Methodological developments in personality research: An introduction

This article first provides a brief overview of some of the empirical and conceptual work in personality following Mischel's (1968) critique Strengths and weaknesses of traditional personality research designs including laboratory experiments, experimental personality designs, and preexperimental correlational studies are presented Some more recent approaches to designing laboratory research that attempt to address issues of external validity and approaches to designing field Investigations that attempt to address issues of internal validity are discussed Issues associated with the measurement of constructs, the broadening of measurement methods, and newer data analytic techniques are noted Finally, a brief orientation to the other papers in the special issue is presented     

Prevention of Mental Disorders: Promises, Limitations, and Barriers

In the past few years, the field of psychology has seen a dramatic increase in interest in the prevention of mental disorder and emotional difficulties. This special series provides some excellent examples of the promises held by a- variety of prevention programs. At the same time, the papers in this volume highlight several important issues to consider and barriers to the implementation of prevention programs. This discussion paper explores the themes and issues raised by these papers and considers some of the lessons to be extracted for research into and implementation of prevention programs across mental health.     

Megastudies,crowdsourcing, and large datasets in psycholinguistics: An overview of recent developments

This paper introduces and summarizes the special issue on megastudies, crowdsourcing, and large datasets in psycholinguistics. We provide a brief historical overview and show how the papers in this issue have extended the field by compiling new databases and making important theoretical contributions. In addition, we discuss several studies that use text corpora to build distributional semantic models to tackle various interesting problems in psycholinguistics. Finally, as is the case across the papers, we highlight some methodological issues that are brought forth via the analyses of such datasets.     

Crossing Boundaries and Identification Processes

This article provides a commentary on seven papers published in a special issue led by J. Dahinden and T. Zittoun in this journal. The papers explore social polarisation, boundary making, inter-group dialogue and migrants’ movement between groups in the context of religion. The exploration is undertaken from different disciplinary backgrounds and in various countries across Europe as well as in Australia. A critical engagement is developed with some of the key issues raised by the papers. This engagement begins by drawing on critiques of ‘groupism’ and then proceeds to consider the role played by process, power, knowledge and governmentality in the context of both time and space. The discussion is supported by illustrations from the case studies provided by the papers. The discussion also links issues raised by the papers to developments within Britain over time and in urban space, which involve the state, Muslim community representatives and the everyday practices of Muslim citizens in London, particularly those concerned with the body.     

Personality and daily experience revisited

In this introduction to the Journal of Personality special issue devoted to "Advances in Personality and Daily Experience" we attempt to trace recent progress in the study of personality and daily life. We begin by comparing and contrasting the methods of daily experience research adopted by investigators who authored empirical articles in the 1991 and current special issues according to the mode, schedule, and sampling frame for data collection. We then compare data analytic strategies across the 14 years between the two special issues and conclude that although the nature of the questions addressed has not changed dramatically, newer analytic methods and associated software have enhanced our ability to answer these questions more precisely. Finally, we provide an overview of the special issue contributions organized around three broad themes: personal vulnerabilities and resources that predict reactions to everyday events, interpersonal manifestations of personality in daily experience, and how personality in daily life affects physical and mental health and relates to disease risk.     

Cluster A Personality Symptomatology in Youth

There is an increasing recognition of the importance of studying the childhood antecedents of adult personality disorders as well as personality disorders themselves within childhood and adolescence. This has been a long neglected area of research. The two papers within this special issue of Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment by Esterberg et al. (2010) and De Clercq et al. (2010) make significant strides toward addressing this delinquent focus of investigation. This commentary addresses three issues stimulated by these two particular studies: the distinction between personality and other mental disorders, dimensional models of classification, and openness to experience.     

Personality Measurement in Cross-Cultural Perspective

I first provide an overview of general issues in personality measurement across cultures (e.g., measurement bias and equivalence, levels of test adaptation or indigenization). Then, in keeping with the organization of this special issue, I discuss personality measurement from alternative theoretical perspectives that have addressed, in varying degrees, personality and its measurement in cross-cultural perspective (i.e., trait perspectives, projective techniques, cultural psychology and constructivist perspectives, evolutionary perspectives). An integrated measurement approach is advocated, incorporating diverse aspects or levels of personality, while drawing on the complementary strengths of alternative approaches.     

