The transition to grandparenthood: No consistent evidence for change in the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction

Intergenerational relations have received close attention in the context of population aging and increased childcare provision by grandparents. However, few studies investigated psychological consequences becoming a grandparent. In preregistered test grandparenthood as developmental task middle older adulthood, we used representative panel data from Netherlands ( N = 563) United States 2210) to analyze first-time grandparents’ personality life satisfaction development. We tested gender, employment, grandchild care moderators. To address confounding, employed propensity score matching using two procedures: grandparents with parents nonparents achieve balance different sets carefully selected covariates. Multilevel models demonstrated mean-level stability Big Five traits over transition grandparenthood, no consistent moderation effects—contrary social investment principle. The small effects on development did not replicate across samples. found evidence larger inter-individual differences change compared controls or lower rank-order stability. Our findings add recent critical re-examinations principle are discussed light characteristics that might moderate