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)     

Personality traits and the eye of the beholder: Crossing some traditional philosophical boundaries in the search for consistency in all of the people.

Studies of nomothetically applied personality tests, clinical inference, and person perception have been interpreted as supporting the view that the naive "trait" based personality conceptions of the layman (and psychologist) are largely erroneous constructions of the perceiver. Recent work has suggested that the assumption of nomothetic applicability of traits may have been incorrect and that only some people may be consistent on any given trait. A method was developed to combine advantages of both idiographic and nomothetic measurement by allowing each of 98 undergraduates to choose his or her most consistent characteristic (on bipolar dimensions based on the 16 PF) and to assess the extent to which these consistent dimensions were publicly observable. High correlations were found between self, parent, and peer ratings on the high-consistency dimensions, particularly when Ss judged them to be highly publicly observable. The utility of consistency and observability self-assessments as moderating variables for individual traits is also considered, as is the use of mean population consistency and observability rankings in discriminating relatively more nomothetically applicable dimensions. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aggregation, moderator variables, and the validity of personality tests: A peer-rating study.

A study with 85 college fraternity members investigated the effects of aggregation and moderator variables on the validity of personality tests. Aggregation over items and raters yielded an average self–peer correlation of .44 for ratings on 4 personality dimensions. The combination of social communication skill and self-knowledge produced significant moderating effects. Ss high on the Acting subscale and high on a composite of Private Self-Consciousness and Personal Identity scales had stronger agreement between self- and peer ratings than did those low on these measures. Results for 4 specific moderator variables (the importance, variability, and observability of each rating dimension) were in the predicted direction, although weaker than expected. It is concluded that aggregation and the use of moderator variables are both important techniques for obtaining convincing validity coefficients in personality research. (75 ref) (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)     

Strangers' ratings of the five robust personality factors: Evidence of a surprising convergence with self-report.

Attempted to replicate and extend the results of Passini and Norman (1966), who found surprising evidence of convergent validity (i.e., significant correlations with the targets' self-ratings) in strangers' judgments of 5 broad personality factors. In the current study, 250 previously unacquainted Ss were run in small, same-sex groups of various sizes. Ss rated both themselves and their fellow group members on the same set of 20 bipolar trait scales used by Passini and Norman. Consistent with previous research, significant self–peer agreement correlations were obtained for Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Ratings of Agreeableness also showed significant convergent validity when a sufficient number of peers rated the target. More generally, self–peer agreement correlations tended to rise as the number of peer raters increased. Possible explanations for the validity of strangers' trait ratings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Failure to detect moderating effects: Is multicollinearity the problem?

We show that Morris, Sherman, and Mansfield's (1986) contention that multicollinearity causes ordinary least squares–moderated multiple regression (OLS–MMR) to underestimate the importance of moderator effects is incorrect for their own data. Multicollinearity was reduced to the point that it was negligible by transforming predictor variables and moderator variables to standard scores prior to computing cross-product terms. We show the resulting cross-product terms both mathematically and empirically to have near-zero correlations with standardized predictors and moderators. Yet, as Arnold and Evans (1979) showed, the results of OLS–MMR are unchanged by this linear transformation of scale. Morris et al's (1986) finding of significant moderator effects when using principal-components regression (PCR) is probably a result of some artifact of PCR. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conjunctive moderator variables in vulnerability and resiliency research: Life stress, social support and coping skills, and adolescent sport injuries.

In life event research relating to vulnerability and resilience factors, single moderator variables have typically been the focus of study. Little is known about the ways in which moderator variables may interact with one another to increase vulnerability or resilience. We propose a distinction between conjunctive moderation, in which multiple moderators must co-occur in a specific combination or pattern to maximize a relation between a predictor and an outcome variable, and disjunctive moderation, in which any one of a number of moderators maximizes the predictor–criterion relation. Our results indicate that social support and psychological coping skills are statistically independent psychosocial resources and that they operate in a conjunctive manner to influence the relation between life stress and subsequent athletic injury in adolescents. Only athletes low in both coping skills and social support exhibited a significant stress–injury relation, and in that vulnerable subgroup, negative major life events accounted for up to 30% of the injury variance. Methodological considerations in the assessment of conjunctive moderator effects are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance.

