Longitudinal stability of personality traits: A multitrait–multimethod–multioccasion analysis.

The longitudinal stability of personality was investigated in a group of several hundred adults who were rated by themselves, their marriage partners, and their acquaintances in 1935-1938 and by themselves and their marriage partners in 1954-1955. For both men and women, there were very similar factorial structures in all five sources of ratings. Individual differences in neuroticism, social extraversion, and impulse control had reasonably high levels of longitudinal stability over a 19-year period. Both the synchronic and diachronic correlations converged across methods and discriminated among traits. Self-report personality inventory data available in 1935-1938 and 1954-1955 provided corroborating evidence of the longitudinal and methodological robustness of personality traits. In data gathered on the same panel in 1980-1981, the questionnaire and the life history correlates of neuroticism and social extraversion displayed patterns indicative of temporal stability, methodological convergence, and discrimination among constructs. The data of this longitudinal study carried out over five decades strongly indicate that there is a set of personality traits that are generalizable across methods of assessment and are stable throughout adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrating dispositions, signatures, and the interpersonal domain.

A person's behavior across situations can be characterized in terms of a mean level (disposition), a dispersion within the person around that mean level, and a stable organization to the pattern of dispersion (signature). The authors' goals were to examine the structure and stability of behavior, both at the level of behavioral dispositions and at the level of behavioral signatures. Participants completed event-contingent records of their social interactions over a 20-day period. Participants recorded their own social behavior (dominant, agreeable, submissive, quarrelsome) in 4 situations defined by the perceived social behavior of their primary interaction partners (agreeable-dominant, agreeable-submissive, quarrelsome- submissive, quarrelsome-dominant). Findings suggest that (a) once the normative influences of situations on behavior are removed, the remaining behavioral variation reflects both consistent cross-situational differences between individuals (dispositions) and consistent situational differences within individuals (signatures); (b) both dispositions and signatures display a 2-dimensional structure in adherence to the interpersonal circle; and (c) both dispositions and signatures constitute stable aspects of personality functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Mother-Infant Relationship in Single, Cohabiting, and Married Families: A Case for Marriage?

Single-mother, cohabiting 2-parent, and married 2-parent families with infants were compared on maternal and infant behavior, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores, and infant's security of attachment. Married mothers and their infants demonstrated more positive behavior and received higher HOME scores when the infant was 6 and 15 months old than did their cohabiting and single counterparts. Married families were also better off than single and cohabiting families on several demographic, parent personality, financial, and social context measures. Single and cohabiting families were similar across most measures. Selection variables (maternal age, ethnic group, and education) explained much, but not all, of the family structure differences in the mother-infant relationship and the HOME. Maternal psychological adjustment, attitudes about child rearing, income, and social support explained little of the family structure variation, suggesting that characteristics that preceded marriage and conception were important determinants of family structure differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prospective predictors of parenting satisfaction for fathers and mothers with young children.

Data from husbands and wives from 48 couples with young children (mean age?=?2.71 years) were used to assess whether each spouse's parenting satisfaction assessed 8 years after marriage (Year 8) was predicted by parents' personality characteristics, marital quality, and social support assessed at the beginning of the marriage (Year 1). With controls for all other variables, fathers' Year 8 parenting satisfaction was predicted by their own Year 1 instrumentality, whereas mothers' Year 8 parenting satisfaction was predicted by their own Year 1 expressiveness. These prospective relations were not moderated by child-related characteristics and persisted with controls for Year 8 marital satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: The local predictability of social behavior.

A conditional approach to dispositions is developed in which dispositional constructs are viewed as clusters of if-then propositions. These propositions summarize contingencies between categories of conditions and categories of behavior rather than generalized response tendencies. A fundamental unit for investigating dispositions is therefore the conditional frequency of acts that are central to a given behavior category in circumscribed situations, not the overall frequency of behaviors. In an empirical application of the model, we examine how people's dispositional judgments are linked to extensive observations of targets' behavior in a range of natural social situations. We identify categories of these social situations in which targets' behavior may be best predicted from observers' dispositional judgments, focusing on the domains of aggression and withdrawal. One such category consists of subjectively demanding or stressful situations that tax people's performance competencies. As expected, children judged to be aggressive or withdrawn were variable across situations in dispositionally relevant behaviors, but they diverged into relatively predictable aggressive and withdrawn actions in situations that required the social, self-regulatory, and cognitive competencies they lacked. Implications of the conditional approach for personality assessment and person perception research are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure.

