Extremely Adverse Life Events and Personality Change

Although prior research has shed light on the impact of selected life events on personality trait change, less is known about the role of major negative life events and the possible role of individual sources that could buffer their impact on personality. Using US secondary data from the HRS (N =3,232, Mean age = 68.73, 61% females), a large-scaled, nationally representative (people between age 50 and 100 years) prospective panel study, we estimated latent change score models to examine effects of extremely adverse life events on personality development and tested for moderating effects of self-regulatory resources (control beliefs) in middle and late adulthood. Overall, we detect significant effects of losing a child on change in Openness, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness and of experiencing a physical attack on change in Conscientiousness. Furthermore, results suggest that perceived constraints in control beliefs could be beneficial in dealing with severe life events. Both our findings on life events and control beliefs substantially differ by gender, with the detected effects of life events on personality trait change being mainly driven by females. The experience of extreme life events and the role of self-regulatory resources for personality research are discussed.

尽管先前的研究已对特定生活事件对人格特质变化的影响进行了探讨，但对于重大负面生活事件的作用以及可能缓冲其对人格影响的个体来源的了解尚显不足。利用来自HRS（N = 3,232，平均年龄 = 68.73，61%女性）的美国次级数据，我们进行了一项大规模、具有全国代表性的（50至100岁之间的人群）前瞻性面板研究，并估计了潜在变化得分模型，以考察极端负面生活事件对人格发展的影响，并测试了自我调节资源（控制信念）在成年中期和晚期的调节作用。总体而言，我们发现失去子女对开放性、责任心和宜人性等特质的变化具有显著影响，以及遭受身体攻击对责任心的变化也具有显著影响。此外，研究结果还表明，感知到的控制信念的约束在应对严重生活事件中可能具有益处。在生活事件和控制信念方面，我们的发现与性别存在显著差异，生活事件对人格特质变化的影响主要由女性驱动。极端生活事件的经历以及自我调节资源在人格研究中的作用亦被讨论。