On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach.

The "accuracy paradigm" for the study of personality judgment provides an important, new complement to the "error paradigm" that dominated this area of research for almost 2 decades. The present article introduces a specific approach within the accuracy paradigm called the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM). RAM begins with the assumption that personality traits are real attributes of individuals. This assumption entails the use of a broad array of criteria for the evaluation of personality judgment and leads to a model that describes accuracy as a function of the availability, detection, and utilization of relevant behavioral cues. RAM provides a common explanation for basic moderators of accuracy, sheds light on how these moderators interact, and outlines a research agenda that includes the reintegration of the study of error with the study of accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal strivings: An approach to personality and subjective well-being.

Examined relations between characteristics of personal goal strivings (e.g., importance, past attainment, effort) and components of subjective well-being (positive and negative affect and life satisfaction). 40 undergraduates generated lists of their personal strivings and rated each striving on a series of dimensions. Ss also recorded their moods and thoughts by use of an experience-sampling method on 84 occasions over a 3-wk period. Positive affect was found to be most strongly related to striving value and past fulfillment, whereas negative affect was associated with low probability of future success, striving ambivalence, and between-striving conflict. Striving importance and instrumentality (low conflict) were the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. Possible explanations for the connections between striving fulfillment and positive affect and between striving conflict and negative affect are discussed. It is concluded that the concept of personal striving is a useful heuristic device for understanding individual differences in subjective well-being. The concept is proposed as an alternative to the traditional trait approach to personality. (71 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An ecological perspective on integrating personality and social psychology.

We use the Gibsonian ecological construct of affordance to integrate personality and social psychology. Illustrative applications include the interpersonal implications of depression, the nature of social competence, the meaning of traits, and various aspects of the structure and function of attitudes. We also use the affordance concept to derive a lock-and-key metaphor for integrating personality and social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An approach to the study of personality integration and autonomic responsivity.

Compared physiological arousal in 45 fraternity members selected for high, average, and low scores of Duncan's Personality Integration Reputation Test. Heart rate, skin temperature, and GSR were measured under various conditions of stress. Results indicate that (a) the low group showed greater reaction as measured by skin temperature change, (b) the average group more quickly reached peak RT in the mental arithmetic task, (c) the mental arithmetic task elicited shorter RTs than other stimuli, (d) skin temperature was the slowest and most reliable modality to response, and (e) greater heart rate changes occurred when discussing social data and working mental arithmetic problems than when discussing the future. It is concluded that multiple criteria for identification of optimal adjustment may be more valid than the use of a single measure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critics and their texts: An approach to Jung's theory of cognition and personality.

A cluster analysis of critics' writings about children's literature led to the conceptualization of 4 discursive styles, parallel to Jung's 4 functions. The styles generally characterize different types of mentality engaged in literary studies. Characteristics of the work and careers of leading representatives from the "Age of Criticism" are used to illustrate the applicability of type theory. The nature of literary controversies, relationships between protagonists, and aspects of the development of thought among various critics of this period may be interpreted in terms of Jung's psychology of knowledge. Further study of types through analysis of discourse and its social and biographical context is recommended. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The intergenerational cycle of teenage motherhood: An ecological approach.

Objective: Daughters of teenage mothers have increased risk for teenage childbearing, perpetuating intergenerational cycles. Using Ecological Systems Theory, this study prospectively examined risk factors for teenage childbearing among a national sample of adolescent girls. Design: Data came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Participants (N = 1,430) were recruited in early adolescence and interviewed yearly for 6 years. Survival analysis was used to examine the rate of childbirth across the teenage years by maternal age at first birth. Hierarchical Cox regression was used to identify multivariate predictors of teenage childbearing and to test whether risk factors differed between daughters of teenage versus older mothers. Primary Outcome Measure: Age at first childbirth was based on cumulative information collected at yearly interviews. Results: Daughters of teenage mothers were 66% more likely to become teenage mothers, after accounting for other risks. Individual (school performance), family (maternal education, marital status, number of children), peer (dating history), and environmental (race, enrichment) factors predicted teenage childbearing. Risks unique to daughters of teenage mothers were deviant peer norms, low parental monitoring, Hispanic race, and poverty. Conclusion: Results support multidimensional approaches to pregnancy prevention, and targeted interventions addressing unique risk factors among daughters of teenage mothers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An other perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers' accuracy and predictive validity.

