Journal of personality and social psychology最新文献

Self-related core beliefs, reflecting what individuals think about themselves, constitute an important individual difference variable. To date, the literature on the structure of self-related core beliefs is scattered and disconnected, with many approaches developed outside personality psychology. In three studies, the present research presents an integration of existing approaches and an investigation of the underlying structure of self-related core beliefs proposed in these approaches. In the first study, a systematic review identifies existing approaches across subdisciplines. In the second study, a novel natural language processing approach is used to investigate and aggregate the identified beliefs on a semantic level. The third study provides an empirical analysis of the underlying latent structure via network analyses, factor analyses, and exploratory structure equation modeling. Results reveal that the structure of self-related core beliefs can be described on different hierarchical levels, including 97 nuances (e.g., entitled), 20 facets (e.g., rejected), and high-bandwidth dimensions of valence (positive vs. negative), direction (approach vs. withdrawal), and domain (agency, self-esteem, and communion). A structural, network-based model, the CorBel model, is presented which integrates the results. The results of the present research may promote a more comprehensive approach in research and applied settings such as counseling or health prevention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Overconfidence is prevalent despite being linked to various negative outcomes for individuals, organizations, and even societies. To explain this puzzling phenomenon, C. Anderson, Brion, et al. (2012) proposed a status-enhancement theory of overconfidence: Expressing overconfidence helps individuals attain social status. In this registered report, we conducted a direct replication of Study 5 by C. Anderson, Brion, et al. (2012), who found that individual differences in desire for status were positively correlated with being overconfident about one's task performance relative to others. We also tested the generalizability of the key relationship to a different measure of desire for status. Furthermore, we complemented traditional significance testing with equivalence testing and Bayesian analysis to test a set of null hypotheses in the original study. We found support for the status-enhancement hypothesis: Desire for status had a positive association with overconfidence using both the original measure of desire for status (β = 0.19, 95% CI [0.09, 0.28]) and the alternative measure (β = 0.31, 95% CI [0.22, 0.39]). A follow-up extension study aimed to test this relationship causally by manipulating the social context where status motives may be stronger (a competitive vs. cooperative context) and testing whether such an effect is driven by state-level desire for status. We did not find a direct causal effect of social context on overconfidence but an indirect association via state-level desire for status: A competitive (vs. cooperative) group context increased desire for status (β = 0.34, 95% CI [0.18, 0.51]), which in turn predicted greater overconfidence (β = 0.38, 95% CI [0.31, 0.46]). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality trait similarity among ordinary relatives is surprisingly low, with parent-offspring and sibling-sibling correlations usually r ≤ .15. We explain why these correlations are biased in typical single-method studies and argue that this problem can only be addressed with multimethod designs. We also explain why ordinary relative comparisons can provide a more generalizable way of estimating (additive, narrow-sense) heritability than the better known twin comparisons. In a sample of parent-offspring (N_pairs = 522), sibling-sibling (N_pairs = 388), and second-degree relative pairs (N_pairs = 476), who rated their Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction and were each rated by an independent informant (Nparticipants = 2,258 + informants), we found that parent-offspring and sibling correlations were about one third higher than typically shown (r ≈ .20). Based on the ordinary relative comparisons, the heritability of personality traits and life satisfaction was about 40%, compared with about 26% typical to self-report studies. Life satisfaction was as heritable as personality traits, sharing about 80% of its genetic variance with neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness. About half of life satisfaction's phenotypic correlations with neuroticism and extraversion and its entire correlation with conscientiousness were explained by shared genetic factors. Using data from a larger sample of relatives with only self-reports (N_participants = 32,004; Npairs = 24,118), we provide further evidence that growing up together does not make people more similar. The results were consistent for both aggregate traits and individual items. Only multimethod designs can accurately reveal traits' similarity among relatives and their genetic and environmental transmission. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

