Abstract
BackgroundNeuroticism is frequently discussed as a risk factor for psychopathology. According to the maturity principle, neuroticism decreases over the course of life, but not uniformly across individuals. However, the implications of differences in personality maturation on mental health have not been well studied so far. Hence, we hypothesized that different forms of neuroticism development from adolescence to young adulthood are associated with differences in depression, anxiety and everyday emotional experience at the age of 25.MethodsA sample of 266 adolescents from the general population was examined three times over ten years (age at T0: 15, T1: 20 and T2: 25) using questionnaires, interviews and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). At all measurement points, neuroticism was assessed with the NEO inventory. At T2, diagnoses of major depression and anxiety disorders were captured with a structured clinical interview (M-CIDI). Phone-based EMA was used to assess emotional experience and affective instability over a two-week period at T2.ResultsThe best fitting model was a latent class growth analysis with two groups of neuroticism development. Most individuals (n = 205) showed moderate values whereas 61 participants were clustered into a group with elevated neuroticism levels. In both groups neuroticism significantly changed during the ten year period with a peak at the age of 20. Individuals with a higher absolute level were at 14-fold increased risk for depression and 7-fold risk for anxiety disorders at the age of 25. In EMA, increased negative affect and arousal as well as decreased positive emotions were found in this high group.ConclusionsOther than expected, personality did not mature in our sample. However, there was a significant change of neuroticism values from adolescence to young adulthood. Further, over 20% of our participants showed a neuroticism development which was associated with adverse outcomes such as negatively toned emotional experience and a heightened risk to suffer from depressive and anxiety disorders in young adulthood. These high-risk persons need to be identified early to provide interventions supporting continuous personality maturation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-014-0210-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Neuroticism is frequently discussed as a risk factor for psychopathology
Similar results were obtained by Specht, Egloff, and Schmukle [16]. They reported that emotional stability, which is often used as synonym for low neuroticism, rises during a four year interval in different age groups in the general population
Individuals who stood out from the masses by being more timid, nervous and emotionally unstable were at 14-fold increased risk for developing depressive and at 7-fold risk for anxiety disorders compared to persons with moderate neuroticism levels
Summary
Neuroticism is frequently discussed as a risk factor for psychopathology. According to the maturity principle, neuroticism decreases over the course of life, but not uniformly across individuals. Similar results were obtained by Specht, Egloff, and Schmukle [16] They reported that emotional stability, which is often used as synonym for low neuroticism, rises during a four year interval in different age groups in the general population. Such developmental changes of personality are summarized in the maturity principle [13,18,19]. Instead the authors argue that not all individuals achieve a mature personality or at least not at the same time This should in turn be associated with differences in outcomes such as mental health or well-being, for example [13]
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