Education, relationships, and place: life choices in the narratives of university master students

Choice is one of the most roughly defined concepts in contemporary social sciences. Previous studies have elucidated the factors that influence young people's choices in different life situations. However, it is still unclear how young people evaluate these choices and how they integrate them into their biographies. In this study, we examine the narratives of 30 first-year master's students at HSE University with regard to two categories of life choices: those that they perceive as fortunate and those that they perceive as unfortunate. Using a written online survey, the data was collected in the spring of 2022. To categorize the different decision kinds, thematic analysis was applied. Overall, we discovered that narratives about the life choices made by master students concentrated on education, relationships and place.

The associations between life events and person-centered personality consistency

OBJECTIVE

Few environments reliably influence mean-level and rank-order changes in personality-perhaps because personality development needs to be examined through an individualized, person-centered lens.

METHODS

The current study used Bayesian multilevel linear models to examine the association between 16 life events and changes in person-centered, Big Five personality consistency across 4 to 10 waves of data using four datasets (N = 24,491).

RESULTS

Selection effects were found for events such as marriage, (un)employment, retirement, and volunteering, whereas between-person effects for slopes were found for events such as beginning formal education, employment, and retirement. Within-person changes were often small and emerged inconsistently across datasets but, when present, were brief and negative in direction, suggesting life events can serve as a short-term disruption to the personality system. However, there were many individual differences around event-related trajectories.

CONCLUSION

Our results highlight that the effects of life events depend on how personality and its changes are quantified-with these findings underscoring the utility of a person-centered approach as it can capture the full range of these idiosyncrasies. Overall, these findings suggest that life events are associated with a range of idiosyncratic effects and can serve as a short-term, destabilizing shock to one's personality system.

Life events sometimes alter the trajectory of personality development: Effect sizes for 25 life events estimated using a large, frequently assessed sample

OBJECTIVE

Personality changes across the life span. Life events, such as marriage, becoming a parent, and retirement, have been proposed as facilitating personality growth via the adoption of novel social roles. However, empirical evidence linking life events with personality development is sparse. Most studies have relied on few assessments separated by long time intervals and have focused on a single life event. In contrast, the content of life is composed of small, recurrent experiences (e.g., getting sick or practicing a hobby), with relatively few major events (e.g., childbirth). Small, frequently experienced life events may play an important and overlooked role in personality development.

METHOD

The present study examined the extent to which 25 major and minor life events alter the trajectory of personality development in a large, frequently assessed sample (Nsample  = 4904, Nassessments  = 47,814, median retest interval = 35 days).

RESULTS

Using a flexible analytic strategy to accommodate the repeated occurrence of life events, we found that the trajectory of personality development shifted in response to a single occurrence of some major life events (e.g., divorce), and recurrent, "minor" life experiences (e.g., one's partner doing something special).

CONCLUSION

Both stark role changes and frequently reinforced minor experiences can lead to personality change.

Examining individual differences in personality trait changes after negative life events

Personality traits can change throughout the entire life span, but people differ in their personality trait changes. To better understand individual differences in personality changes, we examined personal (personality functioning), environmental (environmental changes), and event-related moderators (e.g., perceived event characteristics) of personality trait changes. Therefore, we used a sample of 1069 participants who experienced a negative life event in the last 5 weeks and assessed their personality traits at five measurement occasions over 6 months. Employing preregistered multilevel lasso estimation, we did not find any significant effects. While exploratory analyses generally confirmed this conclusion, they also identified some effects that might being worth to be considered in future research (e.g., perceived impact and perceived social status changes were associated with changes in agreeableness after experiencing a relationship breakup). In total, our moderators explained less than 2% of variance in personality traits. Nonetheless, our study has several important implications for future research on individual differences in personality change. For example, future research should consider personal, environmental, and event-related moderators, use different analytical methods, and rely on highly powered samples to detect very small effects.

Trajectories in life satisfaction before and during COVID-19 with respect to perceived valence and self-efficacy

Actions taken by governments to counteract the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to profound restrictions in daily lives, especially for adolescents and young adults, with closed schools and universities, travel restrictions, and reduction in social contacts. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the development of life satisfaction with assessments before and during the pandemic, including separate measurement occasions during a strict lockdown and when the implemented restrictions were relaxed again. Data are based on the German Personality Panel (GePP) with 1,920 young adults, assessed on four measurement occasions over a period of three years. Using latent change score modeling, we investigate the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to its perception as a critical life event over time. Further, we examine the influence of self-efficacy on change in life-satisfaction, as the belief in one's innate abilities has been shown to promote health related behavior and buffers against effects of negatively perceived critical life events. While average life satisfaction remained stable across time, we found a main effect of perceived positive valence and self-efficacy on latent change in life satisfaction at the within person level. Expressions of self-efficacy did not moderate the influence of the perception of the pandemic on self-reported life satisfaction. This study provides an important contribution to the recent COVID-19 literature as well as to the debate on stability and change of self-reported life satisfaction.

