RESILIENT, OVERCONTROLLED, AND UNDERCONTROLLED BOYS - 3 REPLICABLE PERSONALITY-TYPES

Three replicable personality types were identified in a sample of 300 adolescent boys and shown to generalize across African Americans and C aucasians. The types had conceptually coherent relations with the Big Five dimensions, ego resiliency, and ego control, and converged with t hree of the types identified by J. Block (1971). The behavioral implic ations of the types were explored using several independent data sourc es. Resilients were intelligent, successful in school, unlikely to be delinquents, and relatively free of psychopathology; Overcontrollers s hared some of these characteristics but were also prone to internalizi ng problems; and Undercontrollers showed a general pattern of academic , behavioral, and emotional problems. This research demonstrates that replicable and generalizable personality types can be identified empir ically, and that the unique constellation of traits defining an indivi dual has important consequences for a wide range of outcomes.