Personality profiles and adolescents' maladjustment: A longitudinal study

Abstract

During adolescence, some personality characteristics may represent vulnerabilities to adolescents' adjustment. Adopting a person-centered approach, the aims of this study were (a) to examine the relations of early adolescents' personality profiles to internalizing (i.e., anxious/depressed, withdrawal, and somatic complaints) and externalizing (i.e., aggressive and rule breaking behavior) problems three years later, and (b) to explore the moderating role of gender in these relations. Six hundred fifteen Italian preadolescents (mean age = 12.5) completed the Big Five Questionnaire for Children at age 12 and the Youth Self-Report at age 12 and three years later. Four personality types were identified using Latent Profile Analysis: Resilient, Moderate, Undercontrolled and Vulnerable. In multiple-group path analysis, after controlling for the stability of the outcomes, for both genders, Resilient reported low levels of externalizing problems three years later, whereas Vulnerable youths reported high levels of internalizing problems. Finally, Undercontrolled reported high levels of subsequent externalizing problems. The present study corroborated the unique and specific prediction by personality profiles of different types of subsequent maladjustment.