On Correlated Change in Personality

Correlated change in personality is essential to understanding change and development. It refers to the question of whether and to what degree changes in personality are interrelated over time within and between individuals. Compared to the longstanding literature on personality development, relatively less research has focused on correlated change in personality. The main goal of this paper is thus to discuss the potential of this concept for the field of personality development. First, we define correlated change and propose a categorization framework with multiple dimensions. Second, we discuss several theoretical concepts of correlated change that help understand the patterns, causes, and mechanisms underlying correlated change in personality. Third, we briefly describe several statistical approaches to modeling correlated change. Fourth, we summarize previous research on correlated change in personality. We focus our research on (a) correlated change within the Big Five personality traits, and (b) between the Big Five personality traits and three domains of life. Finally, we conclude by discussing challenges and future directions of the concept for the field of personality development.