Personality Development in the Context of the Neo-Socioanalytic Model of Personality

Vocations as a source of identity: Reciprocal relations between Big Five personality traits and RIASEC characteristics over 15 years.

“…Given that personality trait change is a process that typically occurs at a modest rate over long periods of time (Roberts & Wood, 2006), a study design was adopted that covered a substantial and significant period of time, namely, the first 15 years of people's professional careers following graduation from college. Previous research has indicated that these years are particularly important with regard to personality trait change during adulthood.…”

“…This first period of paid employment has, moreover, been suggested to be the most important in occupational socialization (Frese, 1982). A distinct oversight in many longitudinal studies of personality trait change is the inclusion of meaningful assessments of situations, contexts, or roles (Roberts & Wood, 2006). Moreover, inspection of the literature on personality-work interactions in personality psychology typically shows a rather simplistic conception of the work role, often disregarding important differences across various occupational environments in terms of underlying roles or requirements.…”

“…The central hypothesis in this perspective is that age-graded social norms, such as entering a committed relationship or the workforce, drive personality in the direction of functional maturity, that is, greater Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. The underlying mechanism involves a process of role taking across different life domains, including work (Wood & Roberts, 2006). When the individual commits to a social role, his or her personality shifts to reflect the expectancies of that role.…”

“…As occupational socialization is a process that unfolds over time, one needs a longitudinal design with repeated measurements of both personal as well as occupational characteristics to capture the dynamics between both. Moreover, the time interval has to be large enough, as changes in personality traits typically occur at a modest rate and over relatively long time intervals (e.g., 10 years; Roberts & Wood, 2006). Finally, it has been argued that the study of occupational socialization requires job analysis instruments that are embedded in psychological theories relevant for the study of development.…”

Personality traits and environmental choices: On the search for understanding

“…Among the facets of personality are what people think, feel and want or desire (Roberts and Wood, 2006), which have expected enduring patterns (Roberts, 2009) over the lifespan of individuals. There are only a small number of studies that consider personality traits in valuations (López-Mosquera and Sánchez, 2013) or in environmental studies (Soliño and Farizo, 2014).…”