20 Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences cite as: J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci, 2021, Vol. 76, No. 1, 20–30 doi:10.1093/geronb/gbaa093 Advance Access publication July 16, 2020 © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. Special Issue: Preregistered Studies of Personality Development and Aging Using Existing Data Personality Development Beyond the Mean: Do Life Events Shape Personality Variability, Structure, and Ipsative Continuity? Joshua J. Jackson, PhD* , and Emorie D. Beck, MA Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. *Address correspondence to: Joshua J. Jackson, PhD, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130. E-mail: j.jackson@wustl.edu Received: January 1, 2020; Editorial Decision Date: July 7, 2020 Decision Editor: Richard Lucas, PhD Abstract Objectives: Life experiences are thought to prompt changes in personality. However, existing studies fnd few replicable mean- level changes in personality following life events. The focus on mean-level change may obscure other types of personality change that are not routinely studied in the context of life events. These are variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Methods: The current proposal examines whether major life events (e.g., divorce and job loss) affect these 3 understudied types of personality trait change using 3 waves of Big Five trait data in a large-scale, representative longitudinal study (German Socioeconomic Panel Study, N = 16,368). Structural equation models compare those who had an event to their prior self and a control group who did not experience the event. Results: Life events were found to have mostly null or small effects on variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Across 2 types of tests for variability in response, few replications occurred. The only consistent effect across 3 types of change was for mental health events, which served to increase variance in all Big Five traits and increase consistency in ipsative profles. Discussion: Life events tend not to affect these novel metrics of personality trait change. The one exception of mental health events is consistent with previous literature on mean-level change. Overall, life events do not appear to by major catalysts of personality change, regardless of how change is defned. Keywords: Consistency, Ipsative, Life events, Longitudinal, Personality development While relatively consistent across time, personality traits are not completely immutable. Changes occur throughout the life span from childhood (Hill & Edmonds, 2017) to young adult- hood (Donnellan et al., 2007) and old age (Oltmanns et al., 2020). Despite such regular and replicable patterns of person- ality change, little progress has been made to understand the mechanisms responsible for changes in personality (Bleidorn et al., 2018). The most promising catalyst driving changes in personality is major life events such as divorce or starting a frst job. Indeed, there are a number of reasons for life events are good candidates: life events occur across cultures (Bleidorn et al., 2013), are viewed as psychologically important (McAdams et al., 2001), are easy to measure (e.g., using check-boxes of events), and serve as proxies for numerous ex- periences that extend prior and after the event. While there is some evidence that life events are associated with mean-level changes (Specht et al., 2011), few studies examine other types of change in personality. The current study examines whether life events affect personality development through indices other than mean-level change. Using a large-scale representa- tive longitudinal study, we investigated changes in variability in response, structural, and ipsative change. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/76/1/20/5872593 by guest on 22 March 2022