While personality is relatively stable over time, it is also subject to change across the entire lifespan. On a macro-analytical level, empirical research has identified patterns of normative and differential development that are affected by biological and environmental factors, specific life events, and social role investments. On a…

Dabrowski's ideas about personality development are not only a source of practical recommendations for assisting the development of persons of varied age but can also be an inspiration for research. The theory is exceptionally helpful in describing developmental phenomena. Cases of multilevel development were studied in autobiographies of 7…

This article provides a review and synthesis of concepts, research programs, and measures in the infant and child temperament area. First, the authors present an overview of five classical approaches to the study of child temperament that continue to stimulate research today. Subsequently, the authors carve out key definitional criteria for…

Provides overview of attachment theory as parented by John Bowlby in "Attachment and Loss". Uses two major concepts from this work to interpret refinements and elaborations of attachment theory attibuted to Mary Ainsworth. Considers how recent insights into development of socioemotional understanding and development of event…

In this study, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) profiles of exposer (n=36), rapist (n=47), and assaulter (n=46) groups were investigated and compared. The most disturbed group, the rapists, had MMPI K-corrected mean raw scale scores that were significantly greater than those of the exposer group on many scales. (Author)

Naturalistic observation of a set of identical twins revealed many differences in personality and motor development. (MS)

Fourth through eleventh grade students evaluated single personality trait descriptions of hypothetical persons of their own sex. Results are discussed in terms of person-perception and social desirability theories of personality. (ST)

As an important part of the plan to record and systematically deal with all observable behavioral events that constitute an infant's waking life, all social encounters between the baby and other persons that occurred during weekly observations of two infants in their everyday milieu were recorded. (Author/CB)

Studied 46 alcoholics one year upon discharge from a residential treatment program based on transactional analysis. Results showed 25 were abstinent and the other 21 were not drinking heavily. Analysis suggested that the abstinent persons had somewhat higher self-esteem and were slightly freer in expression of feelings. (JAC)

Presents a model of cognition and emotion that suggests that feedback between cognition and emotion generates, maintains, and reconfigures interpretations of emotion-eliciting events at micro- and macrodevelopmental time scales and that personality and behavior self-organize in response to fluctuations in perception or cognition and trace…

We conceptualize personality and individual variation from the perspective of dynamical systems. People's thoughts, feelings, and predispositions for action are inherently dynamic, displaying constant change due to internal mechanisms and external forces, but over time the flow of thought and action converges on a narrow range of states--a…

The authors offer a new, integrative conceptualization of the relational self based on a synthesis of recent approaches to the self and significant others. This conceptualization provides a sharper and fuller definition of the relational self than does any existing approach alone and a common framework to interpret findings from separate…

It is a common article of belief that each child is unique. Action based on this belief, though, is rare. Researchers have largely neglected the question of the causes of children's individual uniqueness. But, when difficulties and serious problems arise in the course of child rearing, causality is located in the dynamics of family functioning.…

Explored genetic and environmental underpinnings of temperamental differences in 3- to 16-month-old twins and their parents. Found that additive genetic and shared environmental effects best represented smiling, laughter, and duration of orienting. Shared environmental effects fully accounted for co-twin similarity for soothability. Additive…