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Normative Personality Development

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Synonyms

Mean-level change; Normative change; Typical development

Definition

Normative personality development refers to the stages of growth or maturation that the majority of people of a specific age are expected to achieve (Meggit 2006) or generalizable trends of trait expression across the lifespan (Caspi et al. 2005).

Introduction

Personality is defined as individual differences in the way one thinks, feels, and behaves. These differences are viewed as characteristic and enduring pattern cognitions and behavior, presented by the individual (McCrae and Costa 2008), while there is some debate as to whether these patterns are stable over time, described as traits, or whether external, environmental factors, or states, irrevocably change personality expression. Indeed changes in personality expression may result from intrinsic factors, such as maturation and motivation, or external, environmental factors, such as social pressure to find and follow a specific role.

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References

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  • Meggitt, C. (2006). Child development (2nd ed., p. 74). Essex: Heinemann.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National University, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Betsi Little

Authors
  1. Betsi Little
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Betsi Little .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

    John F. Rauthmann

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Little, B. (2018). Normative Personality Development. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1864-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1864-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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