Affective Coloring of Personality from Young Adulthood to Midlife

Abstract

New Adjective Check List (ACL) scales (Gough, Bradley, and Bedeian) to measure Tellegen's dimensions of positive emotionality (PEM), negative emotionality (NEM), and constraint (CNS) were scoredfor a longitudinal sample of women and their male partners over 25 years. For women, data were available to show that convergent and discriminant relations with life data and selected personality traits across time supported the construct validity and usefulness of NEM, PEM, and, to a lesser extent, CNS. Rank order stability coefficients ranged from .51 to .65 and were similar to those obtained for other personality scales. In line with expectations, the women increased in PEM and CNS and decreased in NEM. Analyses of 21 couples studied at two times suggested that both men and women decreased in NEM and that women may have increased more than men in PEM. In these and all other couples, women tended to score higher on NEM than partners in young adulthood and higher on PEM than partners in mature middle age.