Adjustment problems and emerging personality characteristics from early tolate adolescence

This 6-year longitudinal study extended earlier findings of contextual infl uences on adolescent adjustment problems by examining relationships between adolescent emotional and behavioral problems and late adolescent personali ty among more than 400 youths who were followed from 7th grade to the last year of high school. Results suggest that psychological distress and behavi oral problems experienced during the adolescent years (7th-10th grades) are significantly related to personality structure during the final year of hi gh school (12th grade). Psychological distress in adolescence was primarily related to the Multidimensional Personality questionnaire (MPQ) superfacto rs of negative and positive emotionality, whereas delinquency and substance use problems were primarily related to the MPO superfactor of constraint. These relationships remained significant even when personality characterist ics in 9th grade were taken into account. That is, emotional and behavioral problems predicted change in personality traits during the adolescent year s. Moreover, both initial level and change in distress and problem behavior s were predictive of late adolescent or early adult personality. This findi ng suggests that personality formation is a dynamic process, dependent on t he growth or decline, as well as the magnitude of earlier developmental pro blems. Because earlier research has shown that these developmental problems are affected by both distal and proximal environmental contexts as well as by the formative nature of adolescence, intervention efforts aimed at the reduction of maladjustment and the enhancement of healthy personality devel opment should target early adolescent social contexts. Other theoretical im plications of the findings also are discussed.