Beliefs about the rigidity of personality

How do people reason about personality, and how people change or stay the same over time? In a study by Nick Haslam and colleagues lay theories of personality over time was explored. Among other things the researchers found that beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors; and that recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms

One potential shortcoming of the study is that it used only undergraduates. It would be interesting to see how the perception of personality continuity would also change according to ageing (as well as across different educational groups).

Beliefs about personality change and continuity
Nick Haslam, Brock Bastian, Christopher Fox and Jennifer Whelan

Lay conceptions of personality change and continuity were examined in a sample of 112 undergraduates. Participants rated their personal change over 5 years (past or future), the change they perceived to be normative over 10-year age spans between 15 and 65, their beliefs about whether personality is fixed or malleable (“lay theories”) and their beliefs about the causes of personality change and continuity. Beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors, with some age bias, whereas recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms. Participants tended to endorse environmental causes more for personality change than for continuity. Lay theories were not consistently associated with these causal beliefs, or with beliefs about personal and normative change.

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