Life events refer to status changes in important demographic variables, such as employment or marital status. Life events offer an interesting opportunity for studying transactions between ...environmental changes and personality traits, which are of relevance for diverging theories about the role of environmental factors in life span personality development. Yet in spite of the potential importance of life events for personality development, nuanced and sufficiently powered longitudinal designs with frequent assessments of life events and personality traits are lacking. The current study aims to address this gap by examining the associations between different life events and personality trait change, using data from a large, nationally representative, and prospective longitudinal study. Results demonstrated a number of selection effects, indicating that personality traits affect the likelihood that individuals experience certain types of life events. Less frequently, results indicated average effects of life events on personality trait development, both in anticipation of a life event change as well as resulting from it. However, some of these event-related changes ran counter to the notion that personality maturity increases as a result of adopting mature social roles, like parenthood or paid employment. Furthermore, we found significant variation around average event-related trajectories, suggesting that individuals differ in their reactions to life events. Theoretical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.
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Major life events are often discussed as triggers of loneliness. However, longitudinal studies with frequent assessments investigating changes in loneliness surrounding major life events are lacking. ...This preregistered study investigated the associations between various family- and work-related major life events and changes in loneliness, using propensity-score matched data from a Dutch nationally representative prospective longitudinal study. We applied mixed-effects models to describe average loneliness trajectories before, during, and after 10 major life events. Event-related loneliness trajectories differed between events and individuals. Most changes in loneliness were found in reaction to family-related major life events. We found immediate and long-lasting increases in loneliness after the transition into parenthood, marital separation, widowhood, but also after a job loss. Further gradual changes in loneliness were found after marriage, marital separation, and job loss. On average, transition into paid employment, reemployment after unemployment, retirement, and cohabitation did not trigger changes in loneliness. For some major life events, we found that event-related loneliness trajectories differed between individuals who experienced an event at an average age and individuals who experienced an event younger or older than average. Overall, our results highlight the importance of considering major life events as possible triggers of loneliness but also point to some general methodological challenges when studying the effects of major life events.
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Identity research largely emerged from clinical observations. Decades of empirical work advanced the field in refining existing approaches and adding new approaches. Furthermore, the existence of ...linkages of identity with psychopathology is now well established. Unfortunately, both the directionality of effects between identity aspects and psychopathology symptoms, and the mechanisms underlying associations are unclear. In the present paper, we present a new framework to inspire hypothesis-driven empirical research to overcome this limitation. The framework has a basic resemblance to theoretical models for the study of personality and psychopathology, so we provide examples of how these might apply to the study of identity. Next, we explain that unique features of identity may come into play in individuals suffering from psychopathology that are mostly related to the content of one's identity. These include pros and cons of identifying with one's diagnostic label. Finally, inspired by Hermans' dialogical self theory and principles derived from Piaget's, Swann's and Kelly's work, we delineate a framework with identity at the core of an individual multidimensional space. In this space, psychopathology symptoms have a known distance (representing relevance) to one's identity, and individual multidimensional spaces are connected to those of other individuals in one's social network. We discuss methodological (quantitative and qualitative, idiographic and nomothetic) and statistical procedures (multilevel models and network models) to test the framework. Resulting evidence can boost the field of identity research in demonstrating its high practical relevance for the emergence and conservation of psychopathology.
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We introduce 2 novel types of job crafting-crafting toward strengths and crafting toward interests-that aim to improve the fit between one's job and personal strengths and interests. Based on Berg, ...Dutton, and Wrzesniewski (2013), we hypothesized that participating in a job crafting intervention aimed at adjusting the job to personal strengths and interests leads to higher levels of job crafting, which in turn will promote person-job fit. Moreover, we hypothesized that this indirect effect would be stronger for older workers compared with younger workers. Results of an experimental field study indicated that participating in the job crafting intervention leads to strengths crafting, but only among older workers. Strengths crafting was, in turn, positively associated with demands-abilities and needs-supplies fit. Unexpectedly, participating in the job crafting intervention did not influence job crafting toward interests and had a negative effect on crafting toward strengths among younger workers. However, our findings suggest that some types of job crafting interventions can indeed be an effective tool for increasing person-job fit of older workers.
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This article advances the debate about costs and benefits of self-enhancement (the tendency to maintain unrealistically positive self-views) with a comprehensive meta-analytic review (299 samples, N ...= 126,916). The review considers relations between self-enhancement and personal adjustment (life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, depression), and between self-enhancement and interpersonal adjustment (informant reports of domain-general social valuation, agency, communion). Self-enhancement was positively related to personal adjustment, and this relation was robust across sex, age, cohort, and culture. Important from a causal perspective, self-enhancement had a positive longitudinal effect on personal adjustment. The relation between self-enhancement and interpersonal adjustment was nuanced. Self-enhancement was positively related to domain-general social valuation at 0, but not long, acquaintance. Communal self-enhancement was positively linked to informant judgments of communion, whereas agentic self-enhancement was linked positively to agency but negatively to communion. Overall, the results suggest that self-enhancement is beneficial for personal adjustment but a mixed blessing for interpersonal adjustment.
