Moral reasoning and personality traits

Moral reasoning should not be clearly associated with measures of personality traits. Although this assumption pervades the moral reasoning literature, it may not always be true. This paper provides evidence that moral reasoning, as assessed with P scores of the Defining Issues Test, is indeed positively associated with five traits from the California Psychological Inventory: Achievement via Independence, Intellectual Efficiency, Tolerance, Responsibility, and Capacity for Status. Such relationships make conceptual sense, shed light on the meaning and implications of moral reasoning, call into question prevailing assumptions in the literature, and may encourage investigators to broaden the types of research questions asked in the context of moral reasoning.     

Psychopathic personality traits and cognitive dissonance: Individual differences in attitude change

In a study using a classic cognitive dissonance paradigm, 164 undergraduate participants were induced to deceive a fellow student; half were directly instructed to lie whereas the other half were politely requested but not instructed to lie. Participants were assessed for psychopathic traits using the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised: Short Form and the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and for Machiavellianism using the MACH-IV. As predicted, participants low in psychopathic traits exhibited classic cognitive dissonance effects following their lie whereas participants high in psychopathic traits did not. Results for Machiavellianism were nonsignificant. These results indicate that cognitive dissonance effects in an induced compliance paradigm are reduced or eliminated among individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits.     

Individual differences in conditional reasoning: A dual-process account

Dual-process theories of conditional reasoning predict that relationships among four basic logical forms, and to intellectual ability and thinking predictions, are most evident when conflict arises between experiential and analytic processing (e.g., Stanovich & West, ). To test these predictions, 210 undergraduates were presented with conditionals for which the consequents were either weakly or strongly associated with alternative antecedents (i.e., WA and SA problems, respectively). Consistent with predictions, modus ponens inferences were not related to inferences on the uncertain forms (affirmation of the consequent, denial of the antecedent). On WA problems, modus tollens, affirmation of the consequent, and denial of the antecedent were related to each other and to verbal ability. Modus ponens was linked to verbal ability only when disabling conditions were activated. In accord with the predictions of Stanovich and West (), on most problems, thinking dispositions predicted variance in inferences independently from verbal ability. We argue that a largely automatic experiential processing system governs performance on modus ponens, unless disablers are activated. Consciously controlled analytic processing predominates on the uncertain forms and, under some conditions, on modus tollens.     

Individual differences in deductive reasoning

Three studies are reported, which examined individual differences in deductive reasoning as a function of intellectual ability and thinking style. Intellectual ability was a good predictor of logical performance on syllogisms, especially where there was a conflict between logic and believability. However, in the first two experiments there was no link between ability and performance on indicative selection tasks, in sharp contrast to previous research. This correlation did, however, return in the final study. Our data are consistent with the claim that the correlation with logical accuracy on abstract selection tasks is found primarily with participants of relatively high ability. At lower levels, pragmatically cued responses are given but those of slightly higher ability divorce the rule from the scenario and respond consistently (though incorrectly) across problems. Self-report questionnaires were generally poor predictors of performance, but a measure of the ability to generate alternative representations proved an excellent predictor. These results are consistent with a mental models approach to reasoning and also have implications for the debate about human rationality.     

Individual differences in strategies for syllogistic reasoning

Current theories of reasoning such as mental models or mental logic assume a universal cognitive mechanism that underlies human reasoning performance. However, there is evidence that this is not the case, for example, the work of Ford (1995), who found that some people adopted predominantly spatial and some verbal strategies in a syllogistic reasoning task. Using written and think-aloud protocols, the present study confirmed the existence of these individual differences. However, in sharp contrast to Ford, the present study found few differences in reasoning performance between the two groups, in terms of accuracy or type of conclusion generated. Hence, reasoners present an outward appearance of ubiquity, despite underlying differences in reasoning processes. These findings have implications for theoretical accounts of reasoning, and for attempts to model reasoning data. Any comprehensive account needs to account for strategic differences and how these may develop in logically untrained individuals.     

Individual differences in personality and face identification

Unfamiliar face identification is characterised by substantial variation between individual observers, but the cause of this variation is largely unknown. This study investigated whether individual differences in face identification are linked to an observer's personality, by combining performance on an established face-matching test with two in-depth personality assessments (the 16PF5 and the NEO-PI-R). The face test revealed a broad distribution in identification ability, but associations between face perception and personality were found only in female observers. In this group, correct face identifications related to low anxiety, low tension, and high emotional stability. These results suggest that associations between personality and face perception are limited, and are confined to anxiety and facets of neuroticism.     