Do stressful life events impact long-term well-being? Annual change in well-being following different life events compared to matched controls

Available longitudinal evidence suggests that personal growth following adversity may not be as prevalent as suggested in cross-sectional research. Firm conclusions regarding resiliency versus post-traumatic growth following adverse events are further tempered by the restricted range of outcomes assessed when examining resilience, the focus on specific adverse events or cumulative adversity scores that hinder comparisons between event types, and the relative scarcity of analyses including matched control groups. The current study addresses these gaps by leveraging longitudinal panel data comparing annual change in well-being from 2018 to 2019 for people who experienced a major life stressor relative to propensity score matched controls who did not experience such stressors over the same period. Moreover, independent comparisons are conducted across three distinct event categories: traumatic interpersonal events (N matched pairs = 1,030), job loss (N matched pairs = 1,361), and birth (N matched pairs = 1,225), and five self-reported well-being indicators: life satisfaction, felt belongingness, self-esteem, meaning in life, and gratitude. Results indicate that people's well-being (across all five indicators) remained consistent over the year in independent analyses of samples experiencing each of the three types of events, and did not differ from matched controls. These findings indicate high population levels of psychological resilience, in the sense that people did not decrease in annual well-being following various life events. These findings also fail to detect significant evidence for possible post-traumatic growth, insofar as such growth might relate to a broad range of different aspects of well-being.

Perception of major life events and personality trait change

Major life events can trigger personality trait change. However, a clear, replicable pattern of event-related personality trait change has yet to be identified. We examined whether the perception of major life events is associated with personality trait change. Therefore, we assessed young adults’ personality traits at five measurement occasions within 1 year. At the second measurement occasion, we also assessed their perception of a recently experienced major life event using the Event Characteristics Questionnaire. Contrary to our expectations, perceived impact of the event was not associated with the amount of personality trait change, but perceived valence was associated with changes in agreeableness and neuroticism. Exploratory analyses revealed some weak associations between other perceived event characteristics and the amount of personality trait change as well as interactions between perceived event characteristics and event categories in predicting changes in neuroticism. In general, effect sizes were small, and associations depended on the time interval between pre-event and post-event personality assessment. Results indicate that perceived event characteristics should be considered when examining event-related personality trait change.

What does a personality science approach to post-traumatic growth reveal?

Recent research has advocated for the value of conceptualizing post-traumatic growth as positive personality change. However, most research continues to use both methodologically suspect assessment tools and unsupported theoretical assumptions. How can personality psychologists contribute to the pursuit of high-quality research on this topic? The current special issue, which grew out of the European Association for Personality Psychology (EAPP) expert meeting on “Integrating Post-Traumatic Growth and Personality Change”, held at the University of Nottingham, on September 16–17, 2019, includes 15 papers that (1) examine short-term change in multiple personality constructs after adversity, (2) highlight the limitations of only assessing post-traumatic growth with retrospective questionnaires, and (3) provide theoretical and methodological recommendations for the continued advancement of the study of post-traumatic growth through the lens of personality psychology. While these papers all address specific ways to advance the personality science of post-traumatic growth, collectively they highlight the many unanswered questions that future research should tackle.

How are common major live events perceived? Exploring differences between and variability of different typical event profiles and raters

Research on major life events and personality change often focuses on the occurrence of specific life events such as childbirth, unemployment, or divorce. However, this typical approach has three important limitations: (1) Life events are typically measured categorically, (2) it is often assumed that people experience and change from the same event in the same way, and (3) external ratings of life events have unknown levels of validity. To address these limitations, we examined how common life events are typically perceived, how much perceptions of life events vary within events, and how well external ratings of events correspond to subjective ratings from people who experienced the events. We analyzed ratings of nine psychologically relevant characteristics of 10 common major life events from three different types of raters ( N = 2,210). Each life event had a distinct subjectively rated profile that corresponded well to external ratings. Collectively, this study demonstrates that life events can be meaningfully described and differentiated with event characteristics. However, people’s individual perceptions of life events varied considerably even within events. Therefore, research on major life events and their associations with personality change should incorporate individual perceptions of the events to advance the understanding of these associations.