Linking personality states, current social roles and major life goals

Toward an Index of Adaptive Personality Regulation

The idea that matching personality expression with situational demands is adaptive is implicit in many accounts of personality. Numerous constructs and measures have been posited to address this or similar phenomena. Few have proven adequate. In response, we proposed and tested a novel measurement approach (the APR index) assessing real-time behavior to rate participants' success in matching personality expression with situational demands, which we denote adaptive personality regulation. An experimental study (N = 88) and an observational study of comedians (N = 203) provided tests of whether the APR index constituted a useful metric of adaptive personality regulation. In both studies, the APR index showed robust psychometric properties; was statistically unique from mean-level personality, self-monitoring, and the general factor of personality expression; and provided incremental concurrent prediction of task/job performance. The results suggest that the APR index provides a useful metric for studying the phenomenon of successfully matching personality expression to situational demands.

Daily fluctuations in social status, self-esteem, and clinically relevant emotions: Testing hierometer theory and social rank theory at a within-person level

INTRODUCTION

Grounded in hierometer theory and social rank theory, this research examined how within-person fluctuations in social status relate to within-person fluctuations in self-esteem and several clinically relevant emotions. Both hierometer theory and social rank theory postulate that particular psychological mechanisms help individuals to navigate social hierarchies adaptively. However, hierometer theory emphasizes self-esteem, whereas social rank theory emphasizes emotions-specifically, depression, anxiety, and shame.

METHODS

We conducted a 10-day diary study and analyzed the data using multilevel modeling. Participants (N = 345) completed daily measures of their social status, self-esteem, depression, anxiety, shame, and guilt.

RESULTS

On days when their status was higher, participants reported higher self-esteem and lower depression, anxiety, and shame. On days when their self-esteem was higher, participants reported lower depression, anxiety, and shame. These patterns persisted after controlling for baseline individual differences. Furthermore, multilevel mediation analyses indicated that daily self-esteem mediated the links between daily status, and, individually, daily depression, anxiety, and shame, but not guilt.

CONCLUSIONS

Supporting hierometer theory and social rank theory, self-esteem, and the clinically relevant emotions (except for guilt) appear to serve a status-tracking function. Self-esteem plays a more primary role, accounting for the link between status and depression, anxiety, and shame.

Psychometric Evaluation of a Big Five Personality State Scale for Intensive Longitudinal Studies

Despite enthusiasm for using intensive longitudinal designs to measure day-to-day manifestations of personality underlying differences between people, the validity of personality state scales has yet to be established. In this study, we evaluated the psychometrics of 20-item and 10-item daily, Big Five personality state scales in three independent samples (N = 1,041). We used multilevel models to separately examine the validity of the scales for assessing personality variation at the between- and within-person levels. Results showed that a five-factor structure at both levels fits the data well, the scales had good convergent and discriminative associations with external variables, and personality states captured similar nomological nets as established global, self-report personality inventories. Limitations of the scales were identified (e.g., low reliability, low correlations with external criterion) that point to a need for more, systematic psychometric work. Our findings provide initial support for the use of personality state scales in intensive longitudinal designs to study between-person traits, within-person processes, and their interrelationship.

Why are you (un)conscientious? The dynamic interplay of goals, states, and traits in everyday life

Personality involves both trait and state components, personal goals serving a crucial regulatory function for the expression of personality states. The present study investigates the dynamic interplay between conscientiousness-related goals, conscientious personality states, and trait conscientiousness. A sample of 244 community participants responded to a baseline survey (T1), a 5-times-a-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) for 15 days, and a post-EMA survey (T2). Pre-registered multilevel analyses indicated significant contemporaneous positive and negative associations between momentary conscientious and unconscientious goals and state conscientiousness, respectively. Cross-lagged associations also emerged, with goals predicting future states of conscientiousness. A latent growth model was fitted on a subsample of participants (N = 159). Results indicated that change in trait conscientiousness from T1 to T2 was explained by growth in conscientiousness-related goals during the EMA phase, with a mediating effect of growth in state conscientiousness. Overall, the results corroborate the importance of goals for modeling contemporaneous and cross-lagged personality dynamics, both in short and longer timeframes.

