The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies.

The present study used meta-analytic techniques to test whether trait consistency maximizes and stabilizes at a specific period in the life course. From 152 longitudinal studies, 3,217 test–retest correlation coefficients were compiled. Meta-analytic estimates of mean population test–retest correlation coefficients showed that trait consistency increased from .31 in childhood to .54 during the college years, to .64 at age 30, and then reached a plateau around .74 between ages 50 and 70 when time interval was held constant at 6.7 years. Analysis of moderators of consistency showed that the longitudinal time interval had a negative relation to trait consistency and that temperament dimensions were less consistent than adult personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To predict some of the people some of the time: In search of moderators.

This study tested the prediction that 3 variables—self-reported trait relevance, consistency, and observability—would moderate correlations between self-ratings and peer ratings. These predictions received considerable support when the 3 moderators were measured by ranking procedures (i.e., rank ordering traits in terms of their standing on each moderator) and very litle support when the 3 moderators were measured by rating scales (i.e., rating each trait in terms of its standing on each moderator). The advantage of the ranking measure may indicate an advantage for moderators that distinguish among traits across or within individuals (intertrait and intraindividual moderators) as opposed to moderators that distinguish among individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Idiographic measurement strategies for personality and prediction: Some unredeemed promissory notes.

Examines proposed idiographic measurement methods for predicting behavior, focusing on research purporting to demonstrate associations between individual differences in predictability and the variable of cross-situational behavior consistency. Theoretical analyses and empirical evaluations of new data yielded the following observations: (a) Certain personality consistency research strategies thought to be idiographic are properly regarded as nomothetic. (b) Proposed measures of individual cross-situational variability show poor levels of convergence and of construct validity. (c) Measures of consistency are substantially and expectedly related to measures of trait extremity, a relation that if not controlled poses notable problems for studies of behavioral predictability. (d) The hypothesis of individual differences in predictability as a function of consistency is appropriately evaluated using the analytic method of moderated multiple regression. Applying this approach, an extensive set of analyses of new data failed to confirm the popular belief that consistency moderates predictability. It is argued that evidence amply supports the utility of applying classical nomothetic principles in prediction research. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The personality paradox in offender profiling: A theoretical review of the processes involved in deriving background characteristics from crime scene actions.

Most approaches to offender profiling depend on a na?ve trait perspective, in which the task of predicting personality characteristics from crime scene actions relies on a model that is nomothetic, deterministic, and nonsituationist. These approaches rest on two basic premises: behavioral consistency across offenses and stable relationships between configurations of offense behaviors and background characteristics. Research supports the former premise but not the latter. Contemporary trait psychology reveals that this is probably due to the fact that Person X Situation interactions have an effect on offense behavior. When profiling reports rely on a nalve trait approach, such reports should be used with caution in criminal investigations and not at all as evidence in court until research demonstrates its predictive validity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality: Nomothetic or idiographic? A response to Kenrick and Stringfield.

Suggests that substantial consistency can be observed in personality, as reflected in both behavior and judges' ratings, when the principle of aggregration is applied to traditional nomothetic assessment procedures and the results are interpreted in terms of classical reliability theory. It is demonstrated that conclusions by D. T. Kenrick and D. O. Stringfield (see record 1980-07621-001) about the improvement in predictive power stemming from an idiographic analysis do not follow from their data, as they confound trait consistency and trait extremity and fail to take account of restriction and inflation of range effects. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Person€nvironment intersections: Everyday settings and common trait dimensions.

Intersection of personality dimensions (adjustment, likeability, self-control, social inclination, intellectance, and dominance) and taxonomy of everyday settings were examined. In Studies 1 and 2, Ss recalled situations relevant to each personality dimension. Judges categorized into six nondomicile (academic, athletic, business, play, religious, and streets) and six domicile (bedroom, eating room, living room, dormitory room, fraternity or sorority house, and outside house) categories. Trait/setting profiles converged across two methods and two regions. In Study 3, Ss rated visibility of each trait dimension in each setting. Interactions show some settings seen to allow more expression of some traits. Main effects show some settings seen as more generally illuminative, and some traits as more generally visible. Similarities in trait/setting profiles across three studies are discussed; joint importance of situational constraint and public observability in a setting's relevance to display of traits is considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To predict some of the people some of the time: A reexamination of the moderator variable approach in personality theory.

Bem and Allen (1974) proposed but did not test the notion that trait relevance moderates cross-situational behavior consistency, but did obtain support, albeit weaker than is generally recognized, for a moderator effect of self-reported consistency. Kenrick and Stringfield (1980) showed that self-reported observability of behavior may also moderate self–peer consistency, but replication attempts were not entirely successful. Our investigation produced significant moderator effects on self–peer correlations for trait relevance, consistency, and observability when each of these variables was analyzed alone; we also obtained significant moderator effects for trait relevance and self-reported consistency (but not for observability) when all the variables were included in the same regression analysis. There was significant support for the prediction that the moderators combine additively: Self–peer correlations increased linearly as a function of the number of contributing moderator effects. There was even stronger support for the prediction that the moderators combined in an all-or-nothing manner: Self–peer correlations were high when the level of all three moderators was high, and low when the level of one or more of the three moderators was low. Our future research recommendation? Identify the optimal moderators and the manner in which they can be combined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consensus in personality judgments: Moderating effects of target-rater acquaintanceship and behavior observability.

