Happy Now, Tired Later? Extraverted and Conscientious Behavior Are Related to Immediate Mood Gains, but to Later Fatigue

Investigating solitude as a tool for downregulation of daily arousal using ecological momentary assessments

OBJECTIVE

This research explored arousal levels as a motivating factor for solitude-seeking. We hypothesized that solitude becomes more desirable when high-arousal emotions were heightened and individual differences in extraversion and neuroticism would moderate this pattern.

METHOD

We tracked individuals' hourly experiences throughout a day. We assessed their high-arousal positive (e.g., excitement) and negative emotions (e.g., tension), whether they were alone or with others, and their preferred situation at the time of the signal. We gathered 4338 surveys from 362 participants, with 103 participants completing all hourly surveys.

RESULTS

Preference for and incidence of solitude changed throughout the day. Contrary to our hypotheses, lagged analyses did not indicate high-arousal emotions predicting reports of being alone an hour later. However, individuals were more likely to express a preference for solitude while experiencing high-arousal negative emotions, and less so while experiencing positive emotions. Younger individuals display stronger preference for solitude during experiences of high-arousal negative emotions. Extraversion and neuroticism did not moderate these patterns.

CONCLUSIONS

The results highlight the distinctive appeal of solitude as a space for young adults to deal with negative emotions. We discussed how these findings are connected to existing literature and implications for future research.

The effect of personality traits on over-the-top service use and binge-watching

With the freedom to consume content on preferred devices at any time as long as there is an Internet connection, the growing demand for over-the-top (OTT) services is evident. In conjunction with the rise of OTT services, binge-watching has become a prevalent behavior. In this research, we explore whether personality traits including the Big Five and need for cognition wield an effect on OTT use and binge-watching. We used a large, diverse, population representative sample from South Korea to investigate this topic. Results indicated that openness to experience and need for cognition were positively related to OTT use. Openness to experience, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and need for cognition had a negative association with binge-watching. When the sample was split by OTT frequency, the binge-watching effects were obtained exclusively for daily OTT users. For non-daily OTT users, most of the personality traits did not exert an effect on binge-watching. Implications of the current findings as well as limitations and future research are presented.

Are social support, loneliness, and social connection differentially associated with happiness across levels of introversion-extraversion?

This study examines whether extraversion moderates the association between subjective happiness and measures of social connectedness using data from Canadian residents, aged 16+, recruited online during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (21 April 2021-1 June 2021). To accomplish this aim we tested the moderating effect of extraversion scores on the association between Subjective Happiness scores and several social health measures: Perceived Social Support, Loneliness, social network size, and time with friends. Among 949 participants, results show that lower social loneliness (p < .001) and higher social support from friends (p = .001) and from family (p = .007) was more strongly correlated with subjective happiness for people with low extraversion compared to those with high extroversion. Anti-loneliness interventions should consider the need to promote social connections among individuals across the introversion-extraversion continuum.

Alternating time spent on social interactions and solitude in healthy older adults

Time spent on being with others (social interactions) and being alone (solitude) in day to day life might reflect older adults' agentic regulatory strategies to balance the needs to belong and to conserve energy. Motivated from a joint lifespan psychological and social relationship theoretical perspective, this study examined how time spent on social interactions and solitude alternatively unfolds within individuals in daily life, relating to individual differences in trait-level well-being and fatigue. Over 21 days, a total of 11,172 valid records of social interactions were collected from 118 older adults (aged 65-94 years) in a smartphone-based event-contingent ambulatory assessment study in Switzerland. On average, a social interaction episode lasted 39 min and a solitude episode lasted 5.03 hr. Multilevel models showed that, at the within-person level, a longer-than-usual social interaction preceded and was followed by a longer-than-usual solitude episode. Moderator analyses showed that older adults with higher trait life satisfaction and lower trait fatigue spent even more time in social interactions after longer solitude episodes, amplifying the solitude-then-interaction association. Our findings suggest that whereas social interaction is a means to improve well-being, solitude is also an integral part in older adults' daily life supporting energy recovery.

Does it pay off to act conscientiously, both now and later? Examining concurrent, lagged, and cumulative effects of state conscientiousness

Although previous research has shown that both trait and state conscientiousness are positively associated with a wide range of positive life and work outcomes, some studies indicate that acting in a conscientious way is effortful, and that behaving outside one’s conscientiousness related comfort zone (i.e., acting counterhabitual) may lead to cognitive or affective cost. Because these costs are not likely to be evident immediately, we examine how within-person fluctuations in conscientiousness relate to within-person fluctuations in emotional exhaustion, resource depletion, and negative affect, not only concurrently, but also in a delayed fashion and cumulated over time. In two experience sampling studies, we found that higher levels of conscientiousness are concurrently related to lower levels of emotional exhaustion, resource depletion, and negative affect. When looking at delayed effects, no conclusive evidence was found for affective or cognitive costs of (counterhabitual) conscientiousness. Finally, analyzing cumulative effects revealed that repeated negative deviations from one’s typical level of conscientiousness were positively associated to exhaustion, depletion, and negative affect, while repeated positive deviations were negatively associated with depletion and unrelated to exhaustion and negative affect. Altogether, our findings suggest that self-rated conscientious behavior is generally beneficial, even if this behavior goes against one’s typical behavior.

Self-Other Agreement in Experience Sampling Measures

Experience sampling methodology (ESM) has provided researchers with a flexible and innovative measurement tool, and the methodology has become increasingly popular in several fields of psychology. Therefore, validity studies on such measures are important. The present study investigated convergent and discriminant validity of ESM measures using peer-ratings as the criteria. We obtained ESM self- and other-ratings of personality states, situation perceptions, and feelings from 344 occasions, from 49 target participants. The results showed that several—but not all—widely used ESM self-ratings have substantial and distinct self-other agreement. We conclude that many ESM self-reports are likely to capture, at least to an extent, target persons’ actual personality states, feelings, and situation perceptions.

