Targeting Item-level Nuances Leads to Small but Robust Improvements in Personality Prediction from Digital Footprints

In the past decade, researchers have demonstrated that personality can be accurately predicted from digital footprint data, including Facebook likes, tweets, blog posts, pictures, and transaction records. Such computer-based predictions from digital footprints can complement—and in some circumstances even replace—traditional self-report measures, which suffer from well-known response biases and are difficult to scale. However, these previous studies have focused on the prediction of aggregate trait scores (i.e. a person's extroversion score), which may obscure prediction-relevant information at theoretical levels of the personality hierarchy beneath the Big 5 traits. Specifically, new research has demonstrated that personality may be better represented by so-called personality nuances—item-level representations of personality—and that utilizing these nuances can improve predictive performance. The present work examines the hypothesis that personality predictions from digital footprint data can be improved by first predicting personality nuances and subsequently aggregating to scores, rather than predicting trait scores outright. To examine this hypothesis, we employed least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression and random forest models to predict both items and traits using out-of-sample cross-validation. In nine out of 10 cases across the two modelling approaches, nuance-based models improved the prediction of personality over the trait-based approaches to a small, but meaningful degree (4.25% or 1.69% on average, depending on method). Implications for personality prediction and personality nuances are discussed. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Sport participation,screen time,and personality trait development during childhood

This investigation explored the contribution of extracurricular sport and screen time viewing (television viewing and electronic gaming) to personality trait stability and change during childhood. Two independent samples of 3,956 young children (age 6) and 3,862 older children (age 10) were taken from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Parent‐reported child sport participation, screen time, and personality traits were measured at baseline and again 24 months later. Young children who were more active recorded more of a decrease in introversion, less of a decrease in persistence, and less of an increase in reactivity, than those who were less active. Older children who were more active recorded less of an increase in introversion and more of an increase in persistence than those who were less active. In addition, young children who continued participation in extracurricular sport had greater intra‐individual stability of personality for introversion. These finding suggest that an active lifestyle might help to facilitate desirable personality trait stability and change during childhood.     

The Hierarchical Personality Structure of Aspiring Creative Writers

Empirical studies of personality traits in creative writers have demonstrated mixed findings, perhaps due to issues of sampling, measurement, and the reporting of statistical information. The goal of this study is to quantify the personality structure of aspiring creative writers according to a modern hierarchal model of trait personality. A sample of aspiring writers (n = 93) and nonwriters (n = 114) completed the Big Five inventory. Correlations with personality were carried out at three levels: the Big Five traits, the two higher-order factors (stability and plasticity), and the more detailed facet-level. Consistent with past research, creative writers scored higher on trait openness. Extending past work, the hierarchical analysis also revealed novel correlates for the higher-order meta-traits (stability and plasticity) and some of the lower-order facets (aesthetics, ideas, activity, assertiveness, and depression). Individuals with higher scores on agreeableness, stability, and assertiveness were less likely to be aspiring writers. The likelihood of being a writer also decreased with age. Taken together, these findings indicate that aspiring creative writers differ from nonwriters in trait personality, with differences emerging at all levels of the personality hierarchy.     

Trait Psychology and Culture: Exploring Intercultural Comparisons

Personality traits, studied for decades by Western personality psychologists, have recently been reconceptualized as endogenous basic tendencies that, within a cultural context, give rise to habits, attitudes, skills, beliefs, and other characteristic adaptations. This conceptualization provides a new framework for studying personality and culture at three levels. Transcultural research focuses on identifying human universals, such as trait structure and development; intracultural studies examine the unique expression of traits in specific cultures; and intercultural research characterizes cultures and their subgroups in terms of mean levels of personality traits and seeks associations between cultural variables and aggregate personality traits. As an example of the problems and possibilities of intercultural analyses, data on mean levels of Revised NEO Personality Inventory scales from college age and adult samples (N = 23,031) of men and women from 26 cultures are examined. Results showed that age and gender differences resembled those found in American samples; different subsamples from each culture showed similar levels of personality traits: intercultural factor analysis yielded a close approximation to the Five-Factor Model; and factor scores were meaningfully related to other culture-level variables. However, mean trait levels were not apparent to expert raters, casting doubt on the accuracy of national stereotypes. Trait psychology can serve as a useful complement to cultural perspectives on human nature and personality.     

