Does the variance of personality traits change across the lifespan? A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.

= 398,124) to identify changes in personality trait variance across time and age. We found remarkable stability of personality variance for all traits, indicating that, at the population level, people neither get more different nor more alike across the lifespan. The only deviations from this pattern were variance increases in neuroticism during late childhood and early adolescence (5-14 years) and variance decreases in extraversion during middle and late adulthood (45-80 years). Notably, though, effect sizes differed substantially across studies and measures. Our results provide novel insights into the lifespan development of personality traits that can be used to advance theoretical frameworks and inform practical applications. Furthermore, by providing benchmark values for the comparison of effect size estimates of future studies (https://personalityresearch.shinyapps.io/VarianceChange/), we aim to facilitate more systematic and cumulative research on variance changes in psychological traits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).