Journal of Personality最新文献

Objective

This study investigated the associations between personality traits at age 8 and academic performance between ages 10 and 14, controlling for family confounds.

Background

Many studies have shown links between children’s personality traits and their school performance. However, we lack evidence on whether these associations remain after genetic and environmental confounders are accounted for.

Method

Sibling data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) were used (n = 9701). First, we estimated the overall associations between Big Five personality traits and academic performance, including literacy, numeracy, and foreign language. Second, we added sibling fixed effects to remove unmeasured confounders shared by siblings as well as rating bias.

Results

Openness to Experience (between-person β = 0.22 [95% CI: 0.21–0.24]) and Conscientiousness (between-person β = 0.18 [95% CI 0.16–0.20]) were most strongly related to educational performance. Agreeableness (between-person β = 0.06 [95% CI −0.08–0.04]) and Extraversion (between-person β = 0.02 [95% CI 0.00–0.04]) showed small associations with educational performance. Neuroticism had a moderate negative association (between-person β = −0.14 [95% CI −0.15–0.11]). All associations between personality and performance were robust to confounding: the within-family estimates from sibling fixed-effects models overlapped with the between-person effects. Finally, childhood personality was equally predictive of educational performance across ages and genders.

Conclusions

Although family background is influential for academic achievement, it does not confound associations with personality. Childhood personality traits reflect unbiased and consistent individual differences in educational potential.

Personality traits and affective functioning have been closely linked. Empirical evidence suggests that the Five-Factor Model traits have been linked with Panskepp's six primary affective systems, as measured by the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales: SEEKING, PLAY, CARE (positive emotions) and FEAR, SADNESS, ANGER (negative emotions).

Objective

The present work investigated the dynamic relations between primary affective systems and FFM personality.

Method

Drawing from a sample of 220 participants completing surveys on four consecutive days, we used the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to investigate the associations between primary affective systems and personality traits.

Results

The following associations were identified: bidirectional associations between negative emotions and neuroticism, unidirectional associations from SEEKING to openness and from agreeableness to three primary affective systems. No significant associations were observed between extraversion and primary affective systems.

Conclusions

Our findings highlight the importance of disentangling the within-person effects when examining the relationship between primary affective systems and personality.

Background/Objective

The Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) within the DSM-5 includes separable components representing general personality dysfunction (Criterion A) and maladaptive personality traits (Criterion B). Some critique Criterion A for accounting for little incremental variance in PD beyond Criterion B. However, Morey et al. (2020) hypothesized that personality dysfunction is a key mechanism through which normal-range traits account for the maladaptive component of personality traits, justifying its inclusion. We sought to replicate and extend this work in a psychiatric sample with mixed methods.

Method

In total, 152 participants recruited from mental health clinics completed multiple measures of personality dysfunction and normal-range and maladaptive traits.

Results

Replication was only partially achieved. The degree of incremental prediction of maladaptive traits and the extent to which personality dysfunction explained the relations between normal-range and maladaptive traits varied significantly across traits, and those effects that reached significance were small in magnitude. Removing variance due to personality dysfunction reduced intercorrelations among maladaptive traits by only a small amount.

Conclusion

Counter to Morey et al. (2020), our results failed to support maladaptive traits as composites of normal-range traits and personality dysfunction, suggesting that other methods of distinguishing personality pathology severity and style are needed.

Objective

Children perceived by peers as someone who is fun reap interpersonal rewards, but little is known about what makes someone fun or how being fun leads to social success. The present study is designed to identify what qualities makes someone fun and how being fun leads to social success.

Method

Two studies of children in primary and middle school are reported. Participants in the present investigation attended a public-school representative of Florida school children in terms of ethnicity and income. In the first study, 351 (179 girls, 172 boys) students (8–11 years old) completed surveys twice (M = 8.5 weeks apart) during an academic year, describing the qualities of “someone who is fun.”

Results

At both time points, kindness and humor were rated as more important than buffoonery. In the second study, 394 (210 girls, 184 boys) students (8–13 years old) completed peer nomination surveys thrice (M = 8.5 weeks apart) during an academic year. Replicating previous findings, being fun predicted increases in social status (i.e., likeability and popularity).

