Subjective Perception of Personal Change

Personality stability and change is mostly studied nomothetically, usually by
means of questionnaires. Therefore, we focus on subjective description of
personal change. The research was done with the sample of 56 adults (22 men
and 34 women aged from 36 to 40). We used the life-line technique to elicit a
life-story telling – respondents were asked to draw a line representing their
lives and then were invited to tell a story about their lives. We asked the
question about personal change explicitly. In most cases the referred changes
can be labelled as normative, which are typical for adulthood (acquirement of
autonomy, deepened sense of responsibility, shift towards the more rational
and calm approach to life events, expected bodily changes). Non-normative
personal changes are associated with unusual life course (eg. continued living
with parents) or life events (eg. death of son).