Patterns of Personality Consistency and Change From Childhood Through Adolescence

Consistency and change in personality development is typically studied through examination of correlations indexing the consistency of individual differences over time. Despite well-known difficulties which inherently limit this approach, few empirical efforts take advantage of alternative methods. We utilize a "person-centered" approach which permits separate and independent measurement of consistency and change for each person studied. Such measures were obtained covering four intervals between ages 3 and 18 in a longitudinally studied sample. These analyses and subsequent results extend and elaborate earlier results reported in Lives through Time (Block, 1971). It is apparent that there are wide individual differences in the degree of personality consistency and change manifested by subjects, and that the degree and timing of change permit the description of various different developmental trajectories. These pathways are described and compared to results obtained by Block (1971). This research is intended as an illustration of the possibilities obtained through person-centered approaches to the study of personality consistency and change.