Mind the ad: How personality requirements affect older and younger job seekers' job attraction

Age discrimination may explain lower labour market chances of older and younger job seekers. What remains underresearched, however, is how older/younger job seekers might self-select out from early recruitment procedures due to stigmatizing information in job ads. Building on theories of metastereotypes and the linguistic category model, two experimental studies investigated how personality requirements that older/younger job seekers hold negative metastereotypes about and the way in which these requirements are worded (behavioural vs. dispositional) affected their job attraction. Within-participant mediation analyses showed that as expected, job attraction was higher for older (N = 123, aged 50 years or more) and younger (N = 151, 30 years or less) job seekers when requirements were worded in a behavioural way (e.g., ‘You can be flexible’), compared with a dispositional way (e.g., ‘You are flexible’). This relation was mediated by perceptions of challenge among younger but not older job seekers. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of threat did not explain the effects of negatively metastereotyped personality requirements on job attraction. Understanding how job seekers perceive information in job ads might help recruiters to design age-sensitive recruitment policies.     

The hierarchical structure of the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology (DAPP-BQ)

Hierarchical personality models have the potential to identify common and specific components of DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs), and may offer a solution for the re-tooling of personality pathology in future versions of the DSM. In this paper, we examined the hierarchical structure of the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ; Livesley & Jackson, 2009) and the capacity of various trait components at different levels to predict DSM-IV PD symptoms. Participants were 275 psychiatric outpatients and 365 undergraduate students. Goldberg's (2006) bass-ackwards method was used to investigate the hierarchical structure of the DAPP-BQ. The predictive capacity of hierarchy components was assessed. We found that Level 5 of the hierarchy enhanced the capacity of the DAPP-BQ for predicting DSM PD symptoms beyond a four-factor structure, particularly for borderline PD.     

Trajectories of Big Five Personality Traits: A Coordinated Analysis of 16 Longitudinal Samples

This study assessed change in self-reported Big Five personality traits. We conducted a coordinated integrative data analysis using data from 16 longitudinal samples, comprising a total sample of over 60 000 participants. We coordinated models across multiple datasets and fit identical multi-level growth models to assess and compare the extent of trait change over time. Quadratic change was assessed in a subset of samples with four or more measurement occasions. Across studies, the linear trajectory models revealed declines in conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness. Non-linear models suggested late-life increases in neuroticism. Meta-analytic summaries indicated that the fixed effects of personality change are somewhat heterogeneous and that the variability in trait change is partially explained by sample age, country of origin, and personality measurement method. We also found mixed evidence for predictors of change, specifically for sex and baseline age. This study demonstrates the importance of coordinated conceptual replications for accelerating the accumulation of robust and reliable findings in the lifespan developmental psychological sciences. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Age Differences Across Adulthood in Interpretations of Situations and Situation–Behaviour Contingencies for Big Five States

In the last two decades, a burgeoning literature has begun to clarify the processes underlying personality traits and momentary trait‐relevant behaviour. However, such work has almost exclusively investigated these questions in young adults. During the same period, much has been learned about adult personality trait development but with scant attention to the momentary processes that contribute to development. The current work connects these two topics, testing developmental questions about adult age differences and thus examining how age matters to personality processes. The study examines how four important situation characteristics are experienced in everyday life and how situations covary with Big Five trait‐relevant behaviour (i.e. situation–behaviour contingencies). Two samples were collected (total N = 316), each assessing three age groups: young, middle‐aged, and older adults. Using experience sampling method, participants completed reports four or five times per day across a representative period of daily life. Results suggested age differences in how situations are experienced on average, in the variability around these average situation experiences, and in situation–behaviour contingencies. The results therefore highlight that, across adulthood, age groups experience chronically different situations, differ in how much the situations they experience vary moment to moment, and differ in how much situation experience predicts their enactment of traits. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Evaluating the Evidence for the General Factor of Personality across Multiple Inventories

A general factor of personality (GFP) has been proposed as the apex of a personality trait hierarchy that explains covariance among the lower-order factors measured by various personality inventories. In this study we evaluated the GFP hypothesis across several personality inventories, unlike most previous research in which the GFP has been derived from individual instruments in isolation. Exploratory analyses did not produce substantial evidence for the existence of a single cross-instrument higher-order factor of factors and efforts to specify a range of GFP-inspired models in a confirmatory framework led to significant estimation difficulties and poor fit to the data. Overall these results fail to support a common GFP that is positioned at the top of a personality trait hierarchy.     

