Stability vs Change

8 Key excerpts on "Stability vs Change"

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  Evolution and Contextual Behavioral Science

  • Hayes, Steven C., Wilson, David Sloan(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Context Press

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 17 Reconciling the Tension Between Behavioral Change and Stability Renée A� Duckworth Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona T he ability of organisms to show highly flexible behaviors in response to life- stage transitions, seasonal cues, and environmental change often seems at odds with observations of consistent differences in behavior among individuals, populations, and species. I suggest that resolving this apparent contradiction requires understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying both behavioral change and stability. A review of neuroendocrine mechanisms suggests that stable differences in behavior among individuals is underlain by structural variation in neuroendocrine components, and this relatively inflexible scaffold is needed to enable more flexible components to function. In particular, there is evidence that patterns of investment in distinct brain circuits produce tradeoffs in neural func- tion that account for variation in personality traits among individuals. Thus, understanding where individuals fall on this spectrum of tradeoffs may help in constructing more individualized approaches to human behavioral change that take into account differences among individuals in how they perceive the world and make decisions. What Is Behavioral Change? Behavior is the activity of an individual and constitutes every action (or inaction) the individual engages in over the course of its life. Because organisms are con- stantly changing their activities on a daily, monthly, or annual cycle, it often seems that the default state of behavior is one of change; however, this change has consistent patterns. In particular, individuals often show consistent differences in

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  Personality Psychology

  A Student-Centered Approach

  • Jim McMartin(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  10 Continuity and Change Over the Life Course: In what ways can I expect my personality to remain the same or change over the course of my life?

  • Personality Stability and Change
    • Absolute Stability
    • Differential Stability
    • Structural Stability
    • Ipsative Stability
    • Coherence
  • Levels of Personality
    • Habitual Behaviors
    • Traits and Dispositions
    • Personal Concerns
    • Life Narratives and the Making of the Self
  • Humanistic and Existential Approaches to Continuity and Change
    • The Fully Functioning Person
    • The Will to Meaning
  • Psychodynamic Approaches to Continuity and Change
    • Jung and the Process of Individuation
    • Individuation and the Stages of Life
    • Aging and Wisdom

  Do you think it’s true, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”? Or do you believe the opposite proverb, “It’s never too late to learn”? If, on the one hand, “The leopard cannot change its spots,” why, on the other hand, does “Hope spring eternal in the human heart”? The ready availability of contradictory proverbs allows us to select the most convenient one to explain any outcome—after the outcome is known. All proverbs fail to specify the conditions under which some event will occur. Researchers hope to discover to what extent, and under what conditions, personality changes in adulthood.

  The simplest answer to the question of whether personality changes over the life course is that it depends on what we mean by “personality” and “change.” As unsatisfying as this answer is, its elaboration in this chapter serves to clarify the ways that people can and do change over the life course, the levels or aspects of personality that are involved in both continuity and change, and how personality and change are assessed or measured. We will see that a complete answer to the question involves appreciating both the continuity of certain levels of personality from youth to old age and simultaneously recognizing that other aspects of personality can be modified or reorganized. The complexity of the elaborated answer to the question of continuity and change over the life span matches the complexity of the concept of personality itself.

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  Life-Span Development and Behavior

  Volume 12

  • David L. Featherman, Richard M. Lerner, Marion Perlmutter(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In assessing the evidence for patterns of stability of human characteristics, I rely on a broad-based definition of the concept of personality. For present purposes I refer to virtually any conceptually defensible aspect of human functioning in which individual differences, whatever the source of these differences, can be said to exist. As noted previously, I ignore the possibility of sequences or stages of development in the sense that more complex epigenetic structures emerge from preexisting ones. Here I am concerned with differences between individuals regarding which change is possible and measurable. There is no need to restrict the domain of interest to those human characteristics studied in “personality” research, and in fact, there is every reason to broaden the search for human constancy and change to many different types of behavioral orientations, including the exercise of differential abilities, differences in self-concept and identity, differences in motivational qualities, reports of behavioral characteristics (both by self and others), and expressions of attitude and affect with respect to various social and interpersonal “objects” (see Brim & Kagan, 1980). In this review, however, I restrict primary attention to (a) available research evidence that permits control for unreliability, (b) stability estimates that are based on age-homogeneous cohort categories, and (c) stability estimates that permit the calculation of molar stability estimates. I rely on both cohort and synthetic cohort data, and although the scope of available data with these characteristics is somewhat limited, there is sufficient breadth of content in the available studies to warrant the serious consideration of these results.