Conducted a peer rating study (N?=?111) to determine the effects of (a) level of acquaintanceship between rater and target and (b) degree of public observability of rated personality traits on peers' perceptions of target personality characteristics. As hypothesized, I found the agreement between peer ratings and target self-ratings to vary linearly and directly with acquaintanceship. In addition, acquaintanceship interacted with observability such that the public visibility of the behavior domain being judged was an important determinant of agreement for low to moderately acquainted peer dyads but not for highly acquainted dyads. Contrary to expectations, however, trait observability did not show a main effect with regard to self–peer agreement. The basis of the study is described with reference to the lens model of inferential behavior, and implications of the results are discussed with reference to past and future attempts at evaluating consensus and accuracy in person perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is increased arousal in social anxiety noticed by others?

Self–peer ratings were compared for high- and low-anxious (Social Avoidance and Distress Scale) undergraduates on 3 personality dimensions: anxiety, friendliness, and conscientiousness. The hypothesis that elevated somatic symptoms in socially anxious individuals contributes to the perceived salience of one's anxiety was examined. 19 low-anxious/low-somatic, 8 high-anxious/low-somatic and 7 high-anxious/high-somatic Ss and 34 of their peers completed a trait rating, observability rating, and behavioral checklist for each of the above dimensions. MANOVAs indicated that self-rated anxiety was significantly greater than peer-rated anxiety for the high-anxious/high-somatic Ss only. These Ss also reported that they displayed significantly more behavioral signs of anxiety than were noticed by their peers. No significant self–other discrepancies were observed for the traits of friendliness and conscientiousness. Findings suggest that a central concern associated with social anxiety—that symptoms of anxiety are salient to others—may derive, in part, from the experience of elevated somatic concomitants of anxiety. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intraindividual stability in the organization and patterning of behavior: Incorporating psychological situations into the idiographic analysis of personality.

In nomothetic analyses, the cross-situational consistency of individual differences in social behavior, assessed in vivo in a camp setting, depended on the similarity in the psychological features of situations. As predicted by the social-cognitive theory of personality, idiographic analyses revealed that individuals were characterized by stable profiles of if… then…, situation–behavior relationships that formed "behavioral signatures" of personality (e.g., he aggresses when warned by adults but complies when threatened by peers). Thus, the intraindividual organization of behavior variation across situations was enduring but discriminatively patterned, visible as distinctive profiles of situation–behavior relationships. Implications were examined for an idiographic reconceptualization of personality coherence and its behavioral expressions in relation to the psychological ingredients of situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Five-factor trait instability in borderline relative to other personality disorders.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is related to five-factor model (FFM) traits and can be characterized as involving psychological and behavioral instability. A previous study comparing the FFM trait stability across individuals with borderline and other personality disorders found that the BPD group tended to have lower stability, particularly on neuroticism and conscientiousness and the overall configuration of FFM profiles over 6 years, suggesting that associated psychological and behavioral variability may be due to trait variability. The current study was designed to test the degree to which these findings replicate in another sample using different diagnostic and trait measures and extending the measurement period to 10 years. Results are consistent with previous findings in showing lower differential (rank-order) stability on conscientiousness, greater mean-level decreases on neuroticism, lower individual-level stability on conscientiousness, and lower ipsative stability of trait profile configurations among those with BPD. However, unlike the previous study, no differences were observed for differential or individual-level neuroticism or mean-level conscientiousness. Overall, findings show that the instability characteristic of BPD extends into typically stable personality traits, and that it does so with some specificity in terms of which traits are affected and how instability manifests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A structured interview for the assessment of the Five-Factor Model of Personality.

The authors report on the psychometric properties of a new semistructured interview, the Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model of Personality (SIFFM; T J. Rull & T A. Widiger, 1997). The SIFFM assesses major dimensions of the five-factor model (FFM) as well as trait facets for each dimension. Analyses of data obtained from both nonclinical and clinical participants support the reliability and validity of SIFFM scores. Specifically, SIFFM scores were reliable across raters, were internally consistent and relatively stable over time, and were correlated with scores from related measures (e.g., personality, personality disorders). The authors discuss the need for and attractiveness of an interview-based measure of the FFM in assessing normal and dysfunctional personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Validity in personality trait attribution.

Compared peer ratings, self-ratings, and ratings by outside judges of the aggressiveness of 8 male graduates from each of 2 fraternities. Pairs of Ss, each pair consisting of 1 high-aggressive and 1 low-aggressive member, engaged in discussion and a competitive game. Peer ratings and self-ratings converged only slightly. Judges' ratings based on observation of verbal and nonverbal behavior of the Ss, had a high degree of concordance with peer ratings, but judges' ratings based on tape recordings of the discussions were not significantly associated with peer ratings. These results provide strong evidence that peer ratings of aggressiveness describe an identifiable characteristic of an individual's behavior which is consistent in different settings. The findings do not, however, demonstrate the general validity of the trait approach to personality. Needed is a more economical method for assigning aggressiveness scores that approach peer ratings, determination of observable behavioral cues denoting aggressiveness, development of the predictive utility of aggressiveness scores, and establishing the validity of other personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trait self and true self: Cross-role variation in the Big-Five personality traits and its relations with psychological authenticity and subjective well-being.

