Ego Development and Individual Differences in Personality

Abstract

The relation between individual differences in personality and differences in developmental maturity was studied by relating observations of personality by multiple, independent judges to level of ego development. The personality characteristics of longitudinally followed Ss (104 at age 14; 98 at age 23) were evaluated by the California Adult Q-Set (CAQ); ego level was evaluated by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development (SCT). A priori personality dimensions—consisting of CAQ items for which a common developmental pathway was expected—were constructed and related to the SCT: (a) Ego-resiliency and interpersonal integrity were associated with increasing ego development, (b) conformity was associated with the Conformist level and, unexpectedly, to the Conscientious level, (c) need regulation was associated with the Conscientious level, and (d) self-case and expressiveness–playfulness were not associated with ego level.

Full text

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1993.
Vol. 65, No. 4, 792-800Copyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-3514/93/S3.00
Ego Development and Individual Differences in Personality
P.
Michiel Westenberg and Jack Block
The relation between individual differences in personality and differences in developmental matu-
rity
was
studied by relating observations of personality by multiple, independent judges to level of
ego development. The personality characteristics of longitudinally followed
Ss (104
at age
14;
98 at
age 23)
were evaluated
by
the California Adult
Q-Set
(CAQ);
ego level
was evaluated
by
the Washing-
ton University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development
(SCT).
A
priori personality dimen-
sions—consisting of CAQ items for which
a
common developmental pathway
was
expected—were
constructed and related to the
SCT:
(a)
Ego-resiliency and interpersonal integrity were associated
with increasing ego development, (b) conformity was associated with the Conformist level and,
unexpectedly, to the Conscientious
level,
(c)
need regulation
was
associated with the Conscientious
level, and (d) self-ease and expressiveness-playfulness were not associated with ego level.
Developmental characterologists (e.g., Kohlberg, 1969; Loe-
vinger, 1976; Perry,
1970;
Sullivan, Grant,
&
Grant, 1957) have
postulated that individual differences within age cohorts are
due to different rates of character development. In contrast,
personality assessors have focused on individual differences in
personality with little regard for the course of development.
Although
personality
and
character
refer to somewhat different
aspects of human functioning, conceptual and quantitative re-
lations between level of character development and individual
differences in personality have been established (e.g., Brown-
ing, 1983,1987;
Labouvie-Vief,
Hakim-Larson,
&
Hobart,
1987;
McCrae & Costa, 1980,1983). These findings suggest that not
only character differences but also personality differences are
related to differential character development. This article fo-
cuses on the question which individual differences in personal-
ity are related to Loevinger's
(1976)
developmental charactero-
logy of
"ego
development?"
Developmental Characterologies and Ego Development
Theory
"Developmental characterologies" (Loevinger, 1976, pp.
105-133) postulate that
levels
of character development are tra-
versed in a fixed sequence but at widely varying rates. From
about age
14
on, a wide range of
levels
can be discerned in any
age cohort (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987; Holt, 1980; Redmore &
P.
Michiel
Westenberg,
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychi-
atry, University of Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands; Jack Block, De-
partment of
Psychology,
University of California, Berkeley.
This study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health
Grant MH 16080 to Jack and Jeanne H. Block. We thank Jane Loe-
vinger and Lawrence
D.
Cohn for providing prototypical descriptions
of the levels of
ego
development.
We
benefited
also
from the comments
of three anonymous reviewers.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to P
Michiel Westenberg, Academisch Centrum Kinder-en Jeugdpsychia-
trie Curium, Endegeesterstraatweg 27,2342 AK Oegstgeest, the Neth-
erlands, or to Jack Block, Department of Psychology, University of
California, Berkeley, California 94720.
Loevinger,
1979).
The
consequence of differential rates of devel-
opment is that character or maturity differences exist in each
age cohort. Other developmental approaches focus primarily
on differences between age cohorts and not on differences
within age cohorts. For Loevinger, however, "ego development
is at once a
developmental sequence and a dimension of individ-
ual differences in any age cohort" (Loevinger, 1976, p. 13).
The theory of
ego
development is one of the most compre-
hensive constructs in the field of developmental psychology,
incorporating moral, cognitive, and interpersonal style with
conscious preoccupations, and has been applied in
a
wide vari-
ety of research contexts (see Cohn, 1991; Hauser, 1976; Loe-
vinger, 1979). Hence, the construct of
ego
development pro-
vides a rationale for relating character development to a wide
variety of personality differences.
Ego Development and Individual Differences in
Personality
Which individual differences in personality are expected to
be related to ego development? There is no simple answer to
this question, because the dimensional approach to personality
differences is logically different from the stage approach to ego
development (Loevinger, 1987). The difference may be illus-
trated by contrasting the dimensional with the developmental
approach to impulse control. The dimensional approach is
concerned with the strength versus weakness of impulse con-
trol, with individual differences in the extent to which impulses
are
controlled.
In
contrast,
the
primary objective of
ego
develop-
ment theory is to chart the developmental course of qualita-
tively different reasons for regulating impulses: fear of retalia-
tion at the Impulsive level, fear of being caught at the Self-Pro-
tective level, adherence to external rules at the Conformist
level, adherence to self-evaluated standards at the Conscien-
tious level, and so forth (Loevinger, 1976, pp. 24-25; see also
Block,
1971,
pp. 249-251).
Despite this difference in approach, it is plausible that rea-
sons for regulating impulses impact on the extent to which im-
pulses are controlled. Ego development theory predicts that
Impulsive-level individuals (Ego Level 2) do not comprehend
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