Personality Traits, Effects on Relationships

Personality and Relationships

Personality is the entirety of characteristics in which people differ consistently and meaningfully. The concept of personality has two features: (1) the individual particularities of a person compared with other individuals, and (2) the temporal consistency of this particularity. These features can be conceptualized at three levels. The first level consists of basic dispositions (e.g., the so-called “Big Five” traits—Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness). Individual differences in these traits reflect the dispositional signature of personality. For example, people perceive themselves and others regarding their relative position on the Extraversion-Introversion dimension. These basic traits exhibit modest mean-level changes over the life span, yet at the same time show moderate levels of rank-order consistency and substantial individual differences in stability and change. In other words, people change yet remain who they are (compared with others) [Page 1216]because they adapt to age-related developmental tasks and challenges in a way that mirrors their idiosyncratic dispositions. Across adulthood as people grow older, they tend to become more emotionally stable, more agreeable, and more conscientious. These age-related, mean-level changes in personality can be considered normative and are associated with major life transitions in romantic partnership, family, and work. For example, young adults typically become more emotionally stable and more conscientious when they enter into a partner relationship for the first time. However, it is debated among researchers whether this kind of personality change is due to intrinsic maturation or whether relationships set in motion and reinforce processes that create personality change.

The second level of personality consists of so-called characteristic adaptations, such as attitudes, motives and goals, individual abilities, and certain aspects of the self-concept, such as self-esteem and self-worth, all of which are more malleable and sensitive to environmental influences than traits. Characteristic adaptations are flexible, have moderate rank-order stability, and show large individual differences in stability and change. This is because these adaptations are consequences of negotiating environmental demands, coping with challenges of critical life events, and responding to relationship issues such as supportive partnerships. Certain aspects of relationship functioning (not relationships per se), such as global perceived social support, can be conceived as characteristic adaptations. For example, global perceived social support indicates the extent to which people believe that they receive emotional or instrumental help from their social network (i.e., family members, spouses, friends, and colleagues). Individual differences in global social support are relatively stable and are more an indicator of the person's personality (level 2) than a characteristic of specific social relationships. For example, more agreeable people tend to perceive their relationships as more supportive in general.

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