Journal of Personality最新文献

Objective: Belief in a just world refers to a personal belief regarding justice and serves adaptive functions in adolescent development. Previous research has mainly focused on the outcome variables of belief in a just world, such as psychological and behavioral responses related to injustice, while the predictors and mechanisms underlying its longitudinal development remain underexplored. Based on cognitive schema theory, justice capital theory, and life history theory, this study aimed to investigate the predictive role of childhood stressful environments-specifically, childhood harshness and unpredictability-and the mediating effect of discrimination perception on belief in a just world.

Method: A three-wave longitudinal study was conducted with 515 high school students in southeast China (M_{age at Time 1} = 17.20, SD_age = 0.46; 45.54% women).

Results: Results showed that the childhood harshness negatively predicted belief in a just world, whereas childhood unpredictability was not significantly associated with it. Additionally, personal discrimination perception, rather than group discrimination perception, mediated the longitudinal relationship between childhood harshness and belief in a just world.

Conclusions: This study offers a perspective focusing on individuals' former experiences for future research on the predictors of belief in a just world, highlighting how childhood adversity can shape perceptions of injustice during adolescence and jointly influence belief in a just world.

Objective: The sense of agency might be jointly affected by situational and interindividual factors. In this study, we examined whether personality traits and control beliefs can explain individual differences in both (1) sense of agency and (2) susceptibility of agency judgments to social influence.

Method: To do so, we used measures of the Big Five Personality Traits and Levenson's Locus of Control in combination with a task based on an interactive computer game, which we submitted to a large cohort of online participants (N = 562). We manipulated sensorimotor agency cues related to action control as well as social information communicated to participants.

Results: Our results show that while locus of control beliefs are related to differences in sense of agency, neither Big Five personality traits nor locus of control beliefs can account for differences in susceptibility to social influence.

Conclusion: Locus of control and Big Five personality traits can account for some differences in sense of agency, but not for differences in belief alignment.

Objective: Identity development research often applies the identity status approach, which distinguishes different dimensions of identity-relevant commitment levels and exploration behavior. However, age differences in these dimensions have mostly been examined in adolescence and young adulthood, leaving questions about their variation across the adult lifespan. Additionally, associations between identity and life satisfaction have been equally understudied in adult populations.

Method: We examined these questions in a large, nationally representative U.K. sample (N = 3869; age range 18-97). Identity processes were measured using an abbreviated Dimensions of Identity Development Scale. After invariance testing by age groups, we examined age differences across identity dimensions: Commitment and Exploration (depth, breadth, ruminative).

Results: Older individuals reported lower scores on all exploration dimensions until late adulthood. However, though no age differences in commitment were observed between early and middle adulthood, less commitment was reported from middle to late adulthood. Additionally, commitment and exploration in depth were consistently positively associated with life satisfaction, whereas ruminative exploration negatively predicted life satisfaction, with stronger associations appearing in later adulthood.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate the feasibility of studying identity across adulthood from a measurement perspective and highlight how identity dimensions relate to well-being at different ages.

The present paper aims to honor the memory of one of the most notable figures in psychological science over the past five decades, Philip G. Zimbardo, who sadly passed away in late 2024. To this end, we provide a multi-perspective view on psychological time-a topic that deeply engaged Phil Zimbardo during the later stages of his prolific career. From the basic mechanisms of mental time travel to the experience of the passage of time, the phenomena of temporal construal, intertemporal choices, and complex representations of future selves, as well as the concepts of balanced time perspectives and temporal metacognition, the authors of this article construct this symbolic memoir by linking their own ideas and research with Zimbardo's time perspective theory. In the concluding part of the paper, we propose that temporality-related processes and traits constitute a fundamental part of personality and seek to highlight the pathways through which considering psychological-temporal phenomena may advance personality science and even serve as a unifying theme for various approaches to personality.

Objective: To date, effects of life events on personality trait change have been unsystematic, tenuous, and difficult to replicate. We focus on individual differences in change processes following life events, which have been neglected in previous studies.

Method: Based on a novel Moderated Nonlinear Latent-State-Trait modeling approach we investigate the impact of the occurrence and individual perception of life events on different types of self- and informant-reported personality trait change, considering various moderators. A total of 623 participants with up to three informants per target provided data across three assessment waves at 2-year intervals.

Results: Several event effects on mean-level personality change and change in trait variability emerged; however, these depended on age, gender, the individual perception of life events, the type of trait change, the time-lag between event occurrence and personality assessment, the repeated occurrence of life events, and the personality assessment method.

Conclusions: This high volatility of life-event effects might serve as an explanation for the inconclusive state of research on this topic, as studies differing in one or more of these factors are unlikely to produce similar results.