Personality states mediate the effect of a mindfulness intervention on employees’ work outcomes: A randomized controlled trial

In the last decade, organizational researchers have increasingly recognized the value of studying personality states at work. This line of research has to date mainly focused on outcomes of and situational antecedents of personality state change at work. In this study, we draw on social cognitive theory of self-regulation and the social investment principle to test if a structured intervention can bring about changes in employees’ personality states at work. Specifically, we investigate the effect of a four-week low-dose mindfulness intervention delivered via a mobile application on employees’ personality state change in a multi-group experiment with a passive and an active control group. Employees ( N = 162), either practicing mindfulness, doing brain training exercises, or not receiving any treatment were tracked in a diary study across a period of four weeks. Results of growth curve analyses showed that compared to the control groups, the mindfulness intervention led to significantly more increases in employees’ daily mindfulness, emotional stability and agreeableness across the four-week period. Furthermore, daily agreeableness and emotional stability mediated the effect of the intervention on daily job satisfaction and performance. No intervention effects were found for daily openness, conscientiousness, and extraversion. Implications are discussed for research and practice.

A multilevel Multitrait–Multimethod Analysis of Self– and Peer–Reported Daily Affective Experiences

We examined the psychometric properties of an experience–sampling measure of affect (PANAS) using data from self– and peer reports. A multivariate multilevel model was used to assess the reliability of the latent PANAS scales at the within– and between–person level. Findings suggest satisfying internal consistencies for self– and peer reports of affective experiences at both levels of analysis. Convergent and discriminant validity of the two affect scales were examined by means of a multilevel multitrait–multimethod approach (MLM–MTMM) indicating distinct findings at the within– and between–person level. These findings provide further insights into the structural relations between the two PANAS scales: Whereas positive and negative affect were unrelated at the between–person level; they were negatively correlated at the within–person level. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comedians' Trait Level and Stage Personalities: Evidence for Goal-Directed Personality Adaptation

Recent findings have shown that both trait levels of personality and situational variability in its expression are of importance. So here, the Big Five personality traits of 77 professional and 125 amateur stand-up comedians were compared with two large matched samples (N > 100,000). The comedians were also observed while performing, which enabled a comparison of their stage personalities with situational requirements on 10 selected NEO-PIR facets. Both amateurs and professionals showed higher openness-to-experience, extraversion, and lower conscientiousness than their norm samples, while professionals also evidenced greater neuroticism. Irrespective of trait standing, with regard to most NEO-PIR facets, professionals expressed the appropriate on-stage persona and were better able to regulate their personality to conform to situational requirements than amateurs. This is consistent with research showing that individuals regulate their personality to conform to situational and goal requirements, and adds the finding that successful comedians demonstrate enhanced adaptability compared with amateurs.

Zooming into Real-Life Extraversion – how Personality and Situation Shape Sociability in Social Interactions

What predicts sociable behavior? While main effects of personality and situation characteristics on sociability are well established, there is little evidence for the existence of person-situation interaction effects within real-life social interactions. Moreover, previous research has focused on self-reported behavior ratings, and less is known about the partner’s social perspective, i.e. how partners perceive and influence an actor’s behavior. In the current research, we investigated predictors of sociable behavior in real-life social interactions across social perspectives, including person and situation main effects as well as person-situation interaction effects. In two experience-sampling studies (Study 1: N = 394, US, time-based; Study 2: N = 124, Germany, event-based), we assessed personality traits with self- and informant-reports, self-reported sociable behavior during real-life social interactions, and corresponding information on the situation (categorical situation classifications and dimensional ratings of situation characteristics). In Study 2, we additionally assessed interaction partner-reported actor behavior. Multilevel analyses provided evidence for main effects of personality and situation features, as well as small but consistent evidence for person-situation interaction effects. First, extraverts acted more sociable in general. Second, individuals behaved more sociable in low-effort/positive/low-duty situations (vs. high-effort/negative/high-duty situations). Third, the latter was particularly true for extraverts. Further specific interaction effects were found for the partner’s social perspective. These results are discussed regarding their accordance with different behavioral models (e.g., Trait Activation Theory) and their transferability to other behavioral domains.

Variation in Personality States as Predicted by Interpersonal Context

Abstract. Diary studies of personality have shown that personality is variable, and can help the person deal appropriately with the different interpersonal demands they encounter. This study aims to demonstrate how interpersonal context predicts personality states. Thirty-six participants (9 male, 27 female, Mage = 24.72, SD = 7.11) kept an online diary for one month. The diary recorded measurements of HEXACO personality states, momentary interpersonal factors including current interpersonal role (with friend, family member, partner, as employee/student, alone), and social goal orientation (socializing with others, avoidance of others, asserting yourself, personal/work achievement), and dispositional anxiety and depression. Individuals’ personality states were found to vary considerably across measurements in a normal distribution. Multilevel modelling analyses showed that interpersonal factors did predict within subject personality variation. Social goal orientations had a greater relative impact than interpersonal roles. Depression had a significant effect on between subject variance in state emotionality. These findings highlight the importance of interpersonal context in predicting stable personality variation.

Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders

Clinical and basic personality psychologists interact less than they should, given their similar interests. In clinical personality psychology, available evidence supports a transition from the current categorical system to a hierarchical trait scheme for diagnosing the stable features of personality disorder. However, trait models do not capture the dynamic aspects of personality disorders as they have been described in the clinical literature, and thus miss a clinically critical feature of personality pathology. In contrast, basic personality psychologists have coalesced around a consensual structure of individual differences and become increasingly interested in the dynamic processes that underlie and contextualize traits. But trait psychology models are not sufficiently specific to characterize dynamic personality processes. In this paper, I filter clinical descriptions of personality disorders through the lens of interpersonal theory to specify a recursive within–situation interpersonal pattern of motives, affects, behaviours, and perceptions that could contribute to the stable between–situation patterns of maladaptive behaviour of historical interest to both basic and clinical personality psychologists. I suggest that this interpersonal model adds specificity to recent proposals regarding processes in the basic personality literature and has significant potential to advance research on personality dynamics. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology

Life Events and Personality Trait Change

OBJECTIVE

Theory and research have emphasized the impact of life events on personality trait change. In this article, we review prospective research on personality trait change in response to nine major life events in the broader domains of love and work.

METHOD

We expected to find that life events lead to personality trait change to the extent that they have a lasting influence on individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Moreover, we predicted that love-related life events such as marriage or parenthood would be more strongly related to changes in traits that emphasize affective content, whereas work-related life events would be more likely to lead to change in traits that reflect behavioral or cognitive content.

RESULTS

The current state of research provided some evidence that life events can lead to changes in personality traits and that different life events may be differently related to specific trait domains.

CONCLUSIONS

A more general conclusion emerging from this review is that the evidence for the nature, shape, and timing of personality trait change in response to life events is still preliminary. We discuss the implications of the results for theory and research and provide directions for future studies on life events and personality trait change.

Finding a Life Worth Living: Meaning in Life and Graduation from College

Graduation from college is an important milestone for young adults, marked by mixed emotions and poignancy, and therefore is an especially salient context for studying meaning in life. The present research used experience-sampling methodology to examine the antecedents and consequences of students' experience of meaning in life over the course of graduation. Participants were 74 graduating students who provided a total of 538 reports over the span of three days, including commencement day. Increased levels of state meaning in life during the days around commencement were linked to spending time with people in general and with family in particular, as well as thinking about one's years in college. Thinking about one's years in college mediated the effects of present company on state meaning in life. Graduates who experienced higher levels of state meaning in life during the days around their commencement ceremony had higher trait levels of meaning in life one week following commencement. We discuss how making meaning of a poignant experience has implications for healthy psychological development.

Wise Reasoning in the Face of Everyday Life Challenges

How stable vs. dynamic is wisdom in daily life? We conducted a daily diary study of wise reasoning (WR) by recording people’s reflections on daily challenges in terms of three facets: intellectual humility, self-transcendence, and consideration of others’ perspectives/compromise. We observed substantial and systematic intraindividual variability in WR, with wiser reasoning in the social versus nonsocial contexts. State-level WR variability was potent in predicting a bigger-picture construal of the event, more positive (vs. negative) emotions, greater emotional complexity, lower emotional reactivity, less thought suppression, and more reappraisal and forgiveness. In contrast, on the trait level, we observed only a few associations to emotional complexity and reappraisal. We discuss implications for conceptualization and measurement of wisdom-related thought.

Velocity Explains the Links between Personality States and Affect

The present research examined whether perceived rate of progress toward a goal (velocity) mediated the relationships between personality states and affective states. Drawing from control theories of self-regulation, we hypothesized (i) that increased velocity would mediate the association between state extraversion and state positive affect, and (ii) that decreased velocity would mediate the association between state neuroticism and state negative affect. We tested these hypotheses in 2 experience sampling methodology studies that each spanned 2 weeks. Multilevel modeling analyses showed support for each of the bivariate links in our model, and multilevel path analyses supported our mediation hypotheses. We discuss implications for understanding the relations between personality states and affective states, control theories of self-regulation, and goal striving.

Whole Trait Theory

Personality researchers should modify models of traits to include mechanisms of differential reaction to situations. Whole Trait Theory does so via five main points. First, the descriptive side of traits should be conceptualized as density distributions of states. Second, it is important to provide an explanatory account of the Big 5 traits. Third, adding an explanatory account to the Big 5 creates two parts to traits, an explanatory part and a descriptive part, and these two parts should be recognized as separate entities that are joined into whole traits. Fourth, Whole Trait Theory proposes that the explanatory side of traits consists of social-cognitive mechanisms. Fifth, social-cognitive mechanisms that produce Big-5 states should be identified.

