 11. Personality Development across the Life Course 277
tremendous need for more theorizing and 
more research of personality development in 
childhood, especially longitudinal research 
bridging the gaps between temperament 
research and personality trait research. Ex -
cellent work has been developed to identify 
the core personality attributes in childhood 
(e.g., Tackett et al., 2012), and there is work 
linking some factors, like parenting prac -
tices to childhood personality (Atherton & 
Schofield, Chapter 16, this volume). Less 
attention has been focused on the contexts 
that lead to the development of characteris -
tics over time, using a unified system that 
links temperament and trait dimensions and 
can thus answer the questions of whether 
there are the environmental antecedents to 
not only the level of a personality character -
istic in childhood but also the growth of that 
characteristic from childhood to adulthood. 
Given the emerging consensus on the impor -
tance of personality for leading a successful 
and fulfilling life, it would be invaluable to 
know the childhood antecedents of adult 
personality. Third, as we mentioned earlier, 
it is imperative that we begin to tackle the 
most difficult question: Why do people be -
have the way they do, and what are some 
of the deeper structures guiding the devel -
opment of personality? Descriptive frame -
works such as the neo-  socioanalytic model 
can be quite useful but are ultimately dis -
satisfying when the ultimate questions like 
these go unanswered.
To conclude, much work has emerged in 
the last decade on personality development. 
While loosely guide by frameworks and 
models, this next generation of developmen -
tal research should and could pursue stron -
ger and riskier tests of these models in order 
to improve our understanding and thinking 
about personality development.
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