During early adulthood, individuals from different cultures across the world tend to become more agreeable, more conscientious, and less neurotic. Two leading theories offer different explanations ...for these pervasive age trends: Five-factor theory proposes that personality maturation is largely determined by genetic factors, whereas social-investment theory proposes that personality maturation in early adulthood is largely the result of normative life transitions to adult roles. In the research reported here, we conducted the first systematic cross-cultural test of these theories using data from a large Internet-based sample of young adults from 62 nations (N = 884,328). We found strong evidence for universal personality maturation from early to middle adulthood, yet there were significant cultural differences in age effects on personality traits. Consistent with social-investment theory, results showed that cultures with an earlier onset of adult-role responsibilities were marked by earlier personality maturation.
Research and theorizing on gender and age differences in self-esteem have played a prominent role in psychology over the past 20 years. However, virtually all empirical research has been undertaken ...in the United States or other Western industrialized countries, providing a narrow empirical base from which to draw conclusions and develop theory. To broaden the empirical base, the present research uses a large Internet sample (N = 985,937) to provide the first large-scale systematic cross-cultural examination of gender and age differences in self-esteem. Across 48 nations, and consistent with previous research, we found age-related increases in self-esteem from late adolescence to middle adulthood and significant gender gaps, with males consistently reporting higher self-esteem than females. Despite these broad cross-cultural similarities, the cultures differed significantly in the magnitude of gender, age, and Gender × Age effects on self-esteem. These differences were associated with cultural differences in socioeconomic, sociodemographic, gender-equality, and cultural value indicators. Discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of cross-cultural research on self-esteem.
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We examined the life span development of openness to experience and tested whether change in this personality trait was associated with change in cultural activity, such as attending the opera or ...visiting museums. Data came from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Study for the Social Sciences panel, which includes 5 personality assessments across a 7-year period of a nationally representative sample of 7,353 individuals, aged 16 to 95 years. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that on average, openness remained relatively stable in emerging adulthood before declining in midlife and old age. At each stage of life, there were significant individual differences in openness development, and changes in openness were correlated with changes in cultural activity. Autoregressive cross-lagged analyses indicated that increases in cultural activity precipitated increases in openness, and vice versa. These culture-openness transactions held across different age and education groups and when controlling for household income. We found less consistent codevelopmental associations between cultural activity and the other Big Five traits. We discuss the implications of these results for personality development theory and the role of cultural investment in personality trait change.
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We propose a self-regulation model of grandiose narcissism. This model illustrates an interconnected set of processes through which narcissists (i.e., individuals with relatively high levels of ...grandiose narcissism) pursue social status in their moment-by-moment transactions with their environments. The model shows that narcissists select situations that afford status. Narcissists vigilantly attend to cues related to the status they and others have in these situations and, on the basis of these perceived cues, appraise whether they can elevate their status or reduce the status of others. Narcissists engage in self-promotion (admiration pathway) or other-derogation (rivalry pathway) in accordance with these appraisals. Each pathway has unique consequences for how narcissists are perceived by others, thus shaping their social status over time. The model demonstrates how narcissism manifests itself as a stable and consistent cluster of behaviors in pursuit of social status and how it develops and maintains itself over time. More broadly, the model might offer useful insights for future process models of other personality traits.
The Policy Relevance of Personality Traits Bleidorn, Wiebke; Hill, Patrick L.; Back, Mitja D. ...
The American psychologist,
12/2019, Volume:
74, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Personality traits are powerful predictors of outcomes in the domains of education, work, relationships, health, and well-being. The recognized importance of personality traits has raised questions ...about their policy relevance, that is, their potential to inform policy actions designed to improve human welfare. Traditionally, the use of personality traits in applied settings has been predicated on their ability to predict valued outcomes, typically under the assumption that traits are functionally unchanging. This assumption, however, is both untrue and a limiting factor on using personality traits more widely in applied settings. In this article, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions. Though trait change will likely prove a more difficult target than typical targets in applied interventions, it also may be a more fruitful one given the variety of life domains affected by personality traits.
Public Significance Statement
This article presents the case that personality traits can serve both as predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions. The field of personality psychology has now amassed evidence necessary to address the policy relevance of personality traits. To that end, we pose and answer critical questions regarding personality traits and their applicability for policy initiatives in applied settings.
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