This article reports a meta-analysis of personality–academic performance relationships, based on the 5-factor model, in which cumulative sample sizes ranged to over 70,000. Most analyzed studies came from the tertiary level of education, but there were similar aggregate samples from secondary and tertiary education. There was a comparatively smaller sample derived from studies at the primary level. Academic performance was found to correlate significantly with Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Where tested, correlations between Conscientiousness and academic performance were largely independent of intelligence. When secondary academic performance was controlled for, Conscientiousness added as much to the prediction of tertiary academic performance as did intelligence. Strong evidence was found for moderators of correlations. Academic level (primary, secondary, or tertiary), average age of participant, and the interaction between academic level and age significantly moderated correlations with academic performance. Possible explanations for these moderator effects are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided. (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)     

Construal processes and trait ambiguity: Implications for self-peer agreement in personality judgment.

The relationship between trait ambiguity and self–peer agreement in personality judgment was examined. In Study 1, self–peer agreement was lower on ambiguous traits (those with many behavioral referents) than on unambiguous ones (those with few behavioral referents). This finding was partially moderated by the level of friendship between peers. These results suggest that people disagree in their judgments because they use idiosyncratic trait definitions when making judgments on ambiguous traits. Study 2 tested this explanation by exploring self–peer agreement when participant pairs were forced to use the same trait definition versus different ones when judging themselves and each other. Forcing participants to use the same trait definition increased the degree to which their judgments covaried with one another. Discussion centers on the cognitive and motivational forces that can influence the degree to which personality judgments differ. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

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)     

Family, peer, and neighborhood influences on academic achievement among African-American adolescents: one-year prospective effects

Using a 1-year prospective design, this study examined the influence of family status variables (family income, parental education, family structure), parenting variables (maternal support and restrictive control), peer support, and neighborhood risk on the school performance of 120 African American junior high school students. In addition to main effects of these variables, neighborhood risk was examined as a moderator of the effects of parenting and peer support. Family status variables were not predictive of adolescent school performance as indexed by self-reported grade point average. Maternal support at Time 1 was prospectively related to adolescent grades at Time 2. Neighborhood risk was related to lower grades, while peer support predicted better grades in the prospective analyses. Neighborhood risk also moderated the effects of maternal restrictive control and peer support on adolescent grades in prospective analyses. These findings highlight the importance of an ecological approach to the problem of academic underachievement within the African American Community.     

Moderator variables and different types of predictability: Do you have a match?

Conducted 2 closely related experiments with 228 undergraduate students. Exp I examined the moderation of congruence between self-ratings and peer-ratings of traits following the procedure of J. M. Cheek and S. R. Briggs (see record 1983-23439-001). Exp II examined the congruence of attitudes and actual behavior and was based on M. P. Zanna et al (see record 1981-10514-001). All Ss completed a 158-item questionnaire that measured the moderator variables that were previously studied. These included self-monitoring, private self-consciousness, personal identity, and empathy. Results indicate that the 1st type of predictability (congruence) was unrelated to the 2nd. The greatest self–peer rating congruence was found among Ss who had good social communication skills. The greatest internal disposition–actual behavior congruence was found among Ss who were unwilling, unable, or both to change their behavior in response to situational demands. Being aware of, attentive to, and placing importance on the inner self was related to both types of predictability. The discussion focused on the manner in which moderator variables (especially those that concern social skills) will affect each type of predictability and the need to match moderator variables to specific types of predictability. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and clarity of the self-concept.

This article examines the association between evaluative and knowledge components of the self. Four studies tested the hypothesis that the self-concepts of low-self-esteem (LSE) people are characterized by less clarity or certainty than those of high-self-esteem (HSE) people. LSE Ss exhibited less extremity and self-reported confidence when rating themselves on bipolar trait adjectives (Study 1), less temporal stability in their trait ratings over a 2-month interval (Study 2), less congruence between their self-concepts and their subsequent perceptions of situation-specific behavior and memory for prior behavior (Study 3), and less internal consistency, lower self-rated confidence, and longer reaction times when making me/not me responses to pairs of opposite traits (Study 4). Alternative accounts of the results and the implications of self-concept clarity for understanding the pervasive impact of self-esteem on behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between self-discrepancies and emotion: The moderating roles of self-guide importance, location relevance, and social self-domain centrality.

In 5 studies, the authors investigated the effects of self-guide importance, domain centrality to self-definition, and self-domain relevance of testing location on relationships between actual–ideal (AI) and actual–ought (AO) discrepancies and emotions. Although no unique relationships occurred for self discrepancies, moderating effects were found for social self-domains. Location relevance overshadowed other moderator effects. In less relevant locations, AI discrepancies were smaller and AO discrepancy–emotion relationships were moderated by self-guide importance. For more important self-domains, AI discrepancies were smaller and AO discrepancies were unrelated to agitation. For less important self-domains, agitation was related to the AO discrepancy and self-guide importance interaction. By suggesting that different self-regulatory strategies minimize the consequences of AI and AO discrepancies, evidence for distinct ideal and ought self-regulation is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's coping strategies: Moderators of the effects of peer victimization?

