CHANGES IN CULTURE, CHANGES IN PERSONALITY - THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALISM IN A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF WOMEN

The influence of increasing individualism in U.S. culture on personali ty development was investigated with an index recently developed by H. Gough (1991) that traces changes in individualism from 1950 to 1985. Seventy-seven women followed from 1958 to 1989 (assessed at ages 21, 2 7, 43, and 52) showed increases on the index of individualism that par alleled changes in large cross-sectional samples over the same period. Increases on the individualism index were associated with increases i n self-focus (narcissism) and decreases in norm adherence. Increases o ver the long middle period (1963-1964 to 1981), when the largest chang e occurred, were predicted by college-age measures of ego strength and adjustment and showed a positive relation to psychosocial and physica l health at age 43. Increases in individualism may have helped women r espond to radical changes in women's roles during the late 1960s and 1 970s.