Introduction to the special issue on personality assessment in the DSM-5

The DSM-5 is poised to dramatically reshape the way clinicians and researchers assess personality by reconfiguring the conceptualization of DSM-IV personality disorders. This special issue brings together leading scholars in personality pathology, including members of the DSM-5 Personality and Personality Pathology Work Group, as well as personality assessors operating from a variety of theoretical perspectives, to describe various facets of these changes and their potential impacts and in some cases to propose alternative solutions. As we describe in this brief introductory article, the articles in this special issue highlight several important and controversial issues in the transition to DSM-5 personality assessment.     

The advice of the wise: afterthoughts about reality checking

One of the aims of this special issue on happiness advice was to assess the reality value of recommendations. All papers checked empirical indications for effectiveness, typically by inspecting whether the things advised have been found to be related to happiness in empirical research. Some limitations of this approach are that some advisers used a different definition of happiness than the papers, the papers checked the advice for present day readers, not for the contemporaries of advisers, the data that is used to check the advice is most often correlative in nature, and the papers ignored personality differences. Future research should focus on a wider range of happiness advisers, look at the interaction of the advice and individual readers and address the question of the usefulness of the advice experimentally.     

Reflecting on imagery: a clinical perspective and overview of the special issue of memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology

The authors provide an overview of the papers in the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology. The papers address emotional, intrusive mental imagery across a range of psychological disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), agoraphobia, body dysmorphic disorder, mood disorders, and psychosis. They include work on information processing issues including modelling cravings, conditioning, and aversions, as well as imagery qualities such as vividness and emotionality. The overview aims to place the articles in a broader context and draw out some exciting implications of this novel work. It provides a clinical context to the recent growth in this area from a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) perspective. We begin with PTSD, and consider links to imagery in other disorders. The clinical implications stemming from this empirical work and from autobiographical memory theory are discussed. These include consideration of a variety of techniques for eliminating troublesome imagery, and creating healthy, realistic alternatives.     

Reflecting on imagery: A clinical perspective and overview of the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology

The authors provide an overview of the papers in the special issue of Memory on mental imagery and memory in psychopathology. The papers address emotional, intrusive mental imagery across a range of psychological disorders including post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), agoraphobia, body dysmorphic disorder, mood disorders, and psychosis. They include work on information processing issues including modelling cravings, conditioning, and aversions, as well as imagery qualities such as vividness and emotionality. The overview aims to place the articles in a broader context and draw out some exciting implications of this novel work. It provides a clinical context to the recent growth in this area from a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) perspective. We begin with PTSD, and consider links to imagery in other disorders. The clinical implications stemming from this empirical work and from autobiographical memory theory are discussed. These include consideration of a variety of techniques for eliminating troublesome imagery, and creating healthy, realistic alternatives.     

Some methodological and training/funding perspectives on the future of personality research

This article provides some methodological and training/funding perspectives on the future of personality research. Traditional correlational approaches to personality data have been useful, but approaches that address the data in new ways (e.g., mean structure, variance structure) permit researchers to ask interesting new research questions, particularly of short- and long-term longitudinal data. Advances and issues in the measurement of personality dimensions, types, situations, and biological markers are considered. Given the shrinkage of training programs in personality, new approaches to training are proposed to take advantage of resources across universities. Finally, some potential unanticipated costs for core personality research of the increased emphasis on grant funding at many universities are considered.     

Community-Based Arts Initiatives: Exploring the Science of the Arts

In this introduction to the special issue, we describe some of the rewards and challenges of community‐based arts initiatives for our discipline. We explore the inherent tensions between art and science that are reflected in community‐based arts activities. We pose larger questions about researching community‐based arts activities and defining the arts as a means of promoting social change. The diversity of populations, settings, and issues represented by the papers in the special issue are described and a common set of values, methods of inquiry and action are discussed.     