Conclusions

Unique to this study, full longitudinal mediation analyses indicated that being perceived as fun early in the school year predicted friend gain from the beginning to the middle of the school year, which, in turn, predicted increases in perceived likeability and popularity from the middle to the end of the school year. The findings were unique to being fun. Kindness and humor did not predict friend gain.

Objective

We investigated the defense styles in the African context by exploring their internal structure in Burkinabé individuals. Moreover, we explored how defense styles were related to sociocultural variables. Finally, we tested whether defense styles could mediate the relationship between sociocultural variables and mental well-being as well as functional disability.

Method

The study recruited 998 individuals (66.9% male; age = 25.50 ± 7.8 years) living in Burkina Faso. Standard measures for defense mechanisms, mental well-being, and functional disability were administered as a structured interview in the local vehicular language, that is, Dyula.

Results

Principal component analysis identified three major defense styles—mature, neurotic, and immature. Gender, formal education, living area, and believing in traditional practices were associated with any of the three defense styles. Moreover, the immature style mediated the impact of sociocultural variables on specific outcomes, such as higher functional disability and lower mental well-being. The neurotic style was associated with lower functional disability, while the mature style was not associated with any of the outcome variables.

Conclusion

Our study provided preliminary support to the notion that defense styles may function similarly across cultures and they are likely reactive to the sociocultural context.

Objective

The psychological profile of the moral person might depend on whose perspective is being used. Here, we decompose moral impressions into three components: (a) Shared Moral Character (shared variance across self- and informant reports), (b) Moral Identity (how a person uniquely views their morality), and (c) Moral Reputation (how others uniquely view that person's morality).

Method

In two samples (total N  = 458), we used an extended version of the Trait-Reputation-Identity model to examine the extent to which each perspective accounts for the overall variance in moral impressions and the degree to which social and personal outcomes were associated with each perspective, controlling for method variance (i.e., positivity and acquiescence bias).

Results

Results suggest that moral character impressions are strongly influenced by positivity and largely idiosyncratic. All components were related to higher levels of agreeableness. For the most part, however, the three components had unique correlates: people higher in Shared Moral Character tended to have higher standings on conscientiousness and honesty-humility, were more respected, and donated more during an in-lab game; people higher in Moral Identity endorsed various moral foundations to a greater extent; and people higher in Moral Reputation valued the loyalty foundation less.

Conclusion

These results demonstrate the value of considering multiple perspectives when measuring moral character.

Objective and Background

How do targets shape consensus in impression formation? Targets are known to play an outsized role in the accuracy of first impressions, but their influence on consensus has been difficult to study. With the help of the recently developed extended Social Relations Model, we explore the structure and correlates of individual differences in consensus (i.e., dissensus).

Method

Across 3 studies, 187 photographs of targets were rated by 960 perceivers on personality and evaluative traits, as well as being coded for physical cues by trained coders. We explored the within-target consistency of consensus across traits, as well as its relationship to four categories of theoretically relevant correlates: expressiveness, normativity, positivity, and social categories.

Results

The tendency to make a consistent impression on others was broadly consistent across traits. High-consensus targets tended to be more expressive, had more normative physical cues, and were viewed more positively.

Conclusions

At least in a first impression context, targets may play a unique role in predicting the consensus of personality judgments by providing perceivers with more information to work with, and making a negative impression on others may carry social costs.

Objective

Which traits best describe individuals who are recognized as exemplary in different domains? And can self-rated positively valued personality traits distinguish such individuals from the general population?

Background

The study of exemplary individuals’ personality traits traditionally focused on general and broad traits. Using character strengths, which are narrower and designed to describe desirable behavior, could provide new insights.

Method

In this study, we examined 204 outstanding individuals—exemplars who received or were nominated for a public award recognizing their exemplary behavior (e.g., a Carnegie Rescuers Award; n = 119), individuals holding a patent (n = 62), and individuals living in a religious order (n = 23). We compared these exemplars to comparison samples matched based on demographic variables. All participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing character strengths and well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life).

Results

Results showed that the three groups of exemplars differed meaningfully in their character strengths and well-being from the matched comparison groups. Compared with matched counterparts, moral exemplars scored higher on the strengths related to the virtues of courage, humanity, and justice as well as the character strength of humility, creative exemplars scored higher on the character strengths of creativity and honesty, and religious exemplars scored higher on gratitude and spirituality.

Conclusion

Overall, our findings suggest that character strengths are a useful framework for studying exemplary behavior.