The Development of Personality and Problem Behaviour in Adolescence

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the development of personality and problem behaviour in adolescence. It has long been debated whether personality is stable or whether it changes over time. Personality could change due to the many changes that occur during adolescence, such as attending a new school, getting a job or having new friendships or romantic relationships. The personality of adolescents is known to be associated with several problem behaviours, such as depression, anxiety, aggression, and delinquency. However, it is not yet clear whether stability and change in personality have differential effects on the development of problem behaviour. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to unravel the associations between the development of personality and problem behaviour in adolescence. This dissertation elaborates on previous studies by focusing on data reported by adolescents and in using longitudinal data and employing advanced methodological techniques. The results are based on data collected as part of the CONflict And Management Of RElationships study (CONAMORE), which investigates the relationships of adolescents with their parents and peers as well as the adolescents’ emotional and behavioural states. CONAMORE is a longitudinal research project with a total of five measurement waves conducted annually. This design provides information about stability and change in the development of individuals over time. Since the data are gathered in (junior-)high schools, only adolescents from the general population participated. From the first wave onward, the sample was designed to contain two age cohorts, namely early and middle adolescents. The total longitudinal sample consists of 1,331 adolescents. In this dissertation, the data of the first four waves are presented. Four studies were conducted. The first study focused on examining whether personality moderated the associations between perceived parental rejection, depression and aggression. A major strength of this study was that combined personality type by gender groups were investigated, which had not been done before. We found that the co-occurrence of depression and aggression was highest in undercontroller boys and girls. The second study examined associations between personality type membership and anxiety over time. This is an important issue, since changes in anxiety appeared to co-occur with changes in personality types, indicating that personality change could lie at the heart of anxiety change. The third study examined whether personality moderated the longitudinal associations between depression and delinquency. The co-occurrence was found to be larger in stable resilients than in stable overcontrollers and undercontrollers, implying that the co-occurrence of (low levels of) depression and delinquency was larger in resilients than the co-occurrence of (higher levels of) depression and delinquency in overcontrollers and undercontrollers. This could be due to differences in amount of risk factors in these personality types. The fourth study focused on examining the longitudinal associations between the Big Five and the problem behaviours aggression and anxiety. One of its strengths was the use of a full recursive design, which was the first of its kind in this regard. We found no differences in the hierarchical superiority between personality and problem behaviour.