These trends are readily apparent from Figure 4. The empirical story is the same across linear, non-linear, and graphical representations of the data. Phenotypic stability is very limited in infancy, but increases fairly quickly over early development and adolescence. Increases in phenotypic stability plateau near age 30 and remain at this level. Genetic stability is substantial even in infancy, but this type of stability also increases steadily over childhood and adolescence to reach a plateau at unity near age 30. Environmental stability rises sharply in infancy and then slowly throughout adolescence and adulthood. Corrected environmental stability rises at a steady rate throughout infancy, childhood and adulthood continuing even into old age. Slight differences between the connected linear and exponential trends are apparent for phenotypic stability (e.g., the “pause” in increasing stability during childhood found in the linear model) and corrected environmental stability (e.g., the jagged increase and decrease of stability found in childhood).