Coping strategies were examined as potential moderators of the effects of peer victimization on children's adjustment. Self-report data on victimization experiences, coping strategies, and loneliness were collected on ethnically diverse 9-10-year-old children (177 girls, 179 boys). Teacher ratings of children's anxious-depressed and social problems and peer nominations of social preference were also obtained. Findings revealed that strategies such as problem solving that were beneficial for nonvictimized children exacerbated difficulties for victimized children. The effects of specific forms of coping were dependent on gender: Social support seeking buffered victimized girls from social problems but was associated with lower peer preference for victimized boys. Data also revealed the need to examine the effects of coping on multiple adjustment outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self–other agreement in personality and affectivity: The role of acquaintanceship, trait visibility, and assumed similarity.

Self- and other-ratings on the Big Five and a comprehensive inventory of trait affect were obtained from 74 married couples, 136 dating couples, and 279 friendship dyads. With the exception of Surprise, all scales showed significant self–other agreement in all 3 samples, thereby establishing their convergent validity. Consistent with the trait visibility effect, however, the Big Five consistently yielded higher agreement correlations than did the affectivity scales. Conversely, the affective traits consistently showed stronger evidence of assumed similarity (i.e., the tendency for judges to rate others as similar to themselves) than did the Big Five. Cross-sample comparisons indicated that agreement was significantly higher in the married sample than in the other 2 groups; however, analyses of 3 potential moderators in the dating and friendship samples failed to identify the source of this acquaintanceship effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Amount of information about the attitude object and attitude–behavior consistency.

The synthesis of 2 separate lines of inquiry—research on information integration and longitudinal studies of attitudes—prompted the hypothesis that the degree of consistency between attitudes and behavior will increase as a function of the amount of information available about the attitude object. This hypothesis was tested in 3 longitudinal studies, ranging in length from 4 days to 4 mo, that investigated the following behaviors: voting for candidates for political office, voting for 2 social-policy election initiatives, and having an influenza vaccination. Ss were 62 undergraduates (Study 1), 270 undergraduates (Study 2), and 299 27–92 yr old veterans (Study 3). In support of the hypothesis, amount of information moderated the consistency between attitudes and behavior in each study, and the significance of this relation remained even after controlling for the effects of other potential moderators, including prior direct behavioral experience with the attitude object and attitude certainty. Consistent with previous research, direct behavioral experience was also a determinant of attitude–behavior consistency, and this relation was independent of the effect of amount of information for the behavior of having an influenza vaccination. Discussion focuses on the interrelation among moderators of attitude–behavior consistency and on the theoretical implications of the findings. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of moderator variables by discriminant analysis in a multipredictable group validation model.

Used a multivariate discriminant analysis procedure to identify moderator variables in a multipredictable group validation (mpgv) model. Results from mpgv were compared to those of the univariate simple algebraic and absolute difference techniques. 17 variables, determined for 418 undergraduates (assigned equally to an experimental and a cross-validation group), were investigated as potential moderators of the relationship between the predictor and the criterion (gpa). The 3 techniques revealed moderators different from each other. In addition, number and types of moderators varied according to the composition of the prediction groups in mpgv. Results are discussed with respect to problems with moderator variable techniques. (27 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sociability with peer and mother during the first year.

32 infants were videotaped with their mothers and a peer 9 times (3 visits at 6, 9, and 12 mo). Three hypotheses concerning the social behaviors were examined: that interactions with mother and peer differ in characteristic activities and functions, that interactions with peers grow out of earlier mother–infant interactions, and that behaviors with the 2 partners are characterized by underlying consistency. Support for the 1st and 3rd hypotheses was found. Ss were more likely to look at and vocalize to the peer but were more likely to touch the mother. A negative correlation was found between the frequencies of Ss' touching mother and touching peer. The absence of toys affected the 2 systems similarly, and similar patterns of growth were apparent over time. Significant positive correlations were found between the frequencies of the smiles and vocalizations to the 2 partners. In light of these results, a model is proposed in which underlying infant sociability is reflected somewhat differentially with mother and peer. Reasons for the lack of support of the precursor hypothesis are explored. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)