Hierarchies in the Structure of Personality Traits

An emerging body of findings indicates that hierarchy is critical to integrating the Big Trait models – the Big Five, Big Four, Big Three, and Big Two – within a common structural framework. These findings, in addition to providing a unifying framework for understanding personality traits, confirm that hierarchy is an intrinsic and pervasive feature of trait structure. Here, fundamental concepts of trait hierarchies are reviewed, as is the empirical literature about hierarchies in personality trait structure. Important questions remain to be answered about the nature and form of hierarchies found in trait structure, as well as the methods used to understand them.     

A 10-year prospective study of personality and reproductive success: Testing the mediating role of healthy living

Abstract

Objective: There is some evidence that personality relates to childbearing in adulthood but the importance of personality for reproductive capacity is unknown. This study explored cross-time associations between the major dimensions of trait personality and self-reported fertility and fecundity. Methods: A representative sample of young Australian adults [n?=?4501; age range ≈ 18–44 (women), 18–54 (men)] provided information on personality, fertility, fertility intentions, fecundity and lifestyle factors (cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity) in 2006 and again in 2016. Older Australian adults [n?=?4359; age ≥?45 (women), ≥ 55 (men)] provided information on personality, lifestyle factors and completed fertility. Results: After controlling for sociodemographic factors, completed fertility was associated with higher agreeableness in both sexes, and lower conscientiousness and openness in women. In younger adults, higher levels of openness were associated with fewer children 10 years later in both sexes, and higher extraversion was associated with more children 10 years later in men. The association between fertility intentions and subsequent fertility was stronger among women scoring higher on conscientiousness, and women scoring higher on neuroticism were more likely to acquire medical or health difficulties in having children – an effect that was mediated by higher levels of cigarette smoking. Conclusions: The study provides initial evidence for an association between personality and the acquisition of difficulties in having children.     

Health‐relevant personality is associated with sensitivity to sound (hyperacusis)

Hyperacusis, over‐sensitivity to sounds, causes distress and disability and the etiology is not fully understood. The study aims to explore possible associations between health‐relevant personality traits and hyperacusis. Hyperacusis was assessed using the Hyperacusis Questionnaire (HQ), and clinical uncomfortable loudness levels (ULL). Personality was measured with the Health‐relevant Personality (HP5i) Inventory. The study sample was 348 (140 men and 208 women; age 23–71 years). Moderate correlations were found between the personality trait negative affectivity (NA; a facet of neuroticism) and dimensions of the HQ and weak correlations were found with the ULLs. Hedonic capacity (a facet of extraversion) was significantly correlated with the HQ but not with the ULLs. Impulsivity (a facet of conscientiousness) was correlated with the HQ and the ULLs. A significant difference in mean values was found in all hyperacusis measures and different levels of NA – those with higher levels displayed more severe signs of hyperacusis. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed that higher levels of NA increases the odds of having hyperacusis on average 4.6 times for men and 2.4 times for women. These findings imply that health‐relevant personality traits should be considered in the diagnosis and treatment of hyperacusis.     

It's all good: Children's personality attributions after repeated success and failure in peer and computer interactions

The present study examined children's use of behavioural outcome information to make personality attributions in social and non‐social contexts. One hundred and twenty‐eight 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds were told about a story actor who engaged in primarily successful or primarily unsuccessful interactions with several different people (social context) or several different computers (non‐social context). Subsequently, children made behavioural predictions and trait attributions about the actor. Findings indicated that participants were more likely to use past information to make behavioural predictions and trait attributions when hearing about primarily successful than primarily unsuccessful interactions, although there were age‐related differences in trait attribution as a function of success and trait type. There was no support for differential use of information across contexts, as participants' predictions and attributions were similar regardless of hearing about interactions with computers or humans. Factors involved in the development of impression formation are discussed.     

