Human Growth and Development / Unit 12 HGD 1663 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Rank-Order Stability and Mean-Level Change
The idea
Personality stability comes in two kinds. Rank-order stability, also called differential stability, is whether people keep their position relative to others; it increases through early adulthood. Mean-level change is whether the average level of a trait shifts with age; in young adulthood, conscientiousness and agreeableness rise, and neuroticism falls, meaning greater emotional stability.
In practice
A twenty-year-old who is the most anxious in her friend group and still the most anxious at forty, though all her friends, and she, have grown calmer.
Where people slip
The misconception is that personality is set in stone by adulthood, or that it changes completely. Both kinds of stability can hold at once: people keep their rank while the whole group matures. Exam items describe a pattern and ask which kind of stability it shows: keeping one's position is rank-order stability; a shift in the group average is mean-level change.
Your place on the trail
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