Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood—How the Perception of Life Events and Mindset Affect Personality Trait Change

Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of experiencing two major life events: graduating from school and moving away from home. Thereby, we examined the occurrence of the two life events per se and the subjective perception of the critical life event in terms of valence. In addition, we postulate a moderation effect of the construct of mindset, which emphasizes that beliefs over the malleability of global attributes can be seen as predictors of resilience to challenges. This suggests that mindset acts as a buffer for these two distinct events. In a large longitudinal sample of 1,243 people entering adulthood, we applied latent structural equation modeling to assess mean-level changes in the Big Five, the influence of life events per se, the subjective perception of life events, and a moderating role of mindset. In line with maturity processes, results showed significant mean-level changes in all Big Five traits. While no changes in the Big Five dimensions were noted when the mere occurrence of an event is assessed, results indicated a greater increase in extraversion and diminished increase in emotional stability when we accounted for the individual's (positive/negative) perception of the critical life event. In case of extraversion, this also holds true for the moderator mindset. Our findings contribute valuable insights into the relevance of subjective appraisals to life events and the importance of underlying processes to these events

The Influence of Critical Life Events on Life Trajectories – An Investigation of Personality Development, Well-Being, and Core Beliefs

Much has been achieved with regard to how critical life events influence trajectories in life. Theories on the development of personality and well-being emphasize that people differ in the rate, timing, and direction life events influence certain personality traits and key indicators of well-being such as life satisfaction. However, there has been an urgent call for longitudinal studies exploring processes that underlie individual differences of the appraisal and reaction to critical life events. This dissertation seeks to meet this plea by investigating the influence of specific and non-specific critical life events on personality development and life satisfaction, taking into account one’s subjective perception of these events. Since core beliefs can alter mental representations of life events, the present dissertation explores a possible moderating role of mindset and self-efficacy. Moreover, this dissertation places particular focus on the assessment of life events and implications for the critical age periods of adolescence and emerging adulthood. While the first longitudinal study (N = 1,243) focusses on the influence of two specific life events, school graduation and moving away from the childhood home, on trait changes in the Big Five, the second study (N = 1,477) explores personality development below the domain level in trait intellect, a facet of openness, with regard to predominantly non-specific life events. The third study (N = 1,920) expands the scope of the current thesis by considering the impact of a collective experienced life event, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the development of life satisfaction over four measurement occasions. Across the three studies, I investigate individual differences by considering the moderating role of the core beliefs of mindset or self-efficacy. Although none of the studies suggest that these critical life events have an influence in and of themselves, results reveal significant personality changes (Study 1) and changes in life satisfaction (Study 3) when taking into account subjective perceptions of the critical life events. Further, the results of studies 1 and 2 indicate personality development in traits that are associated with mature functioning. While a moderating role of mindset was found in study 1 regarding the influence of the perception of the life event graduation on levels in extraversion and neuroticism, results indicated no moderating effects of self-efficacy in the studies 2 and 3. However, the present results reveal selection and socialization effects of self- efficacy with respect to the development of intellect (Study 2), and significant effects of self-efficacy on life satisfaction before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 3). All in all, the present findings contribute to a deeper understanding on the processing of life events, but further longitudinal studies are needed to observe individual life trajectories in young adulthood with respect to different event characteristics and implicit beliefs. In the conclusion, limitations of this dissertation, future research ideas, as well as practical implications for adolescents and emerging adults are discussed