The Effect of Information Quantity on Distinctive Accuracy and Normativity of Personality Trait Judgments

Information quantity is an important moderator of personality judgment accuracy. Some evidence suggests that the amount of available information is positively related to accuracy. The current study utilized the social accuracy model to investigate the effects of differences in thin slices of information quantity on the distinctive accuracy and normativity of personality trait judgments. It was hypothesized that distinctive accuracy and normativity would increase as information quantity increased. Participants were 431 individuals who participated in an online study that varied the length of stimulus target observations (30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes), after which judges rated targets using other‐report measures of the Big Five personality traits. For all traits combined, significant levels of accuracy were found for all observation lengths, but distinctive accuracy and normativity did not increase as video length increased. Findings varied for individual traits. For distinctive accuracy, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Extraversion and a non‐linear relationship for Conscientiousness, while there was a linear decrease for Openness. For normativity, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Agreeableness and a non‐linear relationship for Conscientiousness. There are important differences in how observation length affects distinctive accuracy and normativity for different personality traits. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

J.P. Rushton’s contributions to the study of altruism

This essay describes Rushton’s work on altruism over the past 40 years. During his academic career, he changed his theoretical approach from social learning theory to trait theory to sociobiology. My essay includes five sections. The first gives an overview of Rushton’s work on altruism. The second reviews his early work based on social learning theory. His laboratory and naturalistic experiments led him to conclude that altruism could be increased by exposure to models exemplifying the behavior, and that, once engaged in, the behavior could be durable over months and generalizable across situations. The third section discusses his work on the genetic foundation of altruism with social biology including his twin studies of prosocial behaviors using different age groups of both western and Asian samples. He concluded that about 50% of the variance in prosocial behaviors is heritable. The fourth section will describe altruism as part of the general factor of personality, the apex of the personality hierarchy. The last section summarizes my review of Rushton’s work on altruism.     

Personality development from 12 to 18 years of age: changes in mean levels and structure of traits

The Estonian NEO‐FFI was administered to 2650 Estonian adolescents (1420 girls and 1230 boys) aged from 12 to 18 years and attending 6th, 8th, 10th, or 12th grade at secondary schools all over Estonia. Although the mean levels of personality traits of Estonian adolescents were quite similar to the respective scores of Estonian adults, there was a developmental gap in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Three of the five personality dispositions demonstrated a modest cross‐sectional change in the mean level of the trait scores: the level of Openness increased and the levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness decreased between 12 and 18 years of age. Although the five‐factor structure of personality was already recognizable in the sample of 12‐year‐old children, it demonstrated only an approximate congruence with the adult structure, suggesting that not all children of that age have developed abilities required for observing one's own personality dispositions and for giving reliable self‐reports on the basis of these observations. The self‐reported personality trait structure matures and becomes sufficiently differentiated around age 14–15 and grows to be practically indistinguishable from adult personality by the age of 16. Personality of adolescents becomes more differentiated with age: along with the growth of mental capacities the correlations among the personality traits and intelligence become smaller. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality self-concept affects processing of trait adjectives in the self-reference memory paradigm

We combined personality, social cognitive, and cognitive paradigms for researching the self. Specifically, we examined whether personality trait assessments are associated with variation in the cognitive processes that produce the self-reference effect in memory. We found that self-reported, but not indirectly assessed, trait orderliness (Study 1; N = 98) and openness (Study 2; N = 92) were associated with slower free recall when corresponding trait adjectives were self-referenced, but not when adjectives were encoded in control tasks. The slower recall showed mixed predictive validity. Results suggest that personality congruent adjectives elicit more elaborative processing in the form of propositions that arise during self-reference, which counter-intuitively slows recall in a manner consistent with random search memory models and cue overload theory.     

The influence of trait affect and the five-factor personality model on impulse buying

Research into the influence of affect on impulse buying has to date produced contradictory results, partly due to confusion between the potentially discrete influences of, respectively, state and trait affect. Additionally, studies on how the five-factor personality model’s dimensions influence impulse buying have also produced contradictory results. Moreover, while the established link between trait affect and personality suggests dimensions of this latter could account for whatever influence the former has on impulse buying, no study has yet attempted to examine this possibility. We draw on self-regulation theory to examine three unanswered questions: (1) the extent to which trait affect influences impulse buying whilst controlling for state affect; (2) establish which dimensions of the five-factor personality model predict impulse buying; and (3) test whether or not any influence of trait affect on impulse buying is additive to the effects of the five-factor personality model. Analyses of cross-sectional data (n = 842) find that trait affect does have a significant (p < .05) influence on impulse buying controlling for state affect, but that this influence is fully accounted for by the five-factor personality model (p < .001), the extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism dimensions of which are found consistently to predict impulse buying.