Personality Change
I'm not 100% sure, but I think personality isn't set like plaster after all. Which is great, because this malleable quality has both theoretical and practical implications – as such, it is regularly a focus of my research! For my work concerned with personality change, I am often interested in topics such as:
The nature of how personality change occurs, including questions like:
Which environmental or biological factors often precede these changes?
Are there identifiable factors that directly cause changes in personality? If yes, what are the boundary conditions of these effects?
The predictive utility of personality change, including questions like:
Do changes in personality prospectively predict outcomes such as health, education level, unemployment, or divorce?
How does the predictive ability of changes in traits compare to other metrics such as static trait levels or degree of within-person variability?
Individual differences in personality change, including questions like:
What is the extent of individual differences in personality change?
Does heterogeneity mostly exist for the magnitude and direction of personality change? Or do more complex individual differences exist, such as individual differences in the best-fitting model forms for individuals' change trajectories?
Selected Relevant Papers
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2023). Are some people more consistent? Examining the stability and underlying processes of personality profile consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(6), 1314–1337.
Peer-reviewed publication link: https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000429
Preprint link: https://psyarxiv.com/8vt3j/
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (in press). Longitudinal within-person variability around personality trajectories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Preprint link: https://psyarxiv.com/68hpb
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2024). Individual differences in the forms of personality trait trajectories. In revision at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Preprint link: https://psyarxiv.com/jvm54
Jackson, J. J., & Wright, A. J. (2024). The process and mechanisms of personality change. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-14.
Peer-reviewed publication link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00295-z