Virtues, ecological momentary assessment/intervention and smartphone technology

Virtues, broadly understood as stable and robust dispositions for certain responses across morally relevant situations, have been a growing topic of interest in psychology. A central topic of discussion has been whether studies showing that situations can strongly influence our responses provide evidence against the existence of virtues (as a kind of stable and robust disposition). In this review, we examine reasons for thinking that the prevailing methods for examining situational influences are limited in their ability to test dispositional stability and robustness; or, then, whether virtues exist. We make the case that these limitations can be addressed by aggregating repeated, cross-situational assessments of environmental, psychological and physiological variables within everyday life-a form of assessment often called ecological momentary assessment (EMA, or experience sampling). We, then, examine how advances in smartphone application (app) technology, and their mass adoption, make these mobile devices an unprecedented vehicle for EMA and, thus, the psychological study of virtue. We, additionally, examine how smartphones might be used for virtue development by promoting changes in thought and behavior within daily life; a technique often called ecological momentary intervention (EMI). While EMA/I have become widely employed since the 1980s for the purposes of understanding and promoting change amongst clinical populations, few EMA/I studies have been devoted to understanding or promoting virtues within non-clinical populations. Further, most EMA/I studies have relied on journaling, PDAs, phone calls and/or text messaging systems. We explore how smartphone app technology provides a means of making EMA a more robust psychological method, EMI a more robust way of promoting positive change, and, as a result, opens up new possibilities for studying and promoting virtues.

Pathological Personality Traits and Intimacy Processes within Roommate Relationships

Problems with intimacy constitute an important area of interpersonal dysfunction in those with personality pathology. Drawing on the interpersonal process model of intimacy, the present research used a longitudinal dyadic design of same–sex roommate pairs (n = 103) to address how certain pathological personality traits (i.e. Negative Affect, Detachment, and Antagonism) relate to the development of disclosure, perceived responsiveness, and closeness. We expected that participants’ pathological traits would be linked to both their own and their roommate's intimacy development, and that the mechanisms underlying these links would include the endorsement of interpersonal values and/or the dispositional expression of interpersonal behaviour in the roommate relationship. Our findings demonstrate that interpersonal motives and/or behaviours primarily help to explain how individuals with higher levels of Detachment manifest difficulty with intimacy. Implications of our findings for research on personality pathology, normative traits, and intimacy are discussed. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

Virtues in action - the new look of character traits

The present study aimed to take fresh look at the nature and psychological meaning of consistency in character traits and virtuous behaviour as manifested in everyday life. To this end, a 10-day experience-sampling study was conducted. Using smartphone technology, a sample of 83 working mothers and fathers provided a total of 4,342 momentary behavioural reports while being in the role of the parent versus being in the job role. Consistent with recent research on personality traits, the findings of the present study showed that people express a wide range of virtue states in their everyday lives. Within-person changes in virtue states were not random but were contingent on people's current role context and also meaningfully related to their momentary affective experiences. At the same time, people's average level of virtue states, their degree of variation in virtue states, and their signature ways of reacting to role contexts turned out to be stable, trait-like individual difference characteristics. Discussion focuses on the implications for the conception of character traits in scientific psychology and beyond.

Judging the Behavior of People We Know

The present study investigates the relative extent to which judgments of people’s behavior are influenced by “truth” (as measured by averaged observer-judgments) and by systematic bias (i.e., perceivers’ preexisting views of target persons). Using data from online questionnaires and laboratory sessions ( N = 155), we demonstrate that self- and peer-judgments of people’s actual behavior in specific situations are somewhat accurate but are also affected by what perceivers thought of the targets before observing their behavior. The latter effect comprises a general evaluative component (generally positive or negative views of targets) and a content-specific component (views of targets in terms of specific characteristics, for example, “restrained”). We also found that friends, but not targets themselves, tend to judge targets’ behaviors more positively than unacquainted observers do. The relevance of these findings for person perception in everyday life and in research contexts is discussed.

Beliefs About the Effects of Alcohol on the Personality of Oneself and Others

The distinction between the effects people expect alcohol to have on themselves and on others is poorly understood. This study employs the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality for investigating these two types of beliefs. Participants responded to short personality questionnaires with instructions to describe themselves and an average young man while moderately intoxicated; they also described their actual and desired personality trait levels. Intoxication was believed to decrease Conscientiousness and increase Neuroticism as well as Extraversion for actors as well as observers alike, while predictions for Openness and Agreeableness depended on the rating target. Profile similarity analysis revealed that, although both types of beliefs reflected socially undesirable trait levels in domains other than Extraversion, actor-expectations were less undesirable than observer-expectations. Implications of the findings suggest that the FFM can be profitably used to study intoxication-related beliefs.