A theory was proposed to reconcile paradoxical findings on the invariance of personality and the variability of behavior across situations. For this purpose, individuals were assumed to differ in (a) the accessibility of cognitive–affective mediating units (such as encodings, expectancies and beliefs, affects, and goals) and (b) the organization of relationships through which these units interact with each other and with psychological features of situations. The theory accounts for individual differences in predictable patterns of variability across situations (e.g., if A then she X, but if B then she Y), as well as for overall average levels of behavior, as essential expressions or behavioral signatures of the same underlying personality system. Situations, personality dispositions, dynamics, and structure were reconceptualized from this perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perspective taking as a predictor of marital adjustment.

Recently, theorists have argued that positive personality dispositions may facilitate the maintenance of satisfying personal relationships. On a sample of 159 couples (married an average of 23.8 years) it was hypothesized that perspective taking, defined as the cognitive tendency to put oneself in another person's place, would be positively predictive of marital adjustment. Three dimensions of perspective taking were measured. A general measure assessed self perspective taking in general social interaction. A second instrument assessed the perspective taking of the self, and the third assessed the perspective taking of another within the marriage relationship. Results indicated that for both husbands and wives, all 3 dimensions of perspective taking were predictive of marital adjustment. Wives had significantly higher scores than did husbands on all 3 perspective-taking scales. The results are discussed within the context of a model of relational competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood.

To test hypotheses about positive emotion, the authors examined the relationship of positive emotional expression in women's college pictures to personality, observer ratings, and life outcomes. Consistent with the notion that positive emotions help build personal resources, positive emotional expression correlated with the self-reported personality traits of affiliation, competence, and low negative emotionality across adulthood and predicted changes in competence and negative emotionality. Observers rated women displaying more positive emotion more favorably on several personality dimensions and expected interactions with them to be more rewarding; thus, demonstrating the beneficial social consequences of positive emotions. Finally, positive emotional expression predicted favorable outcomes in marriage and personal well-being up to 30 years later. Controlling for physical attractiveness and social desirability had little impact on these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Incorporating If...Then...Personality Signatures in Person Perception: Beyond the Person-Situation Dichotomy.

Three studies investigated conditions in which perceivers view dispositions and situations as interactive, rather than independent, causal forces when making judgments about another's personality. Study 1 showed that perceivers associated 5 common trait terms (e.g., friendly and shy) with characteristic if...then... (if situation a, then the person does x, but if situation b, then the person does y) personality signatures. Study 2 demonstrated that perceivers used information about a target's stable if...then... signature to infer the target's motives and traits; dispositional judgments were mediated by inferences about the target's motivations. Study 3 tested whether perceivers draw on if...then... signatures when making judgments about Big Five trait dimensions. Together, the findings indicate that perceivers take account of person-situation interactions (reflected in if...then... signatures) in everyday explanations of social behavior and personality dispositions. Boundary conditions are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A lens-mapping framework for understanding the encoding and decoding of interpersonal dispositions in nonverbal behavior.

Recent reviewers have concluded that dispositions are not very reliably encoded in nonverbal behavior, although observers seem eager to use nonverbal information to decode the dispositions of others. A modified Brunswik lens model (E. Brunswik, 1956) and behavior mapping were used to examine the encoding and decoding of 8 interpersonal dispositions from nonverbal cues. First, 20 triads completed self-assessments and were videotaped during conversation. Next, 38 of their nonverbal behaviors were independently scored. Finally, 21 unacquainted peers rated all 60 conversers on the same dispositions. Across the 8 dispositions, encoding multiple correlations ranged from 0 to .62 and decoding ranged from .74 to .82. Achievement (self-other correlations) ranged from .18 to .45. Some implications of the results for interpersonal conflict and personality assessment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Authoritarian ideology and attitudes on parent-child relationships.

"The relationship between authoritarian ideology and attitudes about parent-child relationships was investigated by testing 172 native-white, Christian university students." Findings indicate a relationship in females that could be related to personality dispositions. It was proposed that strong authoritarian beliefs may be maladjustive in a democratic society since such beliefs are associated with attitudes similar to those held by parents of problem children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in women's assertiveness in response to status and roles: A cross-temporal meta-analysis, 1931–1993.

Across two meta-analyses, American women's assertiveness rose and fell with their social status from 1931 to 1993. College women and high school girls' self-reports on assertiveness and dominance scales increased from 1931 to 1945, decreased from 1946 to 1967, and increased from 1968 to 1993, explaining about 14% of the variance in the trait. Women's scores have increased enough that many recent samples show no sex differences in assertiveness. Correlations with social indicators (e.g., women's educational attainment, women's median age at first marriage) confirm that women's assertiveness varies with their status and roles. Social change is thus internalized in the form of a personality trait. Men's scores do not demonstrate a significant birth cohort effect overall. The results suggest that the changing sociocultural environment for women affected their personalities, most likely beginning in childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dispositions to rash action moderate the associations between concurrent drinking, depressive symptoms, and alcohol problems during emerging adulthood.