In 2 studies, college students evidenced differing levels of the "Big-Five" traits in different roles, supporting social-contextualist assumptions regarding trait expression. Supporting organismic theories of personality, within-subject variations in the Big Five were predictable from variations in the degree of psychological authenticity felt in different roles. In addition, two concepts of self-integration or true selfhood were examined: 1 based on high consistency of trait profiles across roles (i.e., low-self-concept differentiation; E. M. Donahue, R. W. Robins, B. W. Roberts, & O. P. John, 1993) and 1 based on high mean levels of authenticity felt across roles. The 2 self-integration measures were found to be independent predictors of psychological and physical well-being indicating that both self-consistency and psychological authenticity are vital for organized functioning and health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality genetics

Although 30-60% of the variance in many personality traits is inherited, until recently little was known about the responsible genes. Preliminary studies of family history in bipolar disorder and of X-linkage of personality traits in color-blindness suggested a "quantitative trait locus" (QTL) approach to the genetics of normal personality. In methodically similar but independent studies of 124 Israeli and 315 American normal volunteers we showed an association between the dopamine D4 receptor gene (D4DR) and the personality trait of novelty seeking. In the Israeli sample we also found an interaction between the D4DR gene and the serotonin 2C receptor gene (5-HT2C) with a marked effect on the trait of reward dependence. Further investigation of genes for personality traits may suggest links between normal personality and psychiatric illness.     

Cognitive processes in implicit personality trait inferences.

The cognitive processes by which people infer whether individuals who possess one trait also possess another were examined in 2 reaction time experiments with a total of 66 undergraduates. Ss took less time to affirm and more time to deny that 2 traits co-occurred, the greater the semantic similarity of the traits. As the amount of recalled evidence required to affirm that 2 traits co-occurred was increased by altering the nature of the co-occurrence statements, true response times increased and false response times decreased. Although it was not possible to determine whether the stored semantic "features" of a trait are locations on meaning dimensions, specific behaviors, known people characterized by the trait, or something else, results strongly suggest that implicit personality inferences result from a 2-stage process in which the 2nd and more detailed memory search stage is entered only if the similarity of the semantic features of the traits falls between 2 task-established decision criteria. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Approach-avoidance motivation in personality: Approach and avoidance temperaments and goals.

The present research examined the role of approach and avoidance motivation in models of personality. Specifically, it examined the hypothesis that approach and avoidance temperaments represent the foundation of several basic dimensions espoused in the trait adjective, affective disposition, and motivational system approaches to personality. Factor analytic support for the hypothesis was obtained in Studies 1, 2, and 6; measures of extraversion, positive emotionality, and behavioral activation system loaded together on 1 factor (Approach Temperament) and measures of neuroticism, negative emotionality, and behavioral inhibition system loaded on another factor (Avoidance Temperament). This 2-factor structure was shown to be independent of response biases. In Studies 3-7, approach and avoidance temperaments were shown to be systematically linked to achievement goals (both nomothetic and idiographic). The findings are discussed in terms of an integrative approach to personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confidence and accuracy in trait inference: judgment by similarity

We examined the confidence and accuracy with which people make personality trait inferences and investigate some consequences of the hypothesis that such judgments are based on similarity or conceptual relatedness. Given information concerning a target person's standing on three global personality dimensions, American and Israeli subjects were asked to estimate the target's self-ratings of 50 trait adjectives and to express their confidence by setting a 90 percent uncertainty range around each estimate. The estimates were positively correlated with the actual ratings obtained from subjects who had evaluated themselves in terms of the 50 traits, but were far too extreme. Furthermore, confidence was negatively correlated with accuracy: People's estimates were most inaccurate and made with greatest certainty when the trait in question was highly similar to the information provided as a basic for judgment. We suggest that intuitive personality judgments overestimate the coherence of the structure underlying trait constructs.     

The Longitudinal Relationship of Personality Traits and Disorders.

Personality disorders are presumed to be stable because of underlying stable and maladaptive personality traits, but while previous research has demonstrated a link between personality traits and personality disorders cross-sectionally, personality disorders and personality traits have not been linked longitudinally. This study explores the extent to which relevant personality traits are stable in individuals diagnosed with 4 personality disorders (schizotypal, borderline, avoidant, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders) and examines the assumption that these personality disorders are stable by virtue of stable personality traits. This assumption was tested via the estimation of a series of latent longitudinal models that evaluated whether changes in relevant personality traits lead to subsequent changes in personality disorders. In addition to offering large consistency estimates for personality traits and personality disorders, the results demonstrate significant cross-lagged relationships between trait change and later disorder change for 3 of the 4 personality disorders studied. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)