But individuals inevitably apply these statements to themselves.
When Gail Sheehy published Passages (1976)—and later New Passages
(1996)—millions read the book, not because of a disinterested curiosityabout human development, nor because they admired her prose style(engaging as it was). People read Passages because they wanted to make
sense of their own past, present, or future lives. In short, the topic ofthis book is likely to be of personal as well as academic interest to mostreaders, and our approach must take that fact into consideration. Wewill argue for a particular position fully aware that many people find itunappealing. We will therefore try to anticipate objections, and in gen -
eral we will adopt an approach that Salvatore Maddi (1976) character -
ized as “partisan zealotry” rather than “benevolent eclecticism” in order
to “provide the reader with a vivid account” (p. 2) of our views. We be -
lieve that we can accomplish that goal without sacrificing scientific ob -
jectivity , and we hope our presentation will stimulate lively discussion
and further research.
The first version of this book (McCrae & Costa, 1984) took a sim-
ple but radical position: We argued that personality was stable in adult-hood—that the traits one showed at age 30 would remain essentiallyunchanged into old age. Much more information from longitudinal,cross-sectional, and cross-cultural studies is now available, and argu-ment has become more nuanced. Newer studies confirm that stability isthe predominant feature of personality in adulthood, but they also doc-ument predictable changes at certain ages and in certain individuals.The story has become a bit more interesting.
Some readers are likely to have a strong background in personality
psychology but less knowledge of gerontology; some the reverse. Wewill try to accommodate both groups by reviewing some fundamentalsin each discipline. Although our conclusions are driven by data and ourresearch has been squarely in the tradition of quantitative empiricism,we will not burden the reader with much technical detail about thestudies we discuss—the cited literature can be consulted for that. Wewill, however, spend considerable time on the logic of research, specifi -
cally how scientific questions should be formulated and how particular
measures, samples, or analyses can be used to answer them. Because ag -
ing is a relatively new field and personality psychology a contentious
one, there are a large number of issues to address. We will consider theproblems of distinguishing aging from generational and time-of-measurement effects, the validity of self-report methods of assessment,2 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD