Narrating personality change.

The present research investigated the longitudinal relations between personality traits and narratives. Specifically, the authors examined how individual differences in 170 college students' narratives of personality change (a) were predicted by personality traits at the beginning of college, (b) related to actual changes and perceived changes in personality traits during college, and (c) related to changes in emotional health during college. Individual differences in narratives of personality trait change told in the 4th year of college fell into 2 dimensions: affective processing, characterized by positive emotions, and exploratory processing, characterized by meaning making and causal processing. Conscientious, open, and extraverted freshmen told exploratory stories of change as seniors. Emotionally healthy freshmen told stories of change that were high in positive affect. Both positive affective and exploratory stories corresponded to change in emotional stability and conscientiousness during college above and beyond the effects of perceived changes in these traits. In addition, both positive affective and exploratory narratives corresponded to increases in emotional health during college independent of the effects of changes in personality traits. These findings improve our understanding of how individuals conceptualize their changing identity over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality influences on change in smoking behavior.

Objective: To investigate associations between personality traits in early adulthood (and changes in them) and change in smoking status. Design: Prospective, longitudinal study of a general-population birth cohort. Main Outcome Measures: We measured smoking at ages 18, 26, and 32, and personality at ages 18 and 26 using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen & Waller, in press). We assessed personality’s ability to predict future smoking, and assessed how changes in personality traits relate to change in smoking status. Results: Higher aggression and alienation at age 18 predicted smoking at 26; higher self-control and traditionalism at age 18 predicted nonsmoking at 26; and higher alienation at age 26 predicted persistence of smoking to age 32. Personality change between 18 and 26 was associated with change in smoking behavior; those who stopped smoking decreased more than others in negative emotionality and increased more in constraint. Conclusion: These findings suggest that interventions fostering personality change may be effective in reducing smoking and indicate appropriate targets for such antismoking interventions in young people. In particular, high alienation predicted smoking persistence, perhaps due to resistance to existing antismoking messages; we discuss approaches that may overcome this. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through reward of verbal behavior.

"72 Ss were induced to engage in debates on 3 different issues, taking sides opposite to those which they had indicated as their own in an opinion pretest. Half of the Ss were rewarded, in a predetermined order, by a purported vote which proclaimed them the better debators, while the other half were punished by presumably losing the debate. Posttests of Ss' opinions showed a tendency of the 'winners' to change their opinions in the direction of their debates, while the 'losers' did not change significantly. A control group of nondebators likewise showed no significant change in opinions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting language behavior from object sorting.

"Two dimensions of conceptulization, freedom and extensionality, were postulated; from these postulations, it was hypothesized that the type of conceptual behavior previously identified as concrete could be demonstrated to occur in two more or less mutually exclusive conceptual areas—hypostatic and autistatic. With the use of these constructs, two experimental groups were separated on the basis of consistent differences in concept formation in an object-sorting situation. The validity of this separation was tested by statistically evaluating the significance of predicted group differences in language behavior." Since significant differences were found in the direction predicted, it was concluded that "conceptual area might be a more useful concept for some purposes than conceptual level in that the latter term would not have supported such a prediction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and product use.

The answers to the Gordon Personal Profile and a disguised product use questinnaire by 101 college of business students demonstrate that personality traits are often related to product use. Thirteen of a possible 36 such relations were significant at the .05 level or above. A corollary conclusion is that the Gordon Personal Profile distinguishes personality traits related to behavioral differences, although the four traits are not "independent." From Psyc Abstracts 36:05:5LO25T. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of a communication on attitude change and scale judgments.

"The purposes of this study were to assess the effects of a persuasive communication on attitude change and on judgments of the scale values of opinion items and to examine the relationship between attitude change and evaluations of the communication. An experimental group of subjects was exposed to a communication advocating abolution of capital punishment, after which they evaluated the communication, judged the scale values of 36 opinion statements, and revealed their own attitudes by responding to 20 opinion items… . The major results are: The communication changed attitudes in the direction advocated. But the groups were alike in their judgments of the scale values of the related opinion statements. Hence, a change in scale judgments is not a necessary condition for attitude change." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3GD33W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental evaluations of role playing.

This article is restricted to those studies which have been reported in which role playing was evaluated experimentally. Studies concerned with role playing as an assessment procedure and as a method for producing personality change are included in this report. Though there is a scarcity of experimental studies, the author concludes, with reference to personality assessment, "there is some sound evidence for believing that reliable and valid role-playing tests can be developed." The evidence with reference to personality change is as yet inconclusive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality structure and group structure: An interpretative study of their relationship through an event-structure hypothesis.

"The attitude of favor or disfavor, developed by workers in a large business organization to 2 experimental programs with contrasting patterns of allocating authority appears to be a function, as was predicted, of the interaction between the personality structure of the individual and the structure of the work-program in which he is operating. Those individuals who… are 'suited' to the program they are in, tend to feel a greater satisfaction with it and a greater degree of liking for it than do those whose trend structures are 'unsuited' to their program." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective tone during environmental regularity and change.

"Two groups experienced environmental regularity, which consisted of eight presentations of an initially novel series of events." Subgroups then experienced different degrees of change in the order of a final event series. "The results indicated that as the series was repeated (environmental regularity), affective tone [as measured by sentence completion] was initially negative, became positive, and then became negative again. [A]… relatively moderate degree of [event order] change was associated with affective change in the positive direction. The results are somewhat consistent with the proposition that greatly unexpected and completely expected situations arouse negative affect, while moderately unexpected situations arouse positive affect." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4CC38M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change.

This reprinted article originally appeared in Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1957(Apr), Vol 21(2), 95-103. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1959-00842-001.) "For constructive personality change to occur, it is necessary that these conditions exist and continue over a period of time: (1) Two persons are in psychological contact. (2) The first, whom we shall term the client, is in a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious. (3) The second person, whom we shall term the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship. (4) The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard for the client. (5) The therapist experiences an empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference and endeavors to communicate this experience to the client. (6) The communication to the client of the therapist's empathic understanding and unconditional positive regard is to a minimal degree achieved." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of conformity and attitude change.

"College males varying in affiliative motivation were subjected to a group-influence situation where their previously measured attitudes toward divorce was either unanimously opposed, or opposed with the exception of one supporter. The subject's public reaction (conformity) was measured, and also his private response (attitude change). The results indicated conformity to be a joint function of affiliative motivation and conditions of social support, with roughly similar but less significant results for attitude change." 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through refutation and elaboration of audience counterarguments.

"An experiment was conducted involving a comparison of the effectiveness of (a) refutation versus no refutation, and (b) elaboration versus no elaboration of audience counterarguments in changing attitude toward the Korean War. Two independent samples were obtained: one consisted of recruits in basic training at a military base; the second consisted of high school students… . Each of the experimental programs was effective in changing attitude toward the Korean War." The results are analyzed in terms of the major variables manipulated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of leadership style and leadership power upon the inducement of an attitude change.

"The purpose of this study was to determine whether a participatory style of leadership was more effective than a lecture style of leadership in inducing an attitude change when the leader explicitly offered to reward compliance or threatened to punish noncompliance. 35 groups of 4 to 8 pupils in the fifth and sixth grades of a public school met with a leader who tried to change their preferences for comic books. 6 experimental conditions were established… ." Among the results were the findings that both reward and punishment produced more public compliance than the control conditions and that participatory leadership induced more change than lecture leadership when the leader was associated with neutral power or power to reward compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Improvement in the performance of schizophrenics on concept formation tasks as a function of motivational change.

108 schizophrenics and 36 normal Ss were divided into a noise and a control group and matched for intelligence. Concept formation tests involving social and formal concepts were then administered under the experimental conditions. "Under the conditions of escape from aversive stimuli [white noise], schizophrenics who took the concept formation tests under the usual conditions of psychological testing performed at a level both inferior to and significantly differentiated from the normals and the more motivated schizophrenics." 22 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a theory of motive acquisition.

