Although the personality shifts are subtle, they can lead to marked changes in outlook and behaviour over the years, according to research by Brent Roberts, a senior psychologist at the University of Illinois in the US.
The research helps explain the particular difficulty of maintaining relationships over long periods. But it also has positive implications for careers. Roberts presents an optimistic picture of people's employment prospects as they move into middle age and traits such as reliability and conscientiousness begin to improve.

Roberts will next year publish the results of an exhaustive "metanalysis" of more than 90 studies tracking personality changes in 50,000 people for up to 45 years.

Psychologists break down personality traits into five key areas: "extroversion", which is chattiness, assertiveness and energy; "agreeableness", which encompasses kindness, affection and sympathy; "conscientiousness", which covers organisational skills, thoroughness and attention to detail; neuroticism or emotional instability; and openness to new experiences, which includes imagination, insight and general intellect.

The age of 30 had previously been identified by the American Government's laboratory of personality at the National Institutes of Ageing as defining the onset of maturity, when personality traits become fixed.

Recent studies of personality had begun to challenge this, but the work of Roberts will further demolish the notion.

"We have found that people quite definitely change after the age of 30," Roberts said. "While the change is gradual it continues throughout life and goes on even into old age."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/

So, bloggers over 30, do you feel your life changed over the age of 30, or has remained unchanged since that time?
Bloggers under 30, what do you hope for by the time you reach that age?

Colour: White
Music: Future Sound of London: ISDN
Amorphous Androgynous: She Sells Electric Ego
Reading: Banana Yoshimoto: NP

~~~

'Twas a terrible windy day, and we had processions in carts of the Pope and the Devil, and the butchers rang their cleavers. You know this is the fifth of November, Popery and gun-powder.
-Swift, November 5th, 1711

~~~

On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a wine cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very small for its age," said Gnathaena.
Athenaeus
Deipnosophists (XIII, 46)