 15. Personality Development in Adulthood and Later Life  345
personality change, arguing that change 
(and stability) revolves around reference val -
ues that are usually concepts at McAdams’s 
second level (PAC), such as goals, but also 
by more biological dimensions such as af -
fect or traits. Homeostasis is maintained by 
regulating behavior to stay consistent with 
the reference values (which, of course, can 
course change over time). Denissen et al.’s 
theory extends to childhood, so like neo- 
socioanalytic theory, it is lifespan in nature.
Dynamic equilibrium theory (Ormel, 
Riese, & Rosmalen, 2012), mentioned ear -
lier, is another regulatory theory modeled 
after well-being set-point theory (Headey & 
Wearing, 1989). It draws more heavily from 
work on the genetic basis of personality (e.g., 
McGue et al., 1993) than do other theories 
and maintains that these genetic factors es -
tablish set points for traits and other person -
ality dimensions. Contextual factors may 
push personality away from these set points 
temporarily, but genetically influenced phys -
iological mechanisms will eventually return 
a personality characteristic back to its origi -
nal set point.
Dynamic interplay, but not regulation per 
se, is a cornerstone of the personality and 
social relationship (PERSOC) framework 
(Back et al., 2011). PERSOC holds that so -
cial relationships and interpersonal behav -
iors exist in a dynamic tension with person -
ality characteristics, with each influencing 
the other over time. It is consistent with 
the bidirectionality concepts we discussed 
earlier, and like neo-  socioanalytic theory, 
focuses heavily on social aspects of human 
behavior. It can be regulatory, in that social 
relationships can put brakes on personality 
change, depending on the circumstances, 
but is just as likely to promote personality 
change. In this sense, PERSOC embodies 
dynamic principles, but regulatory processes 
only peripherally.
A newer framework, TESSERA (Wrzus 
& Roberts, 2017), also gives a central role 
to dynamic, regulatory processes. Trigger -
ing, Expectancies, States/State Expressions 
and Reactions (TESSERA), like PERSOC, 
is narrower in scope than comprehensive 
theories such as neo-  socioanalytic theory. 
Whereas PERSOC specifically focuses on 
dynamic interplay between social interac -
tions and personality, TESSERA is more ab -stract, arguing that any kind of short-term 
experience (social or otherwise) triggers a 
chain of reactions that ultimately can lead 
to personality change. It draws on work that 
emphasize daily experiences and similar 
“micro” behavioral processes (Mroczek & 
Almeida, 2004). Short-term situational re -
actions and other state mechanisms all build 
toward long-term personality development. 
In this sense, TESSERA unites “process” 
approaches to personality, which generally 
center on short-term phenomena, (e.g., Flee -
son & Jaywickreme, 2015) with long-term 
approaches to personality development, 
such as those discussed earlier that emphasis 
trajectories and growth curves.
In addition to the full-  fledged theories 
(neo-  socioanalytic, dynamic equilibrium) 
and somewhat narrower frameworks (PER -
SOC, TESSERA), the last decade has seen a 
number of freestanding concepts that have 
high relevance for personality development 
in adulthood. Roberts et al. (2008) and 
Caspi and Shiner (2008) put forth a number 
of very interesting theoretical concepts, such 
as reactance  (selective attention to stimuli 
based on personality), attrition  (leaving 
contexts or environments due to a personal -
ity characteristic, or leaving because it calls 
for too much personality change), and fili -
bustering  (resisting change in the hope that 
the change agent will exit from one’s life). 
Similarly, Shanahan, Hill, Roberts, Eccles, 
and Friedman (2014) offered an extensive 
catalogue of theoretical concepts aimed at 
explaining how conscientiousness might 
change over the lifespan, and how these 
changes may impact health and optimal 
aging. For example, amplification  refers to 
the social context increasing (amplifying) or 
decreasing the effect of a personality dimen -
sion on some other variable, in ways that are 
age- graded.
Shanahan et al.’s (2014) group of concepts 
varies from the others we have considered so 
far, in that it explicitly takes into account the 
broader societal context, and not just nar -
rower social contexts such as relationships 
or social interactions. The principle of cu-
mulative disadvantage  states that the effect 
of certain traits on outcomes such as health 
will be much greater in some people than in 
others because they have not endured adverse 
life circumstances. In a sense, the influence 