"Too little is known about the processes of personality change at relatively complex levels." Empirical study of the problem is hampered by both practical and theoretical difficulties. Despite difficulties "a program of research has been under way for some time which is attempting to develop the achievement motive in adults." Motives are learned; they are "affectively toned associative networks" arranged in a hierarchy of strength within a given individual. A short course to develop n Achievement in some form or another has been established. 12 propositions dealing with means of producing motive change are specified and discussed. A table of variables (independent, intervening, and dependent) conceived as entering into the motive change process is presented. The "propositions should hold best… narrowly for motives and especially the achievement motive." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term correlated change in personality traits in old age.

The present study examines long-term correlated change in personality traits in old age across a time period of 12 years. Data from the Interdisciplinary Study on Adult Development were used to investigate different aspects of personality change and stability. The sample consisted of 300 adults ranging from 60 to 64 years of age at Time 1. Personality was measured with the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Longitudinal structural stability, differential stability, change in interindividual differences, mean-level change, and correlated change of the 5 personality traits were examined utilizing structural equation modeling. After having established strict measurement invariance, factor variances in Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness were found to be different across testing occasions, implying variant covariation patterns over time. Stability coefficients were around .70, indicating high but not perfect differential stability. The amount of interindividual differences increased with respect to Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness. Both mean-level change and stability in personality were observed. Eventually, except for Neuroticism, a number of medium effect-sized correlations among changes in personality traits emerged, implying that personality changes share a substantial amount of commonality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectation biases in observational evaluation of therapeutic change.

Investigated systematic biases of observational recordings of behavior as a function of experimental hypotheses. Predictions of decrease and of no change in level of recorded behavior as a function of "treatment" were given, respectively, to 2 groups of 5 pairs of Os (high school students). Both groups viewed the same videotapes, selected to show no change from "baseline" to "treatment." Global evaluations of treatment effects were significantly affected by predicted results, but behavioral recordings were not. Observational recordings were increased by knowledge by Os that reliability was being assessed, computation of reliability within (vs between) O pairs, and computation of reliability by the Os (vs the E). (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interrelations among three criteria of improvement in group therapy: Comfort, effectiveness, and self-awareness.

7 measures (3 of comfort, 2 of effectiveness, 2 of self-awareness) were obtained from 15 neurotic patients at the beginning and end of 20 weeks of group therapy. "Significant change was found on three measures… . Of the 21 intercorrelations between change scores, only one was significant at the .05 level." The "assumption that changes on different measures and criteria go together and that improvement can be considered a unitary process" is not supported. 16 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collegiate heavy drinking prospectively predicts change in sensation seeking and impulsivity.

Recent models of alcohol use in youth and young adulthood have incorporated personality change and maturation as causal factors underlying variability in developmental changes in heavy drinking. Whereas these models assume that personality affects alcohol use, the current prospective study tested the converse relation. That is, we tested whether, after accounting for the effect of traits on drinking, collegiate heavy drinking in turn predicted individual differences in change in alcohol-related aspects of personality. We also examined whether affiliation with heavy-drinking peers better accounted for this relation. Following a cohort of recent high school graduates (N = 1,434) through the college years, we found evidence for transactional relations between heavy drinking and changes in impulsivity and sensation seeking. Both traits predicted increases in heavy drinking, but more important, heavy drinking predicted increases in sensation seeking and impulsivity. In final models, social influences did not underlie the effect of heavy drinking on increases in sensation seeking and impulsivity. The results of this investigation suggest that collegiate heavy drinking may negatively and pervasively impact a wide range of behaviors because of its effect on personality change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early alliance, alliance ruptures, and symptom change in a nonrandomized trial of cognitive therapy for avoidant and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Participants were 30 adult outpatients diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder who enrolled in an open trial of cognitive therapy for personality disorders. Treatment consisted of up to 52 weekly sessions. Symptom evaluations were conducted at intake, at Sessions 17 and 34, and at the last session. Alliance variables were patients' first alliance rating and "rupture-repair" episodes, which are disruptions in the therapeutic relationship that can provide corrective experiences and facilitate change. Stronger early alliances and rupture-repair episodes predicted more improvement in symptoms of personality disorder and depression. This work points to potentially important areas to target in treatment development for these personality disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)