 11. Personality Development across the Life Course 261
Pervading all aspect of the model are 
the ways we can access information about 
traits, abilities, motivations, and narra -
tives that typically center on the concepts 
of identity and reputation (not depicted in 
the model). The domains of personality are 
manifested through identity and reputation, 
which represent both psychological and 
methodological concepts. We assess identity 
through self-  reports (i.e., what people say 
about themselves), and reputation through 
observer reports (i.e., what others say about 
them). Self-  reports and other reports give 
personality researchers two ways of obtain -
ing information about individuals. Widely 
used personality inventories, such as the 
Big Five Inventory–2 (BFI-2; Soto & John, 
2017), represent the standard way to obtain 
self- reports, while observer reports are rep -
resented by informant ratings of behavior or 
personality sometimes using the same item 
content found on self-  report inventories.
Identity and reputation, the corresponding 
psychological constructs, mean something 
beyond just the methods used to assess them. 
Identity  reflects the conscious opinions that 
people hold about themselves across the four 
units of analysis described earlier. For exam -
ple, traits are one component of identity. The 
conscious acknowledgment via self-  reports of 
personality traits reflect the identity compo -
nent of personality. Identity also pertains to 
the metacognitive perception of those same 
self- perceptions. For example, people differ in 
how confident and clear they are about their 
ratings of their personality traits or motiva -
tions (Baumeister & Tice, 1988; Lodi-Smith, 
Spain, Cologgi, & Roberts, 2017). Self-  
esteem and other global evaluations of one’s 
standing or perceived worth are also found 
in identity (Robins, Chapter 26, this volume). 
So people can simultaneously think of them -
selves as “extraverted” while also holding the 
opinion that they are clear about that judg -
ment (e.g., self-  concept clarity) and that they 
believe people like themselves who possess 
that trait should be held in high regard (e.g., 
self- esteem).
Reputation  reflects the opinions that 
other people have of a target person in terms 
of the four domains. Numerous studies have 
shown that identities and reputations are 
only modestly related, and that opinions of 
the same construct taken from self-  report and observer perspectives offer complemen -
tary information (Vazire & Carson, Chap -
ter 41, this volume). This complementarity 
reflects the fact that our own behavior is not 
always evident to us, and other people may 
recognize patterns in our personalities that 
we fail to see. In fact, the portion of person -
ality uniquely captured by observers is most 
likely the best possible support for the idea 
that much of our personality is implicit and 
lies outside of our awareness. People also 
care about and actively shape their own 
reputations—  people actively attempt to per -
suade others of their desirable qualities and 
do not share all of their self-  perceptions with 
them (Goffman, 1959).
The units of analysis in the neo-socio -
analytic model provide a mapping of the 
constructs and conditions we believe are 
most important to understanding the field 
of personality, as well as any given person’s 
personality. It is primarily a descriptive 
model and is not intended to answer deeper 
questions about why people behave the way 
they do. For example, some persons may 
behave in an extraverted fashion because 
it is an intrinsic, automatic response to the 
presence of people, while others may do so 
because they desire to assert authority over 
a group of employees. We do not spell out a 
deeper theory for how and why these units 
are separate and interrelated in this chapter 
but focus instead on how personality traits 
develop over the lifespan.
Applying the  Neo-Socioanalytic Model 
to Personality  Development
With the structural aspect of the neo- 
socioanalytic model outlined, we address 
four questions that are fundamental to the 
idea of personality development:
1. Are personality traits consistent?
2. Do personality traits change?
3. If personality traits change, why?
4. If personality traits change, can we 
change them through intervention?
We provide a broad overview of empirical 
answers to these questions and discuss the 
principles of personality development drawn 
from these empirical patterns.