The bulk of personality research has been built from self-report measures of personality. However, collecting personality ratings from other-raters, such as family, friends, and even strangers, is a dramatically underutilized method that allows better explanation and prediction of personality's role in many domains of psychology. Drawing hypotheses from D. C. Funder's (1995) realistic accuracy model about trait and information moderators of accuracy, we offer 3 meta-analyses to help researchers and applied psychologists understand and interpret both consistencies and unique insights afforded by other-ratings of personality. These meta-analyses integrate findings based on 44,178 target individuals rated across 263 independent samples. Each meta-analysis assessed the accuracy of observer ratings, as indexed by interrater consensus/reliability (Study 1), self–other correlations (Study 2), and predictions of behavior (Study 3). The results show that although increased frequency of interacting with targets does improve accuracy in rating personality, informants' interpersonal intimacy with the target is necessary for substantial increases in other-rating accuracy. Interpersonal intimacy improved accuracy especially for traits low in visibility (e.g., Emotional Stability) but only minimally for traits high in evaluativeness (e.g., Agreeableness). In addition, observer ratings were strong predictors of behaviors. When the criterion was academic achievement or job performance, other-ratings yielded predictive validities substantially greater than and incremental to self-ratings. These findings indicate that extraordinary value can gained by using other-reports to measure personality, and these findings provide guidelines toward enriching personality theory. Various subfields of psychology in which personality variables are systematically assessed and utilized in research and practice can benefit tremendously from use of others' ratings to measure personality variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The act frequency approach to personality.

Personality dispositions are viewed as summaries of act frequencies that, in themselves, possess no explanatory status. As sociocultural emergents, dispositions function as natural cognitive categories with acts as members. Category boundaries are fuzzy, and acts within each category differ in their prototypicality of membership. This formulation is illustrated by a series of studies involving undergraduate raters, which focused on indices of act trends and on a comparative analysis of the internal structure of dispositions. The act frequency approach is placed within a taxonomic framework of the relations among act categories and hierarchic classification. Theoretical implications of the act frequency approach are examined. Dispositional consistency is distinguished from behavioral consistency, and several act frequency indices (e.g., dispositional versatility and situational scope) are defined. Situational analysis and personality coherence are viewed from the act frequency perspective. Discussion focuses on the possible origins and development of dispositional categories and implications of alternative middle-level constructs for act categorization and personality theory. (102 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral manifestations of social support: A microanalytic investigation.

Examined the specific interpersonal behaviors that convey support from one person to another, the types of interpersonal experiences that characterize individuals who report high vs low levels of social support, and the effectiveness of a range of helping behaviors in preventing depressive reactions to stressful events. 41 undergraduates completed a general measure of perceived social support and kept daily records of their social interactions and stressful experiences for 14 days. They also completed the Depression Adjective Check Lists each day. Results show that behaviors reflecting emotional support and informational support occurred as a specific response to stressful life events. Although esteem support was expressed with equal frequency in the presence and absence of stress, it was especially effective in preventing depressive reactions to stressful events. Ss who perceived themselves as having high levels of social support were more frequently the recipients of helping behaviors following stressful events than those low in perceived support. Perceived social support was only predictive of helping behaviors on days on which at least 1 stressful event occurred. The total number of helping behaviors received following stressful events was a significant negative predictor of level of depressive mood, although 1 helping behavior (frequency of confiding) was associated with higher levels of depression. Results are interpreted in terms of the buffering model of social support. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing teacher and peer perceptions of aggression: An ecological approach.

Teacher and peer perceptions of aggression were investigated in a sample of 899 students. Teachers rated their students in Grades 3–8 on an 8-item scale assessing peer-directed aggression. Students completed a questionnaire within classrooms that measured acceptance, rejection, and peer-directed aggression. Both teachers and peers reported higher levels of aggression in boys than in girls. Teacher and peer perceptions of aggressive behavior were more congruent for boys than for girls, but this congruence differed significantly as a function of ethnicity. Significant differences among individual classrooms also existed in both teacher and peer ratings, as well as in the relationships between the 2 measures. Findings of gender, grade level, ethnic, and classroom differences are compared with previous research, and issues relevant to the identification of highly aggressive youth are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Models of personality and disease: An interactional approach to Type A behavior and cardiovascular risk.

Describes and critiques models currently guiding research regarding the link between Type A (coronary prone) behavior and coronary heart disease and offers an alternative model. The model offered places this link in an interactional context. Specifically, it is hypothesized that via cognitive and overt behaviors, Type A individuals construct a subjective and objective environment rich in those classes of stimuli known to elicit enhanced physiological reactivity. This approach differs from previous ones by emphasizing that the Type A pattern represents an ongoing process of challenge and demand engendering behavior. That is, Type A persons do not simply respond to challenges and demands; they seek and create them through their cognitions and actions. This constructed environment also elicits and maintains further Type A behavior. The present view of Type A behavior as a challenge and demand engendering style is contrasted with other conceptual approaches, and implications are discussed. (81 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional bias to threat: A perceptual accuracy approach.

