CHAPTER 11
The Influences
of Personalityon the Life Course
We have argued throughout this book that personality traits do not
change much after age 30. Our conclusion is based not on theories ofdevelopment or idealizations of aging but on a hard look at such facts aswe could find. But when we consider with equal objectivity the work oftheorists such as Daniel Levinson and Roger Gould, we cannot escapethe conclusion that there is a great deal of change in people’s lives. AsGould (1978) wrote, “Adulthood is not a plateau.” Most people do notbegin a career as soon as they leave school and continue in it unevent -
fully until retirement. Circumstances change, and people change. Part
of the resistance to our message of stability comes from the older adult’srecognition that life is often unpredictable and the younger adult’s pro -
found hope that there is yet some variety , adventure, and surprise in
store. There is.
For some reason, the notion of change without growth seems hard
to grasp. Perhaps an analogy would help. By the end of high school, orcertainly college, most individuals have reached their peak of intellec -
tual development. They are, in a number of demonstrable ways, not
only more knowledgeable but actually more intelligent than they were afew years before. They can think more abstractly , reason more cogently ,learn new ideas more quickly , and grasp more intricate patterns. At the
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