The kids are alright: growth and stability in personality development from adolescence to adulthood.

This longitudinal study provides a comprehensive analysis of continuity and change in personality functioning from age 18 to age 26 in a birth cohort (N = 921) using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (A. Tellegen, 1982). Data were analyzed using 4 different methods: differential continuity, mean-level change, individual differences in change, and ipsative change. Convergent evidence pointing toward personality continuity, as opposed to change, was found. The personality changes that did take place from adolescence to adulthood reflected growth in the direction of greater maturity; many adolescents became more controlled and socially more confident and less angry and alienated. Consistent with this, greater initial levels of maturity were associated with less personality change over time. The results indicate that the transition from adolescence to young adulthood is marked by continuity of personality and growth toward greater maturity.

A longitudinal study of personality change in young adulthood.

The present research examined personality continuity and change in a sample of young men and women assessed at the beginning and end of college. Two-hundred seventy students completed measures of the Big Five personality traits when they first entered college and then 4 years later. Analyses indicate small- to medium-sized normative (i.e., mean-level) changes, large rank-order stability correlations, high levels of stability in personality structure, and moderate levels of ipsative (i.e. profile) stability. Overall, the findings are consistent with the perspective that personality traits exhibit considerable continuity over time, yet can change in systematic ways.

The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: a quantitative review of longitudinal studies.

The present study used meta-analytic techniques to test whether trait consistency maximizes and stabilizes at a specific period in the life course. From 152 longitudinal studies, 3,217 test-retest correlation coefficients were compiled. Meta-analytic estimates of mean population test-retest correlation coefficients showed that trait consistency increased from .31 in childhood to .54 during the college years, to .64 at age 30, and then reached a plateau around .74 between ages 50 and 70 when time interval was held constant at 6.7 years. Analysis of moderators of consistency showed that the longitudinal time interval had a negative relation to trait consistency and that temperament dimensions were less consistent than adult personality traits.

Career momentum in midlife women: life context, identity, and personality correlates.

Women (N = 83) in their early 50s indicated whether they were increasing, maintaining, or decreasing momentum in their career. On the basis of their career momentum, women were classified into 3 groups and compared on work and family patterns, the importance of work to their identity, personality characteristics, and psychological well-being. Women with high career momentum were in higher status jobs and viewed their work as more central to their identity than women who were maintaining or decreasing their career momentum. Also, women with high career momentum scored higher on measures of self-acceptance, independence, and effective functioning in their early 50s and also rated their physical health higher than the other groups. Prospective longitudinal analyses showed that personality and life context patterns differentiated among the career momentum groups as far back as 30 years before the assessment of career momentum. The significance of the results for women's career development in midlife and coping with retirement is discussed.

Plaster or plasticity: are adult work experiences associated with personality change in women?

The present study tested whether work experiences were associated with personality change across two periods of adulthood (age 21 to 27 and 27 to 43) in a longitudinal sample of women (N = 81). Two competing theoretical perspectives were tested: the plaster theory, which claims that personality does not change after age 30, and the plasticity theory, which claims that personality can change at any time in adulthood. Evidence was found for both correlational consistency of personality in adulthood and for the socialization effect of work on personality change. Work experiences were not associated with personality change in young adulthood but were associated with changes between young adulthood and midlife. In the period from age 27 to age 43 women who worked more became more agentic, and women who were more successful in their work became both more agentic and more normadhering. This pattern of associations between personality change and work experience provided support for the plasticity model of personality change.

Changes in culture, changes in personality: the influence of individualism in a longitudinal study of women.

The influence of increasing individualism in U.S. culture on personality development was investigated with an index recently developed by H. Gough (1991) that traces changes in individualism from 1950 to 1985. Seventy-seven women followed from 1958 to 1989 (assessed at ages 21, 27, 43, and 52) showed increases on the index of individualism that paralleled changes in large cross-sectional samples over the same period. Increases on the individualism index were associated with increases in self-focus (narcissism) and decreases in norm adherence. Increases over the long middle period (1963-1964 to 1981), when the largest change occurred, were predicted by college-age measures of ego strength and adjustment and showed a positive relation to psychosocial and physical health at age 43. Increases in individualism may have helped women respond to radical changes in women's roles during the late 1960s and 1970s.

A model for evolution and extinction.

We present a model for evolution and extinction in large ecosystems. The model incorporates the effects of interactions between species and the influences of abiotic environmental factors. We study the properties of the model by approximate analytic solution and also by numerical simulation, and use it to make predictions about the distribution of extinctions and species lifetimes that we would expect to see in real ecosystems. It should be possible to test these predictions against the fossil record. The model indicates that a possible mechanism for mass extinction is the coincidence of a large coevolutionary avalanche in the ecosystem with a severe environmental disturbance.

One personality, multiple selves: integrating personality and social roles.

How do people maintain multiple, role-specific self-conceptions as well as a consistent sense of self? In a sample of middle-aged women, we examined three issues: (a) the ways in which people view themselves as both different and similar across social roles (e.g., parent, friend, worker), (b) how role-specific self-conceptions and general self-conceptions are related, and (c) the merits of predicting role-specific criteria from role-specific and general self-conceptions. Results showed that subjects' self-conceptions were specific to role contexts, yet highly correlated across those same role contexts. In addition, role-specific self-conceptions were more similar to the general self-concept for roles with which the individual was more satisfied. Finally, as predicted from the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off, ratings of the general self correlated moderately with outcomes across all role domains, whereas ratings of role-specific self-conceptions correlated strongly with outcomes for the same role, but not in other roles.

