So far , I have collected no less than 100 over articles on Personality theory , but I have not came across this term ...may be this is related to life family model ! I will like to know more about this !

I hope Andras is interested in knowing the personality profile in terms of the Big five domains that represents a more organized personality and related to better outcomes (may be in terms of health, performance in organizational set up etc.).

This is my guess. It would be better if the meaning of the 'mature personality' be clearly spelled out.

Such term generally appear in psychoanalytic theory of personality and perhaps less so in trait theories.

Dear Andras, probably time perspective psychology might be of interest to you. The concept of a so called 'balanced time perspective' might represent one aspect of a 'mature personality'. Instruments for assessing (balanced) time perspective are the ZTPI (Zimbardo) and the BTPS (Webster). Another concept that might be interesting for you is 'wisdom'. Instruments, measuring wisdom, I know of are the 3D-WS and the SAWS. Good luck!

It is difficult to know the answer to this in some sense as "maturity" is not one of the big 5 domains per se. The assumption is that these 5 domains interact with one another and the environment they are placed within. There are also cultural context (part of environment I suppose) that play a role. As I am not sure what "maturity" means here one could go with person environment fit perhaps. Maturity is not so much a personality trait as the big 5 would represent but more of a moral reasoning aspect as I would see it.

Dear All,

Thanks for your valuable feedback. I think I have to rephrase my question. Or at least try to circumscribe it.

Can the characteristics of a highly functioning personality be trapped with Big Five measures? Are there any context-universal traits that predict better outcomes (psychological functioning) (at least in Western societies)? Are e.g. more extroverted, more agreeable or more conscientous persons better off? Or in a more abstract manner: if there are such, can the goals of personality development be formulated in concepts of the Big Five (or any other modern, empirical) personality theory?

While the big 5 have not been looked at specifically relative to this question, the person (personality) - environment fit has been looked at form some time. The results seems to be context specific fit works. The career research literature covers a lot of this. There is a different set of "personality" elements that work well (fit) for a surgeon than say a forest ranger or salesperson. Also it depends a bit on who's big 5 we are using in some ways.

Dear Dale,

Do you know of any instrument that measures person-environment fit? Hopefully not an instrument from the field of occupational or organizational psychology.

András

Most of the assessment tools would come to play would probably come from those areas. The definition of "fit" is in part the key, and usually becomes a second measure. So for example the personality domains may be measured by something like the 16PF, with fit measures by be a depression scale, length of time in employment, or whatever proxy you wish to use for "fit." Or as this started maturity - or level of moral reasoning.

When one level of a trait is clearly and universally more advantageous than another, a "genetic sweep" eventually removes most of the variability on said trait, though recessive or X-linked transmission may preserve a small proportion of the "off" version. Examples from psychology: language and color vision. It is almost always better to possess language than not; likewise with color vision (and cones generally), and the large majority of the population possesses both capabilities.

Therefore, when we find considerable variability in a trait, the likelihood is that there are advantages to either manifestation. Physique and skin hue are examples. In some phases of human history, it has been better to be big and strong; in others, a relatively small, lithe physique is better. Light skin produces more vitamin D from less sunlight; daqrk skin provides better protection against UV rays.

The variability in personality traits suggests that there are pros and cons to each side of each bipolar dimension. In some situations, it is better to be a more Agreeable person; in other situations, it is better to be more Independent (the opposite end of the same continuum).

That said, in American society today it is probably safe to say that there are preferred sides for at least four of the Big Five traits. On the whole, a person will be deemed to be better adjusted if s/he is relatively high on Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, and relatively low on Neuroticism. Openness to Experience doesn't key in to adjustment as clearly. My sense is that in my part of the country (urban New England) it is advantageous to be high Openness, but that this would not be the case in, say, the rural Deep South.

I'd like to add that being well-adjusted to one's current environment is not the same thing as being mature.

If you are interested in using measurement tools other than self-reports, there happen to be sentence completion tests relevant to both questions. The Rotter (RISB) is scored for Adjustment. Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) is scored for ego developmental level. Both are well validated. But they take time to master (especially Loevinger's - Rotter's is actually pretty easy) and each protocol must be hand-scored by a trained human.

The projectives (a continuum granted) are not likely to assist much beyond the self-report measures. I am not sure I would see the advantage of the 4 poles per se as it really is context dependent in function.

An interesting question. And an important one. I have an article available here in Researchgate on this topic. It is called "Maturity and Change in Personality: Developmental Trends of Temperament and Character in Adulthood". It will be officially published in July in Development & Psychopathology. It has several good references for you in the reference list on this topic.

As to your question, the psychobiological theory measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) sees a mature personality as a developed character which is high Self-directedness (being an autonomous individual), high Cooperativeness (getting along with others) and possibly high Self-transcendence (a sense of being a part of something greater than oneself). Mature people are significantly less likely to suffer from various forms of psychopathology.

The Big Five would describe a mature person as follows: low Neuroticism, high Agreeableness, and high Conscientiousness.

Hope this helps.

Dear Kim!

Your contribution helped a lot, and was very practical, although the question of mature personality raises a lot of philosophical questions.

Kind regards,

András

Dear Kim, Thank you for your information for this paper ! " Maturity and Change in Personality: Developmental Trends of Temperament and Character in Adulthood".

I must also agree with much of what has already been said so far. Most important, what do you mean by "mature"? Is it development of a specific quality or is it a state of being? In any event, I thought I would add the following data to the discussion. Below is from a data set of mine (N=453) that correlates Big 5 markers to measures of Purpose in Life and Self-Actualization. Both measures are considered to reflect aspects of psychological maturity. Here are the associations:

PILT SA

Neuroticism -.52 -.37

Extraversion .48 .33

Openness .17 .25

Agreeableness .38 .27

Conscientiousness .56 .33

all associations are p < .001, two-tailed.