Cross-cultural perspectives on adult personality trait development

Most research on personality and aging has been conducted in the United States, where longitudinal studies can be traced back to the pioneering work of Strong (1951) and Kelly (1955). Major advances occurred in the late 1970s when a series of longitudinal studies matured. Those studies suggested that personality, at least in adults over age 30, was predominantly stable (McCrae & Costa, 1984). That claim included two components; First, individual differences were preserved over long periods of time, and second, mean levels showed little change. Together, these suggested that the absolute scores of most individuals were more-or-Iess fixed over much of the adult life span.