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Personality is a relevant predictor for important life outcomes across the entire lifespan. Although previous studies have suggested the comparability of the measurement of the Big Five personality traits across adulthood, the generalizability to childhood is largely unknown. The present study investigated the structure of the Big Five personality traits assessed with the Big Five Inventory-SOEP Version (BFI-S; SOEP = Socio-Economic Panel) across a broad age range spanning 11-84 years. We used two samples of N = 1,090 children (52% female, M-age = 11.87) and N = 18,789 adults (53% female, M-age = 51.09), estimating a multigroup CFA analysis across four age groups (late childhood: 11-14 years; early adulthood: 17-30 years; middle adulthood: 31-60 years; late adulthood: 61-84 years). Our results indicated the comparability of the personality trait metric in terms of general factor structure, loading patterns, and the majority of intercepts across all age groups. Therefore, the findings suggest both a reliable assessment of the Big Five personality traits with the BFI-S even in late childhood and a vastly comparable metric across age groups.
The present study examines how historical changes in the U.S. socioeconomic environment in the 20th century may have affected core assumptions of the "American Dream." Specifically, the authors examined whether such changes modulated the extent to which adolescents' intelligence (IQ), their grade point average (GPA), and their parents' socioeconomic status (SES) could predict key life outcomes in adulthood about 20 years later. The data stemmed from two representative U.S. birth cohorts of 15- and 16-year-olds who were born in the early 1960s (N = 3,040) and 1980s (N = 3,524) and who participated in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). Cohort differences were analyzed with respect to differences in average relations by means of multiple and logistic regression and for specific points in each outcome distribution by means of quantile regressions. In both cohorts, IQ, GPA, and parental SES predicted important educational, occupational, and health-related life-outcomes about 20 years later. Across historical time, the predictive utility of adolescent IQ and parental SES remained stable for the most part. Yet, the combined effects of social-ecological and socioeconomic changes may have increased the predictive utility (that is, the regression weights) of adolescent GPA for educational, occupational, and health outcomes over time for individuals who were born in the 1980s. Theoretical implications concerning adult development, aging, and late life inequality are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record.