longitudinal studies have assessed traits related to conscientiousness in adolescents and then followed them as they entered adulthood. This research showed that scores actually increased over time. Age differences in conscientiousness (and the other four factors) appear to be due to maturational changes. Today's dutiful 70-year-olds probably sowed their share of wild oats when they were 20.
CULTURAL EFFECT QUESTIONED
What causes such a maturational trend, and how widely is it found? We might hypothesize that age changes in personality are dictated by cultural demands and expectations. In the United States, adolescents are given considerable freedom. For example, they are encouraged to postpone family responsibilities until they have completed years of formal education, and they usually leave the family home (and parental supervision) to live on their own. In the decade of their 20s, most Americans start families and careers. Facing these new responsibilities may lead to the development of higher levels of conscientiousness.
If personality maturation is determined by culture, then different cultures might shape personality in different ways. For example, Eastern cultures such as China and Korea tend to place very high demands on their children, so perhaps in those cultures children would already have reached the full development of conscientiousness by the beginning of adolescence. In other cultures adolescents might develop lower levels of agreeableness as they entered the fiercely competitive world of work. Perhaps adult responsibilities would lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression. Or opportunities for leadership would encourage the growth of extroversion.
All of these speculations could have been plausibly entertained only a few years ago, because virtually no data on adult personality development had been collected outside of the United States and Western Europe. During the past decade, though, researchers from around the world have started assessing personality using translations of a new measure, the Revised neo Personality Inventory (neo-pi-r), the first inventory designed to assess the five personality factors.
Cross-sectional comparisons of adolescents and older adults have now been reported in a dozen cultures, from Italy to Russia to Japan. With only minor variations, all have shown the same age trends, with declines in neuroticism, extroversion and openness, and increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness as people mature. These age differences are unlikely to represent generational effects, because the recent histories of these countries have been very different. Adolescents growing up in war-torn Croatia had very different experiences from their contemporaries in Germany. Russians have seen continued economic decline in the past 20 years, whereas the Portuguese economy has grown. It is true that younger people everywhere have had more exposure to the mass media and generally better healthcare than their grandparents did--but it would be hard to explain why that would lead to lower agreeableness or higher neuroticism in today's youth.
Instead, it seems likely that these more or less universal age changes are biologically based. Personality traits from all five factors are heavily influenced by genetics, and many genes show their effects at different points in the lifespan. Declines in neuroticism and increases in conscientiousness may be as natural a part of the human experience as the graying of hair.
Although cross-sectional data from multiple cultures make a persuasive case for universal maturation in personality, more direct evidence would come from longitudinal studies in non-Western societies. Such studies also would be useful in establishing whether there are culture-specific generational differences in addition to the common developmental changes. Future studies tracing earlier phases of development (from early adolescence or childhood) and extending the range of cultures to developing nations also will deepen our understanding of aging, personality and culture. *
Paul T. Costa Jr. is chief and Robert R. McCrae is research psychologist in the Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, Gerontology Research Center, Baltimore, Md. For references, reprints or further information, contact Paul T. Costa Jr., Gerontology Research Center, 5600 Nathan Shock Dr., Baltimore, MD 21224-6825, or visit the lpc Web site: http://lpcwww.grc.nia.nih.gov.
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