An Anonymous Coward writes:
The study begins with data from a 1950 survey of 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers were asked to use six questionnaires to rate the teenagers on six personality traits: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of moods, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn. Together, the results from these questionnaires were amalgamated into a rating for one trait, which was defined as "dependability." More than six decades later, researchers tracked down 635 of the participants, and 174 agreed to repeat testing.
In previous studies covering a decade or two, personalities could be recognized as roughly similar. Not this time!
Full paper here, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5144810/ and a longer review here https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/07/longest-ever-personality-study-finds-no-correlation-between-measures-taken-at-age-14-and-age-77/
Next (tongue in cheek) question, is this result unique to Scots, or does it apply to non-miserly groups as well?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:51PM (3 children)
I'd rather see a study that does both: tracks personalty starting in early adolescence, checking again in late adolescence and then again at college-age, then again around 30, then fast-forward to late adulthood.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:26PM (2 children)
There are a lot of firsts contained in those periods -- entering school, high school, college, first professional job. I bet personality changes a lot through all of those.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:51PM
First exposure to real minorities outside of watching TV shows. First series of realizations that liberalism is bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @03:12AM
You would lose that bet. The other studies referenced by the summary looked at those ages and determined personalities didn't change much, then they projected that to your entire life. Now this 'new' study is saying that projection is bogus.