We examined differences and similarities between groups sampled from the Mediterranean region in social orientation, cognitive style, self-construal, and honor, face, dignity values, and concerns using a large battery of tasks and measures. We did this by conducting secondary data set analyses focusing on comparisons between nine pairs of samples recruited from the Mediterranean region (Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus [Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities], Lebanon [Muslim Lebanese and Christian Lebanese], Egypt) that have overlapping and divergent features in terms of religious, ethnic, national, and linguistic factors as well as various physical and socioecological characteristics. Across 38 different psychological characteristics, comparisons between Turkish and Turkish Cypriot samples and between Christian and Muslim samples from Lebanon revealed that they were most similar to each other. In contrast, Greek and Turkish samples were the least similar. Our analyses of intercorrelations between variables, variability, and size of differences provide additional insights into the within-region variation in social orientation, cognitive style, self-construal indicators, as well as honor, face, and dignity values and concerns. Our research contributes to the growing literature on regional variation of psychological processes while raising important pointers for the role of background and socioecological characteristics in cultural group similarities and differences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

In this preregistered research, we tested whether there is a systematic, terminal decline in relationship satisfaction when people approach the end of their romantic relationship. Data came from four longitudinal studies with national samples. In the analyses, we used (piecewise) multilevel models with propensity score-matched event and control groups. Across studies, sample sizes ranged from 987 to 3,373 for event groups and from 1,351 to 4,717 for control groups. Relationship satisfaction systematically declined as a function of time-to-separation. The decline prior to separation was divided into a preterminal phase, characterized by a smaller decline, and a terminal phase, characterized by a sharp decline. Across studies, the onset of the terminal phase was estimated at 0.58-2.30 years prior to separation. For comparison purposes, we also examined relationship satisfaction as a function of time-since-beginning, showing that time-to-separation was a much better predictor of change than time-since-beginning. Moreover, for comparison purposes, we examined change in life satisfaction, showing that terminal decline was less visible in life satisfaction than in relationship satisfaction. Moderator analyses indicated that age at separation and marital status explained variance in the effect sizes. Moreover, individuals who were the recipients of the separation (in contrast to individuals who initiated the separation) entered the terminal phase later but then decreased more strongly. The findings support that ending relationships show a typical pattern of preterminal and terminal decline, which may have important implications for the timing of interventions aimed at improving relationships and preventing separation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Past research has uncovered that people prefer to deliver positive news and flattering feedback to others. However, less is known about the generalizability and motives underlying the general selection of information to enhance others' self-views. Over a series of seven experiments (six preregistered), participants (total N = 3,117) informed others that a test the others had taken was either valid or invalid. Participants were more likely to choose information that the test was valid when the others performed well but invalid when the test takers performed poorly, thus selecting information that would enhance others' positive self-views. However, this selection pattern was present only for likable and neutral others, dissipating when the others were described as having reproachable traits (Experiments 1-3, 5a and 5b) and when participants had the goal of providing accurate information (Experiment 6). This selection bias, which was driven by an interest in pleasing others, was present across different tests (Experiments 3, 5a, and 5b), showed when the others did and did not have self-enhancing views, and when objective information about the test validity was provided (Experiments 4, 5a, and 5b). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Philosophers have long debated whether moral virtue contributes to happiness or whether morality and happiness are in conflict. Yet, little empirical research directly addresses this question. Here, we examined the association between reputation-based measures of everyday moral character (operationalized as a composite of widely accepted moral virtues such as compassion, honesty, and fairness) and self-reported well-being across two cultures. In Study 1, close others reported on U.S. undergraduate students' moral character (two samples; Ns = 221/286). In Study 2, Chinese employees (N = 711) reported on their coworkers' moral character and their own well-being. To better sample the moral extremes, in Study 3, U.S. participants nominated "targets" who were among the most moral, least moral, and morally average people they personally knew. Targets (N = 281) self-reported their well-being and nominated informants who provided a second, continuous measure of the targets' moral character. These