“Impulsivity” has been consistently identified as a key personality predictor of alcohol-related problems and subsequent alcohol use disorder. Multiple prior studies have demonstrated impulsivity is an individual difference factor that strengthens the effects of some risk factors, such as alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms, on alcohol problems. However, recent research indicated common measures of impulsivity actually reflect multiple dispositions toward rash action, and that alcohol problems were most consistently related to one of those dispositions, negative urgency. Little research has examined how specific dispositions to rash action may act as putative moderators of other risk factors for alcohol problems. The goal of the current study was to test which dispositions to rash action moderated the effects of concurrent alcohol use or depressive symptoms on alcohol problems. Using a large cross-sectional sample of college students (n = 573), the current study utilized semicontinuous regression models, which allow prediction of both the likelihood and level of alcohol problems. Negative urgency was found to be the main predictor of alcohol problems, above and beyond other dispositions to rash action, which replicates prior research. However, each of the other dispositions exhibited risk-enhancing effects on the relations between either depressive symptoms or alcohol use and concurrent alcohol problems. Specifically, lower levels of premeditation enhanced the association between depressive symptoms and alcohol problems, while lower perseverance and higher sensation seeking were related to more alcohol problems at higher levels of alcohol use. Results suggest that multiple dispositions to rash action were related to problematic alcohol use both directly and via their interaction with other risk factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality dynamics and accident proneness in an industrial setting.

"Two groups of Ss… [17 men with a total of 47 accidents over 2 years, and 17 accident-free men] were [compared] by means of a sentence completion test… . the high accident Ss, in comparison with the non-accident Ss, were significantly lower on the socially desirable personality dispositions of optimism, trust, and sociocentricity. In general, there were no statistically significant differences… on several negative personality dispositions, but there was a slight indication of positive association between high accident proneness and high scores on a cluster composed of the socially undesirable personality dispositions of egocentricity, anxiety, and resentment. There was highly significant association between high accident proneness and projective responses indicative of a negative attitude toward employment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shyness and sociability.

Two studies investigated the relationship between shyness (tension and inhibition with others) and sociability (preference for being with others rather than being alone) using 952 undergraduates. A factor analysis of shyness and sociability items revealed 2 distinct factors, indicating that shyness and sociability are distinct personality dispositions. Self-reported shyness showed only a moderate negative correlation with self-reported sociability. Furthermore, the measures of shyness and sociability had different patterns of correlations with other personality scales (e.g., the Public and Private Self-Consciousness scales of the Self-Consciousness Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the EASI [Emotionality, Activity, Sociability, Impulsivity] Temperament Survey). On the basis of these findings, it is concluded that shyness is not just low sociability. Next, 4 groups of Ss were selected: shy–sociable, shy–unsociable, unshy–sociable, and unshy–unsociable. Pairs of these Ss, matched for both traits, interacted for 5 min. Shy–sociable Ss talked less, averted their gaze more, and engaged in more self-manipulation than did the other 3 groups. In studying social behavior, it should be known whether Ss are shy but also whether they are sociable. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temperament and personality: Origins and outcomes.

This article reviews how a temperament approach emphasizing biological and developmental processes can integrate constructs from subdisciplines of psychology to further the study of personality. Basic measurement strategies and findings in the investigation of temperament in infancy and childhood are reviewed. These include linkage of temperament dimensions with basic affective–motivational and attentional systems, including positive affect/approach, fear, frustration/anger, and effortful control. Contributions of biological models that may support these processes are then reviewed. Research indicating how a temperament approach can lead researchers of social and personality development to investigate important person–environment interactions is also discussed. Lastly, adult research suggesting links between temperament dispositions and the Big Five personality factors is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Person memory and judgment.

Two general types of information about a person are considered in this article: One pertains to specific behaviors a person had manifested, and the other refers to more abstract personality dispositions or behavioral tendencies. A theoretical model of person memory that incorporates both types of information is developed. The model accounts for a large number of factors that are known to affect the recall of social information, the making of interpersonal judgments, and the relation between what is recalled and the judgments that are made. A major strength of the model is its applicability to a wide range of person memory and judgment phenomena that are observed in several different experimental paradigms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)