Four types of change and self‐other agreement on change in personality traits during college years: A multi‐informant longitudinal study

Research in personality trait change has largely relied on mean‐level and rank‐order change across the lifespan. The current research expanded the literature in several ways: analyzing four types of change and correlated change patterns, obtaining multi‐informant reports, including lower‐order personality traits, and collecting multiple assessments during a short yet important time for college‐attending emerging adults (baseline N = 259, M (age) = 18.79). There was little evidence for mean‐level change, yet participants showed significant individual differences such that rank‐ordering and ipsative profiles were much more dynamic than mean score patterns. Informant‐reports from close others demonstrated largely similar patterns: little to no mean‐level change, significant increase in rank‐ordering, and about half of participants reporting configural change mostly in elevation and scatter rather than in profile shapes. Interestingly, there was no correlated change between self and other‐reports. This indicated that close others do not share individuals' perception of their own personality trait change, at least not in the demographic group studied. By examining individual‐level, sample‐level, and multi‐informant perspectives, our thorough investigation provided useful benchmarks for future research to examine the source of variability in change trajectories.