studies showed that those who are more moral in the eyes of close others, coworkers, and acquaintances generally experience a greater sense of subjective well-being and meaning in life. These associations were generally robust when controlling for key demographic variables (including religiosity) and informant-reported liking. There were no significant differences in the strength of the associations between moral character and well-being across two major subdimensions of both moral character (kindness and integrity) and well-being (subjective well-being and meaning in life). Together, these studies provide the most comprehensive evidence to date of a positive and general association between everyday moral character and well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Effort is commonly characterized as a negative, unpleasant experience. This research explores the extent to which individuals vary in whether they believe effort to be enjoyable or aversive and how this relates to a range of behavioral and physiological indicators of effort exertion. In five studies (N = 2,338), participants either completed an Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale or were experimentally led to believe that effort is enjoyable or aversive. Across our studies, descriptive analyses of the Effort Enjoyment Belief Scale revealed no general tendency among participants to perceive effort as aversive; instead, some participants tended to endorse a belief that effort is enjoyable. Both measured and manipulated effort enjoyment belief predicted difficulty selection on an arithmetic task. Further, the belief predicted effort exertion as assessed via cardiovascular measurements (β-adrenergic sympathetic activity) and was associated with high school grades and subjective evaluation of academic success at university. These results imply that the subjective cost or value of effort may be affected by (social) learning experiences, shaping individuals' effort enjoyment belief and, in turn, their tendency to approach or avoid demanding tasks and the exertion of effort. Thus, when modeling behavior as the result of a cost-benefit analysis, effort may not contribute exclusively to the costs but also add value to a course of action, depending on individuals' effort enjoyment belief. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Stereotypes are strategically complex. We propose that people hold not just stereotypes about what groups are generally like (e.g., "men are competitive") but stereotypes about how groups behave toward specific groups (e.g., "men are competitive toward")-what we call directed stereotypes. Across studies, we find that perceivers indeed hold directed stereotypes. Four studies examine directed stereotypes of sex and age (Studies 1 and 2; N = 541) and of race/ethnicity (of Asian/Black/Latino/White Americans; Studies 3 and 4; N = 769), with a focus on stereotypes of competitiveness, aggressiveness, cooperativeness, and communion. Across studies, directed stereotypes present unique patterns that both qualify and reverse well-documented stereotype patterns in the literature. For example, men are typically stereotyped as more competitive than women. However, directed stereotypes show that women are stereotyped to be more competitive than men, when this competitiveness is directed toward young women. Multiple such patterns emerge in the current data, across sex, age, and racial/ethnic stereotypes. Directed stereotypes also uniquely predict intergroup attitudes, over and above general stereotypes (Study 4). The idea of directed stereotypes is compatible with multiple theoretical perspectives and intuitive. However, they have been unexamined. We discuss the implications of the current work for thinking about the nature and measurement of social stereotypes, stereotype content, and social perception more broadly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Although the structure of subjective well-being (SWB) has been examined in various studies, no consensus on its structure has yet been reached. This may be due to a neglect of the construct's dynamic aspects and domain satisfaction as a core aspect of SWB. This article aimed to overcome existing research gaps by applying network modeling to longitudinal data of 32,700 adults (24-64 years old) from the German Socioeconomic Panel to analyze within- and between-person dynamics in the structure of SWB across the lifespan. Results indicated that the relationships across SWB components differed across the investigated within- and between-person network structures. Family, work, and income satisfaction tended to be the most central domains across different levels of analysis. The relationship between life and domain satisfaction was neither solely top-down nor bottom-up but instead characterized by distinct, mostly reciprocal relationships. Furthermore, the dynamic relationships of SWB were similar across compared age groups. In sum, the results suggest that the structure of SWB differs between the within-person level and the between-person level but does not change fundamentally throughout middle adulthood. Additionally, this study demonstrates the importance of considering domain satisfaction as an essential component of SWB and that psychometric network models can advance our understanding of the structure and dynamics of SWB. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).