  A. THE STABILITY OF PERSONALITY TRAITS

  When one considers the domains of personality and interpersonal behavior, the evidence of consistency is hard to establish. Mischel (1969) argued that with respect to character traits, such as rigidity, social conformity, aggression, attitudes toward authority, and on virtually any other nonintellective personality dimension, a great deal of trans-situational “behavioral specificity has been found regularly” (p. 1014). This point of view, in other words, suggests that considerable flexibility or potential for change exists in many aspects of personality. Mischel’s argument is pertinent because behavioral orientations will not be likely to endure over time if they do not endure from situation to situation. On the other hand, one might argue that the lack of consistency pointed out by Mischel and others reflects not a state of nature, but the state of measurement imprecision. Some have gone even further in stating that Mischel’s arguments are overdrawn and based on a selective review of the literature (see Block, 1977; Moss & Susman, 1980). Another, perhaps more balanced view gives greater emphasis to possibilities of human constancy. Moss and Susman, for example, argued that empirical consistency over time is “most obvious for personality characteristics that are endowed with positive cultural and societal valences” (p. 590). They indicated that such things as achievement motivation, sex-role behaviors, and interests are found to be stable from middle childhood.

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  The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology

  • Philip J. Corr, Gerald Matthews(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  3. Absolute changes in personality traits reflect increasing psychological maturity with age (i.e., the changes facilitate the fulfilment of important adult roles). The most concentrated period of absolute change is young adulthood, not adolescence. There is ongoing controversy whether normative changes in personality traits result primarily from intrinsic maturation or the social roles and experiences of adult life. 4. Differential stability increases across the lifespan and peaks at a level below unity. There does not appear to be widespread support for the idea that age 30 is a magic number for personality stability. Contrary to the idea that personality traits are ephemeral in childhood, an appreciable degree of differential stability is also evident during this phase of the lifespan. 5. Personality development (both stability and change) results from the dynamic interplay between individuals and their environments. 200 development, health and personality change rigour. Nonetheless, over the past decade, the field has witnessed a dramatic accumulation of new knowledge about the ways that personality changes across the lifespan, and we believe that there is every reason to be optimistic about the future of the scientific study of personality development. References Allemand, M., Zimprich, D. and Hertzog, C. 2007. Cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal age changes of personality in middle adulthood and old age, Journal of Personality 75: 323–58 Allport, G. W. 1937. Personality: a psychological interpretation. New York: Henry Holt and Company Ashton, M. C. and Lee, K. 2007. Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure, Personality and Social Psychology Review 11: 150–66 Block, J. 1995. A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality description, Psychological Bulletin 117: 187–215 Caspi, A., Moffitt, T.

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  The Psychology of Control and Aging

  • Margret M. Baltes, Paul B. Baltes(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  product of processing self-referent information at any point in time during the life-span. This view allows for a distinct investigation of content, structure, and function of the self-concept, to which we now turn.

  Change Versus Stability In Content . “Content” may be thought of in terms of the knowledge about the self with regard to a more or less differentiated spectrum of behavioral classes or domains (e.g., ability or sociability). Accordingly, change in content usually is studied by observing age-related changes or age differences in those attributes that seem to comprise the individual’s self-knowledge.

  For example, Montemayor and Eisen (1977) observed an increase in self-cognitions related to psychological attributes and a decrease in “visible” ones (e.g., physical) during adolescence. Monge (1975) has reported differences between various age-groups from adolescence to old age in four components of the self-concept (e.g., adjustment, achievement). Mortimer et al. (1982) investigated competence, unconventionality, sociability, and well-being as components of the self-concept in a college population; their longitudinal data yield considerable stabilities in content over a 14-year time span. Cross-sectional comparisons based on self-descriptions on 18 personality dimensions have been reported to be highly indicative of content-related stability during the adult years (McCrae & Costa, 1982).

  However, two central problems seem to be widely overlooked in investigations related to the content of self-referent knowledge. The first problem lies in the mode of self-concept measurement usually employed: A standardized format (e.g., rating scales) that presumably allows individuals to describe themselves, but only according to attributes and traits preselected by the researcher. However, if “no two life histories are identical” (Scheier & Carver, 1980), how can we expect those experiences to be identical, from which self-related knowledge has been inferred and which form the base of what individuals have learned about themselves?

