McCrae, 1989b). There is a Life History Research Society which consid -
ers such topics as “Straight and Devious Pathways from Childhood to
Adulthood” and “Pathways to Adult Competence,” and Lachman (2001)has edited a Handbook of Midlife Development in which the role of per -
sonality traits is occasionally discussed.
Much remains to be done in charting the influence of each of the
five domains of personality on people’s careers, familial relationships,and adaptation to stress and disease, but enough has already been doneto show the powerful effect personality traits can have. For example,Conley (1985) traced the couples who had participated in E. LowellKelly’s pioneering longitudinal study (1955)—a study that had pro -
vided some of the first strong evidence of personality stability . Conley
used self-reports and ratings gathered in 1935 and 1955 to predict as -
pects of life in 1980 and found evidence of pervasive influences of traits.
Men and women rated by peers in 1935 as being high in Neuroticismwere more likely to have had an emotional disorder in the succeedingyears; men rated as poor in impulse control (or Conscientiousness)were more likely to have become alcoholics.
Conley sampled a number of variables that give a flavor of daily life
in 1980 for these men and women. Those he called intuitive types,whom we would describe as open to experience, had artistic hobbiesand preferred to watch public television. His sensing types, closed to ex-perience, listed gardening, sewing, and cooking as hobbies and pre-ferred to watch game shows. Dispositions assessed early in life canmake sense of the activities of older individuals.
A recent study by Soldz and Vaillant (1999) traced Harvard men
from college to old age. In their last year of college, the men were ratedby a psychiatrist on a set of 25 traits, which were later scored in terms ofthe FFM. The men completed the NEO-PI in 1988. Despite the differ -
ence in instrument and source of data (psychiatrist ratings vs. self-
reports) and the lapse of over 40 years, there were significant correla -
tions for Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness ( r’s = .19 to .38). Of
more interest here, however, is the effect of these stable traits on the lifecourse. Soldz and Vaillant had access to a variety of outcome measurescollected at various points between the two assessments. All the collegeratings were related to at least one outcome: Those high in Neuroticismsmoked more; those high in Extraversion earned more money . Openstudents showed more evidence of creative productions and were lesslikely to have conservative political attitudes; they also were more likelyInfluences of Personality on the Life Course 217