Modes and methods of personality research

Advances in knowledge about personality will be fostered by improved research methods, but corresponding improvements in our theories will be needed also, better methods will not be enough Theory itself can have methodological functions, and some methods provide strong impetus toward greater theoretical clarity and rigor Distinctions between methodological developments in research design, measurement, and analysis need to be maintained, and we badly need more research directed specifically toward improving methodologies Some papers in this volume point quite clearly to the need for all aspects of our research to be better rationalized and deliberate, casual and opportunistic decisions about how to carry out research simply will not do These papers indicate, for example, that the trait vs situation controversy would likely never have occurred had the issues been addressed with greater methodological, and logical, rigor This volume is not complete in its coverage of the potentially useful methods for personality research, and attention should ultimately be devoted to such methods as life histories and case studies and cross-cultural comparisons In general, however, the papers in this volume offer an opportunity to raise the level of research in personality to a new plane of sophistication and revealingness     

In Search for the Many Faces of Community Resilience Among LGBT Individuals

Many countries (e.g., Egypt, Russia, and Uganda) have very draconian laws against LGBT individuals. Despite facing such adversity or hostility many LGBT individuals do strive and maintain their sense of self‐worth. How do they do it? The collection of papers in this special issue attempts to provide some answers to this question. I will attempt to analyze two overlapping issues in these papers, and how they might inform LGBT research using a resilience lens.     

Use of the MMPI-2 with Asian populations

Psychological tests developed in the United States are being widely adapted into other languages and cultures around the world. This article examines the generalizability and utility of personality assessment instruments across cultures and addresses methodological issues related to using personality questionnaires in countries different from the one in which they were developed. This article specifically highlights the application of objective psychological tests in Asia with special emphasis on the most widely used and internationally adapted personality instrument, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (MMPI-2). Effective strategies for translating, adapting, and standardizing questionnaires in languages and cultures different from their country of origin are reviewed. The history of several successful adaptations of the original MMPI and MMPI-2 is surveyed to illustrate the extensive research base for the test in Asia. Current research is summarized, and recommendations for future research are provided.     

Personality Processes in Anger and Reactive Aggression: An Introduction

ABSTRACT The situational factors precipitating anger and reactive (i.e., emotional) aggression have been well documented in the social psychology literature. However, there are pronounced individual differences in reactivity to hostile cues that are equally important in understanding such outcomes. Indeed, in predicting tendencies toward anger and reactive aggression, it appears critical to simultaneously consider both individual difference and situational factors. This case is first made. Subsequently, the utility of this individual difference realm in understanding wider personality processes related to social cognition, reactivity, and self-regulation is highlighted. Individual difference frameworks of this type are scattered across multiple literatures. For this reason, the present special section of the Journal of Personality invited contributions from experts in developmental, social, cognitive, trait, and biological subdisciplines of psychology. The final section introduces the invited papers and makes a brief case for broader process-related conclusions that are generally apparent.     

Personality disorders at the crossroads

Personality disorders are now at a crossroads with respect to theory, research, and conceptualization. In this article, we review relevant and current issues within the personality disorder field. After reviewing changes in the conception of personality disorders across the past half century (1952 to 2002), we focus on the issue of continuity versus discontinuity methodologies for assessing personality, interactionism, treatments, resolved and unresolved issues, and future directions. The issue of continuity versus discontinuity is a theme in this article. We conclude that the evidence is in favor of a reapprochment between a categorical classification system and a dimensional system and we also outline the difficulties in achieving this change.     

Summary Comments: Multi-Level Community Based Culturally Situated Interventions

In this critical summary the editors summarize main themes that cut across special issue papers including challenges in introducing interventions into communities theorized as dynamic systems, strengths and problems presented by multilevel interventions in single communities, the value of community based culturally situated preventive interventions, and some solutions to evaluation of interventions in complex social settings.     

Taking Stock of the Diversity and Sense of Community Debate

Over the past couple of years, a debate has played out in the pages of the American Journal of Community Psychology concerning the relationship between two of Community Psychology's core values: promoting diversity and promoting a sense of community. This special section is to continue a discussion about diversity and community, both among the debate's initial contributors (Alex Stivala, Greg Townley, and Zachary Neal), as well as among others whose own work has touched on these issues (Anne Brodsky, Richard Florida, Jean Hill, and Roderick Watts). In this essay, I address some broad questions that have emerged through this discussion. First, because much has been written on the relationship between diversity and community, both in community psychology and in other disciplines, what do we know, or at least think we know? Second, since the constructs of diversity and sense of community are complex and multi‐faceted, how can definitions get in the way and how can we avoid talking past one another in this discussion? Finally, looking across the original papers that initiated this discussion, as well as the contributions in this special section, what path(s) forward do we have?