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  Personality

  Theory and Research

  • Daniel Cervone, Lawrence A. Pervin(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  If you saw the person when they were a toddler or a grade schooler, their personality would not be the same as it is now. Their personality likely has changed, or “developed,” over time. 4. If the person suddenly experiences a period of psychological distress—for example, a period of depression or anxiety—they probably could “bounce back” from this. In fact, there might be something you could do to improve the person’s psychological well-being. These four points correspond directly to the topics addressed by personality psychologists. The psychologist introduces formal scientific terms to describe the topics, but the topics them- selves are fundamentally the same. They are: (1) personality structure—the enduring “build- ing blocks” of personality; (2) personality process—dynamic changes in thinking, emotion, and 9 Answering Questions about Persons Scientifically motivation that can occur from one moment to the next; (3) growth and development—how we develop into the unique person each of us is, and (4) psychopathology and behavior change— how people change and why they sometimes resist change or are unable to change. We introduce these topics now. You will see them again, over and over, in later chapters. Structure People possess psychological qualities that endure from day to day and from year to year. The enduring qualities that distinguish individuals from one another are referred to as personality structures. Structural concepts in personality psychology are similar to structural concepts you are famil- iar with from other fields. For example, from study of human biology, you already know that there are enduring biological structures including individual organs (the heart, the lungs) and organ systems (the circulatory system, the digestive system). Analogously, personality theorists hope to identify enduring psychological structures.

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  Development

  The History of a Psychological Concept

  • Christopher Goodey(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Of course, it is self- evident that an individual personality changes over the lifespan, but less evident why change has to be cast in the role of development as distinct from something else. If a primary task for the historian of psychology must be to try and stand outside its basic terms and concepts in order to observe and understand them properly, the first principle underlying the concept of development is change. Once we have said that, we have reached bedrock. Nothing else lies beneath the absolute principle that ‘change’ exists. Change just is. Analysis can penetrate no further. The idea of development is not itself bedrock; it is only one way of interpreting time and change in human experience. There have been and will be other ways. The developmental idea belongs to a specific era and place. Awareness of change will inevitably feature in the picture any era has of that experience. There are succeeding pictures of change, each of which will consist in a set of ‘absolute presuppositions’; 2 and each era sees its own conceptual picture as an ahistorical, unmodifiable and absolute truth – even though the succession of eras will always prove it to have been temporary and its theoretical framework redundant. The veracity of the absolute presuppositions is tested not by the ensuing era, since the latter’s own new presuppositions will themselves be tested one day, but simply by time. Frank Kessel, ‘Developmental psychology without positivistic pretentions’, in (eds.) Koops and Kessel, Historical Developmental Psychology (New York: Routledge, 2020); and Sheldon H. White, ‘Developmental psychology in a world of designed institutions’, in (eds.) Koops and Michael Zuckerman, Beyond the Century of the Child: Cultural History and Developmental Psychology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p.

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  The Edge of Organization

  Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal Social Systems

  • Russ Marion(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Open Systems Theory compromises between stability and change by portraying social stability as homeostatic—a moving stability in which systems adjust their internal ac-commodations to adapt to changing environmental demands. Structural Con-tingency Theory teaches us how to maintain some sense of stability in a contingent, unpredictably changing world, and Enacted Environment more or less abandoned any notion of stability in organized anarchies. Perhaps it is the either/or mind-set bequeathed to Western society by Aristotle (if A, then not B) that gets in the way of reconciling this issue, for our expectations of change and of stability are unforgiving. We expect systems either to change or not to change, and it's difficult for us to conceive of middle ground. In our earlier definition of homeostasis for Complex Systems Theory, we argued that stability is actually quite dynamic in a neutral sort of way. We argued in Chapter 6 that a system's range of behavioral options can be pictured as a cloud hovering just below a fitness peak. At any given time a given system's fitness lies somewhere within that cloud, and over time it drifts about the cloud. Biologists call this cloud a stationary fitness shell, and they call movement within the shell, random drift. In the biological time frame, drift within a shell could go on for millions of years; the same drift can be observed in social organizations as well, but the time frame is a bit shorter. Automobiles change more or less gradually, year by year, to accommodate changing technologies or consumer tastes. Preferences in music evolve gradually, responding to whimsical consumer tastes and social mores. Such phenomena can, and do, change radically from time to time—as when rock and roll blew big band and country swing off the music charts in the mid-1950s—but between explosions, they drift. Humans often assume a deliberative role in this process.

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