To investigate attentional bias to threatening information, the authors propose a new version of the spatial cueing paradigm in which the focus is on perceptual accuracy instead of response speed. In two experiments, healthy volunteers made unspeeded discriminations between three visual targets presented left or right. Each target was preceded by a visual cue (colored rectangle) at either the same (valid) or opposite (invalid) location. By means of differential classical conditioning with aversive white noise, a threat cue and a control cue were created. Analyses of error rates showed that cueing effects (lower proportion of errors in valid trials relative to invalid trials) were more pronounced in threat trials than in neutral trials. This threat-related bias was particularly because of threat cues reducing accuracy in invalid trials, indicating difficulty disengaging attention from threatening information. Engagement of attention was not affected by threat, as threat cues did not facilitate the processing of targets in valid trials. The findings are discussed in light of the strengths and limitations of spatial cueing tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality.

Past work has documented and described major patterns of adaptive and maladaptive behavior: the mastery-oriented and the helpless patterns. In this article, we present a research-based model that accounts for these patterns in terms of underlying psychological processes. The model specifies how individuals' implicit theories orient them toward particular goals and how these goals set up the different patterns. Indeed, we show how each feature (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) of the adaptive and maladaptive patterns can be seen to follow directly from different goals. We then examine the generality of the model and use it to illuminate phenomena in a wide variety of domains. Finally, we place the model in its broadest context and examine its implications for our understanding of motivational and personality processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critique of the act frequency approach to personality.

Evaluates the act frequency approach (AFA), noting that retrospective self-reports rather than behavioral acts are studied; act context and meaning are not considered; the AFA self-report inventories are incompletely developed and are psychometrically unsound; the AFA claim of absolute measurement of dispositions is insupportable; many of the self-report act statements used are technically unacceptable or conceptually unwarranted; the research agenda of the AFA primarily involves only "internal analyses" of self-report "act" inventories and indices and proposes the further creation of "act" inventories to index thousands of conceptually unorderable dispositions. Were the problems involved in the current implementation of the AFA to be resolved, various large conceptual problems presently besetting the approach then would have to be confronted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and alcohol use: An ecological momentary assessment study of outpatients with borderline personality disorder.

Alcohol use may be viewed as an attempt (albeit maladaptive) to regulate negative emotional states. We examined associations between both negative and positive affects and alcohol use in outpatient women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD; n = 74), a prototype of emotional dysregulation, as well as a psychiatric control group of women with current depressive disorder (major depressive disorder/dysthymic disorder [MDD\DYS]; n = 50). Participants completed randomly prompted reports of mood and alcohol use up to six times a day over a 28-day period using electronic diaries. Mean levels of either positive or negative affects did not distinguish between drinkers and nondrinkers in either diagnostic group. However, levels of both negative and positive affects were positively associated with alcohol use at the momentary level in BPD drinkers. More robust findings were obtained with respect to within-person affective variability, which was related to alcohol use in multiple ways. BPD drinkers showed higher within-person variability for most negative affects than BPD nondrinkers; MDD\DYS drinkers in general showed less within-person variability than MDD\DYS nondrinkers for negative affects. Multilevel lagged analyses for BPD drinkers indicated that alcohol use was positively related to variability in all affects, concurrently, but fewer significant effects of affect variability on the next day's drinking or significant effects of alcohol use on the next day's affect variability were observed. Among MDD\DYS drinkers, we observed more significant associations between affect variability on next day's alcohol use and of alcohol use on next day's affect variability. We discuss theoretical and methodological issues relevant to these findings as well as implications for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Going back to Donald: How comparisons shape judgmental priming effects.

The authors examine how judgmental priming effects are shaped by comparisons. Specifically, they suggest that concept priming involves spontaneous activation of concept-consistent standards, which are then spontaneously compared to the judgmental target. In 6 studies, they used a variety of priming methods (contextual cue, subliminal priming, indirect priming) to test these notions of spontaneous standard activation and spontaneous comparison. Study 1 demonstrates that priming a trait concept activates concept-consistent standards. Study 2 suggests that these activated standards contribute to priming effects. If alternative standards that are not particularly consistent with the primed concept are activated, priming effects diminish. Studies 3-6 show that the magnitude and direction of priming effects depend on the intensity and the type of the engaged comparison. Specifically, Study 3 demonstrates that the magnitude of a priming effect depends on the intensity of comparative processing. Studies 4 through 6 show that the direction of a priming effect (assimilation vs. contrast) depends on whether judges engage in a similarity or dissimilarity testing comparison mechanism--a factor which has been found to shape comparison consequences in other domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An abilities conception of personality: Some implications for personality measurement.

Most "psychologists have tended to regard the domains of personality and ability as separate. This unfortunate separation has resulted in a necessary confounding of 2 important response properties in personality research, i.e., response predisposition and response capability… . In the measurement of abilities, attempts are made to elicit indices of maximal performance under optimal conditions of measurement." On the other hand, personality tests based on "psychoanalytic notions of projection would imply the more ambiguity the better." Predisposition conceptions of personality "can lead to operations which are clearly at odds with those demanded by an abilities conception." From an abilities conception, "the usefulness of any measuring instrument would decrease as ambiguity in the measuring instrument is increased." The choice, to search for man "as he really is" or in terms of those things "of which he is capable" is of utmost importance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)