if you possess two arms at birth, you will most likely keep those arms through your entire life. Same with legs. Wow.
But seriously, the Big 5 Personality Traits are extremely broad in definition and measurement, and the specific aspects are subject to much disagreement. There is enough wiggle space that if you look for consistency over time, you’ll find it. If you look for variation, you’ll find it.
For example, you will get a different result on certain tests if you use, for example, Asian women, and prime their self-perception as Asians than if you prime their self-perception as women.
So what’s true? Once a brick throwing tantrum little boy always a masochistic fortune 500 executive who smiles when he fires hundreds of his minions and rewards himself with a bountiful bonus or is that little boy one day able to resolve or temper his aggrandizement as a youth and become a compassionate adult later in life? Or are we simply the products of our changing culture, biology aside…?
Or better still can we argue we need more all inclusive studies with a wider pool performed over a myriad of shifting circumstances before we make any real inferences?
So until I really find out what’s what – “I’m just going to sit here and sulk.”
