Traumatic life events as sources of Big Five personality trait change: The moderating role of control beliefs

Although prior research has shed light on the impact of selected life events on personality trait change, less is known about the role of traumatic life events as sources of personality trait change. Furthermore, we shed light on the role of person-specific control beliefs that possibly function as resources in developmental processes and, thus, might buffer (or amplify) the impact of challenging and largely uncontrollable life events. Using US secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 3,232, M_age = 66.66, range 50–100 years of age, 61% females), a large-scale, nationally representative prospective panel study, we estimated latent change score models to examine effects of traumatic life events on personality trait development in middle and late adulthood. Overall, we detect small to medium-sized significant effects of three traumatic events: The death of a child relates to less pronounced increases in Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness, whereas the experience of a physical attack relates to less pronounced increases in Conscientiousness. In contrast, the experience of an own life-threatening illness is linked to more positive changes in Conscientiousness. Furthermore, results suggest that perceived constraints in control could be beneficial in dealing with severe life events.

Plain language summary

Research of the last two decades showed that personality traits—that is, the general pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—change across the entire lifespan, but sources of change are still not well understood. Empirical evidence suggests that major life events individuals pass through might trigger personality change. Yet, so far detected effects of many events have been either surprising or inconsistent across studies. In particular, we still know very little about the role of traumatic life events on personality change in middle and late adulthood. This study helps to fill this gap, focusing on a nationally representative sample of the US population aged 50 or older that allowed us to examine in what ways personality characteristics change when experiencing one of five events: The death of a child, the experience of a natural disaster, a physical attack, an own life-threatening illness/accident, and a life-threatening illness/accident of a partner or a child. Our findings indicate that passing through dramatic turning points such as the death of a child, the experience of a physical attack or the experience of own illness appear to affect change in conscientiousness (for all three events) as well as change in openness to experience and agreeableness (only the first event). At the same time, it is important to note that not all traumatic events considered in our study were linked to personality trait change. Thus, it is still an open question which traumatic event and under which circumstances are related to personality trait change.