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Do Personality Traits Change throughout our Lives? By Raymond Au Introduction Personality traits are dimensions of individual differences in the tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Traits are important because their influence is pervasive: They affect personal interactions and social support, health habits and somatic complaints, attitudes and values, ways of coping, occupational and recreational interests, and much more. Contemporary hypotheses about the development of personality stem from theories about what personality traits are. McCrae and Costa's five-factor theory asserts that personality traits arise exclusively from biological causes and they reach full maturity in early adulthood. This theory predicts little or no change on any personality dimension after early adulthood. By contrast, contextualist perspectives argue that traits are multiply determined, and that one important influence on traits is the individual's social environment. Stage and timing-of-events models suggest that personality traits can be changed throughout our lives when we enter...

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