Ego development and personality change in adulthood.

At age 43, 90 women in a longitudinal study were classified on the basis of J. Loevinger's (Loevinger & Wessler, 1970) Sentence Completion Test into 3 levels of ego development: self-aware or below, conscientious, and individualistic or above. Retrospective multivariate analyses of variance showed that ego level was associated with differential personality change on scales of the California Psychological Inventory from ages 21-43. In a path analysis, verbal aptitude in high school, psychological mindedness in college, and stimulation of life path between ages 21 and 43 each independently predicted ego level at age 43. Accounts of difficult times that involved construction of new schemas (accommodation rather than assimilation) were associated with high ego level.

Diabetic nephropathy is not preventable - abstract

Renal failure in diabeties mellitus is becoming the commonest cause of end-stage renal disease (ERSD) in developed and developing countries. While ERSD occurs in about 35 percent of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), it occurs generally in about 15-60 percent with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), depending on ethnicity. Since most of the diabetes are NIDDM, it follows that most of these patients developing renal failure and requiring dialysis are NIDDM. When significant proteinuria begins, usually after about 15-20 years of NIDDM or IDDM, renal function will fall steadily and the patient will require dialysis in 3-5 years or sooner. The proteinuric patients also have a 20-40-fold increase in cardiovascular mortality. About one-quarter of the patients who have negative routine urinary protein dipstick tests will have sub-clinical amounts of urinary albumin (30-300 mg/24 hr), so-called microalbuminuria (MA). This has recently been correlated with a very high incidence of microvascular disease. This MA predicts about a 20-fold chance of the patient developing clinical proteinuria and a high chance of ERSD. The accumulated evidence suggests that a common pathogenic mechanism may exist for microalbuminuria, diabetic nephropathy, atherosclerosis and obesity. Obesity seems to be related to all of these factors in that it has been associated with insulin resistance, hypertension and so dium retention, atherosclerosis and hyperlipidaemia (HL). NIDDM patients are almost always obese and they always have insulin resistance, which improves with weight loss. There is growing clinical evidence of hereditary influence in NIDDM, HL, and hypertension with the clustering of diabetic nephropathy in these high-risk families. These data show that genetic factors may well play a major role, and it is therefore understandable that we may have difficulty in altering the already genetically charted course of proteinuria, hypertension, HL, and NIDDM (AU)

The divided self: concurrent and longitudinal effects of psychological adjustment and social roles on self-concept differentiation.

The relation between self-concept differentiation (SCD), the tendency to see oneself as having different personality characteristics in different social roles, and psychological adjustment was examined in a sample of college students and a sample of middle-aged women. In both studies, Ss with high levels of SCD showed poor emotional adjustment (e.g., depression) and tended to reject social norms and conventions (e.g., low socialization). Longitudinal analyses demonstrated that these same characteristics measured at age 21 predicted SCD measured more than 30 years later in middle age. These findings provide strong evidence that SCD is a sign of fragmentation of the self rather than specialization of role identities. The social context was also an important determinant of SCD; both dissatisfaction with role performance and frequent role changes in relationships and jobs predicted SCD measured 9 years later.

The hemodynamic effects of potassium deficiency in the dog.

Potassium deficiency for 3 weeks in dogs caused 374 +/- 38 mEq of sodium retention with increase in body weight, plasma volume, and inulin space. Cardiac output increased from 3.7 +/- 0.6 to 5 +/- 0.6 liters/min (P less than 0.02) and systemic vascular resistance decreased from 3,050 +/- 590 to 2,000 +/- 286 dynes/cm per sec2 (P less than 0.05). Plasma renin activity (PRA) increased from 0.4 +/- 0.1 to 17.2 +/- 0.9 ng/ml per hour (P less than 0.01) without change in plasma aldosterone. Angiotensin sensitivity decreased from a rise of 37 +/- 4 mm Hg in mean arterial pressure (MAP) to 10 ng/kg per min before potassium depletion to a rise of 10 +/- 2 mm Hg after hypokalemia. Urinary prostaglandin E (PGE) excretion increased from control values of 1,224 to 1,556 ng/day to 9,352 +/- 3,670 after 21 days of hypokalemia (P less than 0.01). Indomethacin, 150 mg a day for 3 days, decreased urinary PGE to control values as PRA decreased from 17.2 +/- 5.9 to 1.1 +/- .3 ng/ml per hour and angiotensin sensitivity was partially restored. These findings indicate that hypokalemia increased urinary PGE with extracellular fluid volume expansion, decreased sensitivity to angiotensin and increase in PRA.

Studies of the mechanism of contralateral polyuria after renal artery stenosis.

Acute renal artery stenosis in hydropenic dogs caused a contralateral increase in urine volume and free water clearance without change in glomerular filtration, renal blood flow, or osmolar clearance. The increase in urine volume was not dependent on the development of hypertension since it occurred in animals pretreated with trimethaphan but was dependent upon angiotensin since it was presented with angiotensin blockade with Saralasin. The effect was not caused by angiotensin inhibiting antidiuretic hormone release since the polyuria occurred in hypophysectomized animals receiving a constant infusion of 10 muU/kg per min of aqueous Pitressin. Since the rise in urine volume was associated with an increase in renal vein prostaglandin E concentration and was prevented by pretreatment with indomethacin (5 mg/kg) the results suggest that the rise in plasma angiotensin after renal artery stenosis causes an increase in contralateral prostaglandin E synthesis with resultant antagonism to antidiuretic hormone at the collecting tubule.