Proponents of SPMs have argued that “mature” personality profiles are needed for many adult social roles and have presented evidence of increased personality stability among individuals with a personality profile marked with agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (Donnellan, Conger, & Burzette, 2007; Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2001; cf. Terracciano et al., 2010). Compared to the empirical evidence for intrinsic maturation, findings of social influences on personality are rarer, but supportive results are beginning to accumulate rapidly. For example, personality change has been associated with military service (Jackson, Thoemmes, Jonkmann, Lüdtke, & Trautwein, 2012), negative life events (Kandler, Bleidorn, Riemann, Angleitner, & Spinath, 2012), macro-environmental differences (Bleidorn et al., 2013), the timing of important life events (Bleidorn, 2012), the adoption of social roles (Bogg, Finn, & Monsey, 2012), cognitive training (Jackson, Hill, Payne, Roberts, & Stine-Morrow, 2012), mindfulness training (Krasner et al., 2009), and international travel (Zimmermann & Neyer, 2013). Importantly, each of these studies took steps to rule out alternative “selection” explanations for personality change.
