Adolescent personality types and subtypes and their psychosocial adjustment

Recent studies have suggested the existence of three personality types resilients, overcontrollers, and undercontrollers In this article, we searched for subtypes within each of the three main personality types Using cluster analysis on the Big Five personality self-descriptions of 3,284 Dutch adolescent boys and girls, we distinguished communal and agentic resilients, vulnerable and achieving overcontrollers, and impulsive and oppositional undercontrollers About two-thirds of the communal resilients and vulnerable overcontrollers were girls, agentic resilients and oppositional undercontrollers were mainly boys The personality subtypes were further validated on a comprehensive set of self- and peer-reported adjustment measures, including perceived relational support, psychological wellbeing, delinquency, bullying involvement, peer acceptance and rejection, and peer-reported behavior The personality subtypes were associated with very distinctive adjustment patterns.