The temporal consistency of personality effects: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

Summary

Personality traits have been posited to function as stable influences on
political attitudes and behavior. Although personality traits
themselves exhibit high levels of temporal stability, it is not yet
known whether the effects of these traits are marked by comparable
temporal consistency. To address this question, this research note
examines data from Wave 13 (2003–2004), Wave 15 (2005–2006) and Wave 17
(2007–2008) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Twenty-seven
behavioral and 14 attitudinal dependent variables are studied.
Consistency of effects is gauged via a series of multilevel models in
which personality effects are permitted to vary by year. High levels of
temporal consistency are observed for personality traits as represented
by the Big Five framework.