270 III. DEvELOPMENT
al., 2003, 2004; Roberts & Robins, 2004). 
Recent, similarly structured studies also 
support the corresponsive relationship be -
tween personality traits and experiences. 
For example, greater neuroticism predicts 
stressful life events and, in turn, stressful 
life events predict increasing neuroticism 
over time (Laceulle, van Aken, Ormel, & 
Nederhof, 2015). A second study examining 
the relation between goal change and per -
sonality change using a genetically informed 
model found that changes in agentic goals 
and extraversion were associated, and the 
corresponsive nature of this relation was due 
to both genetic and environmental factors 
(Bleidorn et al., 2010). In another, geneti -
cally informed study, increases in stress were 
found to be associated with increases in neu -
roticism after researchers controlled for the 
predictive relation between neuroticism and 
stress (Luo et al., 2017). Researchers have 
also found support for the corresponsive 
principle in studies on personality and psy -
chopathology (Klimstra, Akse, Hale, Raai -
jmakers, & Meeus, 2010), neuroticism and 
negative life events (Jeronimus et al., 2014), 
impulsivity and substance use (Kaiser, 
Bonsu, Charnigo, Milich, & Lynam, 2016), 
negative emotionality/effortful control and 
relational aggression (Atherton, Tackett, 
Ferrer, & Robins, 2017), effortful control 
and school behavioral problems (Atherton, 
Zheng, Bleidorn, & Robins, 2019), and the 
Big Five and work expectations (Denissen, 
Ulferts, Lüdtke, Muck, & Gerstorf, 2014).
However, both conceptual and empiri -
cal issues can make it challenging to test 
the corresponsive principle. Not all asso -
ciations between personality traits and life 
experiences are corresponsive. For example, 
people higher in openness tend to experi -
ence greater difficulties in their sex lives, 
their sleeping and eating habits, and their 
finances (Lüdtke et al., 2011). But people 
who experienced these problems did not in -
crease in openness; rather, they increased in 
neuroticism. These more open individuals 
inadvertently increased their levels of neu -
roticism because of their more open person -
alities. In addition, students higher in social 
power were initially more agentic (Wood & 
Harms, 2016). However, increases in social 
power were not associated with increases in 
agency; rather, increases in agency were as -sociated with increases in communal factors 
in the social environment.
The additional issue beyond mixed find -
ings in support of the corresponsive princi -
ple is the logical consequence of this type of 
pattern over time. If corresponsive, or recip -
rocal, relationships dominated personality 
development, then the logical consequence 
would be something akin to the Matthew 
principle played out on an extreme scale. 
With time and age, all people would become 
increasingly different—  extraverts would 
get more extraverted; introverts would get 
more introverted. The net result of this pat -
tern would be that variance in personality 
traits would increase across the life course. 
There is some evidence for this pattern in 
adolescence (Mõttus et al., 2019), but not 
in adulthood (Mõttus, Allik, H řebíčková, 
Kööts-  Ausmees, & Realo, 2015). The lack 
of a fanning out of personality traits with 
time and increased variance in adulthood 
would indicate that corresponsive relation -
ships may not continue over the long run. 
At this juncture, we can say with some con -
fidence that there is evidence of short-term 
patterns of corresponsiveness between per -
sonality traits and social experiences. But 
not all associations between personality and 
life course patterns are corresponsive, and 
clearly, there are factors that appear to miti -
gate these patterns over the long run, such 
that they do not cause runaway divergences 
in personality traits with age.
The Niche‑Picking  Principle
Since we introduced the principles of person -
ality development (Roberts & Wood, 2006), 
the corresponsive principle has caused a 
great deal of confusion. Many researchers 
misinterpret the corresponsive principle to 
mean that entering into environments as a 
result of one’s personality traits would re -
sult in greater personality trait consistency 
rather than change. In order to clarify this 
issue and to acknowledge the possibility 
that entering into a personality-  consistent 
environment would result in greater consis -
tency, we introduced the niche-  picking prin -
ciple (Roberts & Damian, 2017; Roberts & 
Nickel, 2017). This niche-  picking principle 
states that, through their personality traits, 
people create social environments and paths 