Assessing the temporal stability of psychological constructs: An illustration of Type D personality, anxiety and depression

•A critical review of methods assessing the temporal stability of latent constructs.•How to assess temporal stability using longitudinal latent variable models.•How to test the assumption of longitudinal measurement invariance.•Assessing the temporal stability of the traits negative affectivity and social inhibition.•Changes in negative affectivity covary with changes in depression and anxiety. Various methods exist to assess the temporal stability of psychological constructs. In this paper we discuss common methods based on a review of the personality traits negative affectivity and social inhibition. Most methods ignore the non-normal distributions and measurement error in the questionnaire item scores. We illustrate how to handle these issues using three longitudinal latent variable models. We further highlight the importance of testing the often overlooked assumption of longitudinal measurement invariance. Lastly, we apply several longitudinal measurement invariance models, univariate and multivariate latent growth curves models, and latent trait-state occasions models to data from 2625 cancer survivors, to assess the temporal stability of negative affectivity, social inhibition, depression, anxiety, across a period of four years.