How personality changes with age

How does personality change with age?

It matures. That is the plain summary of the largest body of evidence on the question, and researchers call it the maturity principle: as people move through adulthood they become, on average, more dependable, more considerate and less easily rattled. A meta-analysis of ninety-two longitudinal samples found average levels rising on social dominance, conscientiousness and emotional stability, with the steepest movement between 20 and 40. Agreeableness rose mainly in later life, while social vitality and openness rose in adolescence before declining in old age (Roberts et al., 2006).

The old idea that character sets like plaster in early adulthood did not survive the data. A study of more than a hundred thousand adults aged 21 to 60 found conscientiousness and agreeableness both still rising across the whole range, and neuroticism declining among women though not among men, with change continuing well past the age at which it was supposed to stop (Srivastava et al., 2003).

Two things are worth holding on to before the detail. The changes are averages, so a particular person can move against the trend. And they are modest, a nudge across a decade rather than a different personality, which is why they are easy to miss from the inside and easy to see in a large sample.

What changes, trait by trait?

Extraversion is split in two rows because the meta-analysis found its parts moving in opposite directions. Social dominance, the assertive and agentic side, rises through young adulthood. Social vitality, the sociable and high-energy side, peaks earlier and drifts down (Roberts et al., 2006). Reported as one Extraversion score, those two cancel out and the trait looks flatter with age than it is underneath.

Honesty-Humility, the sixth dimension in the HEXACO model, is measured by a younger literature than the Big Five, and the lifespan meta-analyses above do not cover it. Where a source is thin, the honest report is direction only, or nothing.

Does personality get more stable as you get older?

Yes, steadily. Stability here means rank order: whether the people who scored highest stay highest when the same group is measured again. A review of longitudinal studies found that correlation rising from around the low thirties in childhood, through roughly a half in the college years, to about six tenths by age 30 and around seven tenths between 50 and 70 (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000).

So the two findings fit together. Average levels move while the ordering between people largely holds, because most people drift in the same direction at once. And even the highest stability is not perfect, which is where individual change lives.

One consequence for anyone taking a test: a result at 45 is a better guide to the next ten years than the same result at 20. Younger scores are more likely to move, and more likely to move a long way.

Do life events and roles drive the change?

They contribute. A panel study of 14,718 German adults found mean-level change at almost every age, and found personality both predicting major life events and shifting in reaction to them, with the effects specific to the event rather than general. Rank-order stability in that sample was highest in middle adulthood and lower at both ends of life (Specht et al., 2011).

The more persuasive account is about roles rather than incidents. A first job, a partner, a child or the care of an ageing parent changes what is asked of you daily, and traits are the accumulated residue of daily behaviour. A role that rewards showing up on time, week after week, is a slow intervention on Conscientiousness.

The causal arrow points both ways, though. Traits also shape which jobs, partners and setbacks you meet, so change observed after an event is not proof that the event produced it.

What does this mean when you read your own result at 22 or at 45?

Most personality tests place your score against a reference sample of adults of mixed ages, so a percentile answers the question how do I compare with adults in general, not how do I compare with people my age. That difference matters most where age effects are largest. At 22, a middling Conscientiousness percentile is unremarkable and likely to rise. At 45, the same percentile carries more information, because most of the age-related rise has already happened.

Read a young result as a starting position. Read a midlife result as a fair description of a settled pattern rather than a prophecy. Rank-order stability in the fifties is high, not total (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000), and structured programmes have moved trait measures by about a third of a standard deviation over roughly six months, most of all on emotional stability (Roberts et al., 2017).

Practical advice either way. Compare percentiles, and treat a small move as noise, since a score near a band boundary can fall either side on a retake. Wait months, not weeks, before retesting. And treat any single number as one reading of a moving quantity.

How does Wellington handle age?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

The free Snapshot asks 60 questions and scores 6 dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility. Each trait is the average of several statements on a five-point accuracy scale, reported as a percentile against the reference sample of adults, in one of three bands, Quiet below the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above. The bands and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside. Our reference norms are provisional while the norming sample is completed, and the methods page says so plainly. Because the norms are general rather than age-banded for now, read your percentile as a comparison with adults at large. The first ten questions are answered before anything is asked of you; after question ten you sign in with an email address so your answers are saved and your results can be shown. There is no card.

Change is built into the product rather than assumed away. Every completed sitting is kept so you can compare, and the Wellington Membership reaches 90 traits including every Big Five facet and all 24 VIA character strengths, then adds a short weekly module across 104 weeks toward all 255 traits, then retests the earliest ones in year two so a genuine shift has had time to happen. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring, and you can export or delete your data at any time.

Questions people ask

At what age does personality stop changing?

It does not stop, it slows. Rank-order stability rises through adulthood and levels off in the fifties and sixties rather than reaching a ceiling (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000), and average levels keep moving past 30, with conscientiousness still rising across the twenties to the sixties (Srivastava et al., 2003). Later change is smaller and slower, not absent.

Does personality change in your 20s, 30s and 40s?

The twenties and thirties carry the most movement: social dominance, conscientiousness and emotional stability rise fastest between about 20 and 40 (Roberts et al., 2006). Agreeableness tends to move later, changing mainly in old age in the meta-analysis and rising through early and middle adulthood in large cross-sectional samples (Srivastava et al., 2003). Through the forties the direction is the same and the pace is gentler.

Why do people get more conscientious as they get older?

The leading explanation is role demands. Work, partnership and care ask for reliability every day, and daily behaviour is what traits are made of. A panel study of 14,718 German adults found traits shifting in reaction to major life events (Specht et al., 2011), though traits also influence which roles people take, so the evidence is consistent with the explanation rather than proof of it.

Should I compare my personality score to people my own age?

It is informative where age effects are large, such as Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. Most tests, Wellington included, norm against adults of mixed ages, so your percentile compares you with adults in general. If you are in your early twenties, expect your scores to drift in the maturing direction over the next two decades.