Age differences in adult personality: findings from the United States and China.

This study used samples of adults from the United States (n = 285) and the People's Republic of China (n = 450) to examine age, gender, and culture differences in personality. Participants in both samples ranged from 20 to 87 years of age and responded to the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). Factor analyses of the CPI resulted in 4 personality factors (i.e., extraversion, control/norm orientation, flexibility, femininity/masculinity), with high congruence across cultures after targeted rotation. Multivariate analyses of variance with scale scores revealed significant Age Group 3 Culture and Gender 3 Culture interactions, and significant main effects of age, gender and culture. Specifically, negative age differences were found for scales that loaded on extraversion and flexibility, with older adults having lower scores on these scales. In contrast, positive age differences were found for scales indicative of control/norm orientation. In general, age differences were more pronounced for Chinese adults than for U.S. adults.

Adult attachment styles: their relations to family context and personality.

This study used a sample of 304 adults to examine mean differences in family climate and personality variables on the basis of individuals' attachment styles. Also examined was whether mean differences varied by age group. Findings showed significant main effects of attachment style, but no Attachment Style x Age Group interactions. Compared with adults with an insecure attachment style, persons with a secure attachment style described their family of origin and their current family more positively and scored higher on personality variables indicative of self-confidence, psychological well-being, and functioning in the social world. When the family climate and personality variables were included in a discriminant function analysis, 2 significant functions were obtained. The 1st function discriminated adults with a positive self-model from those with a negative self-model. The 2nd function contrasted participants with a positive other-model from those with a negative other-model. Thus, this study provided evidence in support of the self- and other-models as the fundamental dimensions of adults' attachment system.

Age and sex differences in strategies of coping and defense across the life span.

Age and sex differences in the use of coping and defense strategies were examined in life-span sample of 381 individuals. Participants responded to 2 self-report measures assessing mechanisms of coping and defense and measures assessing their level of cognitive complexity. Older adults used a combination of coping and defense strategies indicative of greater impulse control and the tendency to positively appraise conflict situations. Adolescents and younger adults used strategies that were outwardly aggressive and psychologically undifferentiated, indicating lower levels of impulse control and self-awareness. Women used more internalizing defenses than men and used coping strategies that flexibly integrated intra-and interpersonal aspects of conflict situations. Taken together, findings provide evidence for the age- and sex-specific use of strategies of coping and defense, suggesting that men and women may face different developmental tasks in the process toward maturity in adulthood.

Representations of self across the life span.

This research extends a cognitive-developmental approach to examining age differences in self-representation from adolescence to mature adulthood and later life. The authors suggest that mature adults move from representations of self that are relatively poorly differentiated from others or social conventions to ones that involve emphasis on process, context, and individuality. Participants (n men = 73, n women = 76), ranging in age from 11 to 85 years, provided spontaneous accounts of their self-representations and responded to measures assessing cognitive and emotional functioning and broad dimensions of personality. On average, self-representation scores peaked in middle-aged adults and were lowest in the preadolescent and older adult age groups. Level of self-representation was related to cognitive and personality variables, but there was some evidence that the pattern of correlates shifted from younger (ages 15-45) to older (ages 46-85) age segments.

Adult age group differences in story recall style.

The story recall style of younger (mean age = 18.67 years) and older adults (mean age = 65.96) was examined in this study. Following presentation of a narrative in either fable or non-fable form, participants produced written responses under one of four recall conditions: total recall, summary, gist, or gist plus moral. Analysis of the response protocols revealed quantitative and qualitative differences associated with age in the non-fable but not the fable condition. In response to the non-fable, older adults exhibited a style that was more integrative or interpretive than that of the younger adults, whose protocols were highly text-based and literal. Overall, the fable condition produced more text-based responses than did the non-fable condition. In addition, instructions at recall influenced responding. Response patterns could be shifted toward a more text-based style under total recall instructions, while more interpretive responses were obtained under the gist plus moral condition.

Speaking about feelings: conceptions of emotion across the life span.

Self-descriptions of emotions in 72 participants aged 10 to 77 were assessed. Responses were reliably scored in terms of a 4-level cognitive-developmental coding scheme for each of 4 emotions: anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. Results showed that those younger or lower in ego level and verbal ability described emotions in terms of sensorimotor actions, outer appearance, conventional and technical descriptions, rigid impulse monitoring, and an emphasis on control and the ideal. Those older or of higher ego level and verbal ability conveyed a vivid sense of the experience, had explicit knowledge of bodily sensations, accepted conflict within self and others, and displayed flexibility and delay of action. These findings suggest that understanding of emotions develops along a dimension of cognitive complexity over the life span. This dimension, in turn, is related to life span changes in coping and defense.

Age, ego level, and the life-span development of coping and defense processes.

Developmental variation in coping and defense strategy use was examined in a sample of 100 male and female participants ranging in age from 10 to 77 years. Each participant was administered Loevinger's ego development task, the Ways of Coping measure, and the Defense Mechanism Inventory. In addition, a brief narrative of a stressful experience was assessed for the developmental level of the response and for its content. The results suggest that, in addition to age, the developmental measures of ego level and source of stress predict the use of particular coping and defense strategies. In keeping with other research, sex differences in coping and defense strategies were also found. These findings are discussed in light of the need for tasks that are able to assess both developmental and individual differences in the maturity of coping and defense strategy use.

Spatial perspective taking and referential communication skills in the elderly: a training study.

A training program was designed to test the hypothesis that social interaction or, more specifically, the experience of taking the role of another in social problem solving situations and communicative activities would facilitate elderly adults' spatial perspective taking and referential communication skills. The extent to which such social interaction and role taking practice reduced measured spatial and communicative egocentrism was examined by comparing the performances of 36 elderly participants across three conditions: Training, Placebo and Control. The results provided strong support for this hypothesis and were discussed in terms of their implications for socio-ecological context explanations.

Cognitive strategy training and intellectual performance in the elderly.

Reduced intellectual performance in the elderly was conceptualized as an experientail deficit than can be reversed by training relevant component skills. Sixty female elderly subjects (ages 63 to 95) participated in three phases of the experiment: Training, Immediate Posttest, and Delayed Posttest. Training was geared at strengthening covert self-monitoring strategies in complex reasoning problems, and training effects were evaluated both on the training and a transfer task. Results showed raised performance in the training conditions, transfer effects, and maintenance of training and transfer effects over 2 weeks. Implications for theories of adult intelligence are discussed.

Reduction of adolescent misperceptions of the aged.

Forty adolescent girls simulated the responses of an elderly woman on Jackson's Personality Research Form (PRF, Form A) in pre-test and were then randomly assigned to one of four training conditions involving items of PRF Form B. In Specific training, feedback information of the actual self-endorsements of 10 elderly women was given with regard to the three PRF scales which showed largest misperceptions during pre-test simulation; under General Training, feedback information was given with regard to all PRF scales; two further conditions (No Feedback Training, No Training) served as controls. Training was partially effective. Increased accuracy of perception was observed during post-test for the most misperceived personality dimension (dominance) both immediately after specific training and after 2 weeks in a delayed post-test.