Are personality traits and relationship characteristics reciprocally related? Longitudinal analyses of codevelopment in the transition out of high school and beyond.

Personality development has been associated with changes in various aspects of social relationships (e.g., contact frequency, emotional closeness, etc.). However, specific patterns of personality-relationship transactions are still not well understood as not many empirical studies have explored major life transitions. Emerging adulthood with its numerous life transitions is crucial for personality and social relationship development. In this study, we looked at personality-relationship transactions in the transition from high school to college, apprenticeship training, and so forth. We used Waves 1 to 3 of the Transformation of the Secondary School System and Academic Careers (TOSCA) study, which measured the Big Five (McCrae & Costa, 2008) and their facets as well as five relationship characteristics in social networks with one's romantic partner, friends, kin, and others. Our analyses of extended bivariate latent difference score models revealed four main findings: First, there was an imbalance in personality-relationship transaction effects with the majority of effects occurring from personality to change in social relationships rather than in the opposite direction. Furthermore, only a few change-to-change associations occurred. Second, two thirds of the cross-lagged effects derived from personality facets. Third, the majority of effects were found in the second measurement interval (i.e., not during the transition out of high school, but in the time period after this transition). Finally, neuroticism and its facets, as well as conflict frequency and perceived feelings of insecurity in the relationship emerged as the most consistent associations in this age group. Theoretical and empirical implications for personality-relationship transaction patterns are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Against all odds - is a more differentiated view of personality development in emerging adulthood needed? The case of young apprentices.

Personality development in emerging adults who do not attend college after high school has been largely overlooked so far. In this study, we investigated personality development in emerging German adults (NT 1  = 1,886, MageT1  = 18.01 years, 29% female) undergoing vocational education and training (VET). The trainees were assessed at the start of VET, 1.5 years later, and another 1.5 years after that, just before graduation. Longitudinal latent change score analyses were applied. Bivariate analyses investigated life satisfaction and job strain as social and work-related aspects that are potentially reciprocally related to personality development. Mean-level personality changes included increases in neuroticism and decreases in agreeableness and conscientiousness in the first interval. In the second interval, neuroticism decreased and conscientiousness increased. Simultaneously, trainees reported a gradual decrease in extraversion and openness across the 3-year time span. Personality, especially agreeableness and conscientiousness, emerged as a stronger predictor of changes in job strain and life satisfaction than vice versa. For example, more agreeable and more conscientious trainees subsequently showed increases in life satisfaction. Trainees reporting higher job strain subsequently showed decreases in agreeableness. Trajectories of personality development partly support the maturity principle that has been established in many college student samples.