Hurricane exposure and personality development

The education-health gradient: Revisiting the role of socio-emotional skills

Is the education-health gradient inflated because both education and health are associated with unobserved socio-emotional skills? We find that the gradient in health behaviors and outcomes is reduced by about 15 to 50% from accounting for fine-grained personality facets and up to another 50% from Locus of Control. Traditional aggregated Big-Five scales, however, have a much smaller contribution to the gradient. We use sibling-fixed effects to net out the contribution from genes and shared childhood environment, decomposing the gradient into its components with an order-invariant method. We rely on a large survey (N = 28,261) linked to high-quality Danish administrative registers with information on parental background and objectively measured diagnoses and care use. Accounting for Locus of Control yields the strongest gradient reduction in self-rated health status and objective diagnoses (30%-50%), and in health behaviors the most important factor is Extraversion, a skill that has been shown to be malleable in interventions.

Perceptions of a good life: Associations with culture, age, wellbeing, and health

What does a good life look like? The present research investigated individual differences in people's perceptions of the factors that are most important for living a good life using two waves of data in probability samples from the U.S. (MIDUS; N = 4,041) and Japan (MIDJA; N = 381). We examined country- and age-related similarities and differences in perceptions of a good life and associations of perceptions of a good life with experiences of wellbeing and physical health. Some factors were considered important for living a good life in both countries and across age (e.g., positive relationships with family), whereas other factors varied between countries (e.g., U.S. participants were more likely to perceive faith as important) and by age (e.g., younger adults were more likely to perceive having a good job as important). Further, perceptions of a good life were related to experiences of wellbeing and physical health concurrently and prospectively. This research informs our understanding of how people differ from one another in their perceptions of a good life, and how these differences may matter for individuals' experiences of a good life.

Personality Trait Change Across a Major Global Stressor

The current research examined three related questions in a 21-month longitudinal study of a diverse sample of U.S. participants (N = 504): (a) How did Big Five traits change during the COVID-19 pandemic? (b) What factors were associated with individual differences in trait change? and (c) How was Big Five trait change associated with downstream well-being, mental health, and physical health? On average, across the 21-month study period, conscientiousness increased slightly, and extraversion decreased slightly. Individual trajectories varied around these average trajectories, and although few factors predicted these individual differences, greater increases in conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness, and greater decreases in neuroticism were associated better well-being and fewer mental and physical health symptoms. The present research provides evidence that traits can change in the context of a major global stressor and that socially desirable patterns of trait change are associated with better health.

Differential personality change earlier and later in the coronavirus pandemic in a longitudinal sample of adults in the United States

Five-factor model personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness) are thought to be relatively impervious to environmental demands in adulthood. The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity to examine whether personality changed during a stressful global event. Surprisingly, two previous studies found that neuroticism decreased early in the pandemic, whereas there was less evidence for change in the other four traits during this period. The present research used longitudinal assessments of personality from the Understanding America Study (N = 7,109; 18,623 assessments) to examine personality changes relatively earlier (2020) and later (2021–2022) in the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels. Replicating the two previous studies, neuroticism declined very slightly in 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels; there were no changes in the other four traits. When personality was measured in 2021–2022, however, there was no significant change in neuroticism compared to pre-pandemic levels, but there were significant small declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The changes were about one-tenth of a standard deviation, which is equivalent to about one decade of normative personality change. These changes were moderated by age and Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, but not race or education. Strikingly, younger adults showed disrupted maturity in that they increased in neuroticism and declined in agreeableness and conscientiousness. Current evidence suggests the slight decrease in neuroticism early in the pandemic was short-lived and detrimental changes in the other traits emerged over time. If these changes are enduring, this evidence suggests population-wide stressful events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality, especially in younger adults.

Income moderates changes in big-five personality traits across eighteen years

The role of income in adult personality change remains poorly understood. Using latent growth modeling, we performed exploratory analyses of how longitudinal trajectories of change in personal income and the Big Five personality traits would be related. We examined 4234 participants (2149 Males, 2085 Females; MT1age = 46.42, SDT1age = 13.36, age range at T1: 20–74 years) across three time points spanning 18 years using data from the Midlife in the United States study. Results indicated that starting levels of income moderated changes in four personality traits. Specifically, income moderated the slopes of openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, such that for high-income individuals, openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness were less likely to decline and more likely to either increase or remain stable over time, while neuroticism was less likely to increase and more likely to remain stable over time. Conversely, personality traits were weaker predictors of income change as slopes of income were not moderated by starting levels of any of the personality traits. Moreover, changes in income were not correlated with changes in any of the personality traits. The findings suggest that individual differences in income could potentially explain diverging trajectories of personality change.

Investigating Posttraumatic Growth in Midlife Using an Intensive Longitudinal Research Design: Posttraumatic Growth Is Not as Prevalent as Previously Considered

The notion that adversity leads to enduring improvements in psychological functioning carries promise given the diverse adversities individuals confront over their life course. However, research on posttraumatic growth (PTG) has relied on cross-sectional research designs, which severely limit the ability to discern whether growth transpires following adversity. Our goal was to examine whether PTG is possible across a diverse array of outcomes and identify factors that promote PTG. We analyzed data from a longitudinal, prospective study that assessed midlife participants monthly for a period of 2 years. Over the study period, 276 participants experienced a major life stressor, and multiphase multilevel models were used to examine whether PTG transpired in life satisfaction, gratitude, compassion, generativity, meaning-making, and religiosity/spirituality. On average, life satisfaction, generativity, and meaning-making declined following adversity; substantial between-person differences were observed across all outcomes. Our multidimensional approach revealed that, on average, individuals experienced PTG in less than one outcome. More anticipated support and less interpersonal strain were consistently associated with positive functioning in each outcome. Our discussion focuses on how multidimensional approaches to studying PTG promise to disentangle which outcomes potentially grow following adversity and illuminate best research practices for examining PTG, laying the groundwork for future research.

Post-traumatic growth as positive personality change: Challenges, opportunities, and recommendations

OBJECTIVE

Post-traumatic growth typically refers to enduring positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity, trauma, or highly challenging life circumstances. Critics have challenged insights from much of the prior research on this topic, pinpointing its significant methodological limitations. In response to these critiques, we propose that post-traumatic growth can be more accurately captured in terms of personality change-an approach that affords a more rigorous examination of the phenomenon.

METHOD

We outline a set of conceptual and methodological questions and considerations for future work on the topic of post-traumatic growth.

RESULTS

We provide a series of recommendations for researchers from across the disciplines of clinical/counseling, developmental, health, personality, and social psychology and beyond, who are interested in improving the quality of research examining resilience and growth in the context of adversity.

CONCLUSION

We are hopeful that these recommendations will pave the way for a more accurate understanding of the ubiquity, durability, and causal processes underlying post-traumatic growth.

Why Has Personality Psychology Played an Outsized Role in the Credibility Revolution?

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing "credibility revolution" in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our field's practices and norms have now become models for other fields to emulate (or, for those who share Baumeister's (2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.02.003) skeptical view of the consequences of increasing rigor, a model for what to avoid). In this article we discuss some unique features of our field that may have placed us in an ideal position to be leaders in this movement. We do so from a subjective perspective, describing our impressions and opinions about possible explanations for personality psychology's disproportionate role in the credibility revolution. We also discuss some ways in which personality psychology remains less-than-optimal, and how we can address these flaws.