Personality and fatigue: meta-analysis of seven prospective studies

The present study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between the five major personality traits and fatigue. Participants were adults aged 16-104 years old (N > 40,000 at baseline) from the Health and Retirement Study, the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study graduate and sibling samples, the National Health and Aging Trends Survey, the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Personality traits, fatigue, demographic factors, and other covariates were assessed at baseline, and fatigue was assessed again 5-20 years later. Across all samples, higher neuroticism was related to a higher risk of concurrent (meta-analytic OR = 1.73, 95% CI 1.62-1.86) and incident (OR = 1.38, 95% CI 1.29-1.48) fatigue. Higher extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were associated with a lower likelihood of concurrent (meta-analytic OR range 0.67-0.86) and incident (meta-analytic OR range 0.80-0.92) fatigue. Self-rated health and physical inactivity partially accounted for these associations. There was little evidence that age or gender moderated these associations. This study provides consistent evidence that personality is related to fatigue. Higher neuroticism and lower extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are risk factors for fatigue.

Put your feet up: The impact of personality traits, job pressure, and social support on the need for recovery after work

The need for recovery after work (NFR) is an important warning of work-related fatigue. NFR is linked to prolonged work-related efforts and depletion of resources, creating a need for temporary respite from work demands. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationships between NFR and the five-factor model (FFM), comprising the personality traits of emotional stability (ES), extraversion (E), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (O). Perceived job pressure and perceived social support were included as mediators. The study was conducted using structural equation modelling (SEM) on cross-sectional data from a sample of 681 participants from several work sectors (N females = 376, N males = 305; M age = 46.9 years; SD = 11.1). The results showed that NFR was affected both directly and indirectly by FFM traits. High ES and high O contributed directly to reduced and increased NFR, respectively. High perceived social support contributed to reduced NFR, while high perceived job pressure contributed to increased NFR. High ES contributed indirectly to reduced NFR through perceived job pressure and social support, high O contributed indirectly to increased NFR through perceived social support, and high E contributed indirectly to increased NFR through perceived job pressure. A and C were not related to NFR. The findings demonstrate that personality traits, especially ES, are firmly related to NFR and highlight the importance of incorporating personality factors into studies of work environmental factors on NFR.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-02950-1.

Do You Feel Better When You Behave More Extraverted Than You Are? The Relationship Between Cumulative Counterdispositional Extraversion and Positive Feelings

The idea that increased levels of extraversion are beneficial to well-being is widespread. Drawing on the idea that behaving discordant to one's trait level is demanding and effortful to maintain, and that repeated taxations of one's self-regulatory resources are unpleasant, we examined the relationship between cumulative counterdispositional extraversion and positive feelings. In two experience-sampling (ESM) studies, participants repeatedly rated their level of state extraversion and positive feelings. Results revealed that cumulative positive deviations from one's trait extraversion level were positively associated with positive feelings, whereas cumulative negative deviations were negatively associated with positive feelings. This confirms the idea that, also when looking at cumulative instances of extraversion-related behaviors, higher levels of extraversion go hand in hand with higher levels of positive feelings.

Other-Contingent Extraversion and Satisfaction

Abstract. We conceptualize other-contingent extraversion as an individual difference in the tendency to elevate one’s state extraversion when interacting with friendly others. Using experience sampling data from 75 college students, we assessed other-contingent extraversion to predict subjective well-being, and further examined whether implicit theory of personality would moderate such a prediction. Results indicate that, despite a general positive association between others’ friendliness and one’s state extraversion, individuals differed in the degree to which they manifested state extraversion in response to others’ friendliness, allowing us to model this individual difference as other-contingent extraversion. Other-contingent extraversion interacted with implicit theory to predict college satisfaction but not life satisfaction. Specifically, other-contingent extraversion had a more positive association with college satisfaction for respondents with a stronger incremental perspective (malleable view) of personality. Our study contributes to personality research by introducing other-contingent extraversion as a unit of personality.

Within-person networks of clinical features of social anxiety disorder during cognitive and interpersonal therapy

Analysis of longitudinal within-person networks over the course of therapy allows an identification of possible targets of treatment. This study examined within-person networks of clinical features in social anxiety disorder (SAD) patients during cognitive (CT) and interpersonal (IPT) therapy. Patients (n = 80) were randomized to either CT or IPT in a 10 week residential program. They completed a measure of clinical features two times a week. The 60 (75 %) patients who had completed at least 18 measurements were included in the analyses. The multilevel vector autoregressive (mlVAR) model was used to analyze the data, producing a temporal, contemporaneous, and between-person network. In the temporal network and as expected, more homework compliance in a half-week predicted less social anxiety and less social avoidance the subsequent half-week. Also better social function predicted less social avoidance, whereas more social anxiety predicted more self-focus. Unexpectedly, less social avoidance predicted more self-focus and less self-focus predicted less social function and social joy. In the contemporaneous network, self-focus, anxiety and avoidance displayed a conditional independence structure. The estimated temporal network suggests that homework compliance and social function are promising targets of treatment.

Sociable behavior is related to later fatigue: moment-to-moment patterns of behavior and tiredness

The popular idea that extraverted behavior is mentally depleting has received support in one previous study. The present research attempted to replicate this finding and rule out some alternative explanations. An experience-sampling study was conducted to this end (N = 74, observations = 1046). The results showed that extraverted behavior was indeed related to feeling tired 2–3 h later. The results provide empirical evidence of an everyday life pattern between behavior and feelings states.