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Abstract
This study used a 3-wave longitudinal design to investigate stability and change of egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement. Participants (n = 195) were followed for 6 years, from late adolescence (age 15) to emerging adulthood (age 21). A significant degree of rank-order stability was found that reveals a reasonable continuity in the individuals’ relative standing on measures of egoistic and moralistic self-enhancement. Latent growth curve analysis was used to track the developmental trajectories of the examined constructs. Findings revealed that egoistic self-enhancement is stable from 15 to 21 years, whereas moralistic self-enhancement slightly decreases during the same developmental period. Cross-lagged models were used to examine the reciprocal relations between self-enhancement and the Big Five personality traits. No prospective effects were found between the constructs, which develop independently from late adolescence to young adulthood, showing only synchronous associations. Implications for personality research and assessment are discussed.
Notes
As has been demonstrated for the assessment of socially desirable responding with the BIDR (Paulhus, Citation1998), this scoring method is preferable to dichotomous scoring, where only extreme answers are counted (Stöber, Dette, & Musch, 2002).
Details are available from the authors.
The assumption of equal time-specific variance was tested and found tenable. Chi-square difference with unrestricted model was not significant for both E–SE, Δχ2(2) = 2.26, p = .32, and M–SE, Δχ2(2) = 0.74, p = .69.
Preliminary analyses showed that E– and M–SE followed the same trajectory in male and female groups.
Details are available from authors.