Do age stereotypes as social role expectations for older adults influence personality development?

• Age stereotypes are hypothesized to influence personality development in older age.
• Effects are tested longitudinally over 10 years.
• A domain specific approach on age stereotypes is taken.
• Stereotypes in wisdom and family predict changes in extraversion and agreeableness.
• Results have implications for theories of personality development in later life.

Age stereotypes as social role expectations for older adults were hypothesized to influence personality development in later life for specific stereotype domain x personality trait combinations. N = 965 participants aged 50–60 from the Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS) study provided ratings about “people in their late sixties” in four domains at T1 and completed a personality questionnaire at T1 and at T2 ten years later. Personality at T2 was regressed on age stereotypes and personality at baseline. Age stereotypes in the domains Family/Relationships and Wisdom were related to changes in both Agreeableness and Extraversion over ten years. The findings provide tentative support for the role of positive age stereotypes in personality development in older age.