Individual differences in cognitive strategy and personality traits as measured by the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

The relationship between personality and preference for use of the right or left hemisphere of the brain in cognitive processing was investigated. Lateral eye movements were recorded as 50 female and 20 male right-handed subjects considered questions requiring reflection. The questions were not obviously "verbal" or "spatial" in nature but did require differing levels of reflection. Questions requiring higher levels of reflection produced a higher rate of lateral eye movement responses. Percent right eye movement for individual subjects was then correlated with scores on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, using both first-order factors and the second-order factor Cortertia, which has some face validity as describing the personality generally ascribed to those who produce mostly right lateral eye movements. No correlation was found between the preferred directions of eye movements and 16 PF factors, which suggests that the lateral eye movements reflect thinking and problem-solving strategies but are not associated with personality styles.     

Individual values and well-being: The moderating role of personality traits

This study examined the role of values, traits and their interactions for the experience of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. First wave studies on value and well-being relationships yielded inconsistent results suggesting that these relationships are moderated by other factors, possibly by personality traits. We asked a representative sample of adult Poles (N = 1161) to report on their personality traits (according to five-factor theory), values (conceptualised by Schwartz) and well-being (hedonic and eudaimonic). Results showed, that higher Extraversion, Emotional stability, Intellect, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were related to higher well-being, confirming and expanding claims from personality theory of subjective well-being: stable predispositions are related not only to subjective, but also to eudaimonic well-being. Values expressing Openness to change, Self-transcendence and Conservation were also positively correlated with well-being, while the role of Self-enhancement was unclear. This confirmed that growth needs expressed in Openness to change and Self-transcendence values promote well-being, but also that values expressing deficiency needs can be positively related to well-being, possibly in specific circumstances. Finally, the two levels of personality (traits and values) proved to have a joint relationship to well-being: higher Conscientiousness and Agreeableness enhanced positive relationships of Openness to change and Self-transcendence with some aspects of well-being.     

Individual differences in circadian activity rhythm and personality

Individual differences in circadian activity rhythms were assessed in terms of peak activity time, rising time and retiring time reported every day for 84 consecutive days. A 19-item Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) was found to significantly correlate with time-of-day effects on these three circadian activity measures, as well as with parental report of the S's peak activity time. Several measures of extraversion were also found to correlate significantly with the MEQ, as well as with rising and retiring time, suggesting that extraverts are evening types. However, when the differential effects of sociability and impulsivity were examined it was found that the sociability component of extraversion was most responsible for the time-of-day differences. This result diverges somewhat from previous findings that suggest impulsivity is the component responsible for time-of-day effects. This apparent contradiction is discussed in terms of arousal being a non-urinary construct, with different indices of circadian arousal allowing for differential correlates with specific personality components.     

Individual differences in mental animation during mechanical reasoning

In three experiments we tested the effects of spatial visualization ability on performance of a motion-verification task, in which subjects were shown a diagram of a mechanical system and were asked to verify a sentence stating the motion of one of the system components. We propose that this task involves component processes of (1) sentence comprehension, (2) diagram comprehension, (3) text-diagram integration, and (4) mental animation. Subjects with law spatial ability made more errors than did subjects with high spatial ability on this task, and they made more errors on items in which more system components had to be animated to solve the problem. In contrast, the high-spatial subjects were relatively accurate on all trials. These results indicate that spatial visualization is correlated with accuracy on the motion-verification task and suggest that this correlation is primarily due to the mental animation component of the task. Reaction time and eye-fixation data revealed no differences in how the high- and low-spatial subjects decomposed the task. The data of the two groups of subjects were equally consistent with a piecemeal model of mental animation, in which components are animated one by one in order of the causal chain of events in the system.     

Gender differences in implicit and explicit personality traits

This article investigates gender differences in implicit and explicit measures of the Big Five traits of personality. In a high-powered study (N = 14,348), we replicated previous research showing that women report higher levels of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism. For implicit measures, gender differences were much smaller for all, and opposite in sign for Extraversion. Somewhat higher levels of implicit Neuroticism and Agreeableness were observed in women, and somewhat higher levels of implicit Extraversion and Openness were observed in men. There was no gender difference in implicit Conscientiousness. A possible explanation is that explicit self-concepts partly reflect social norms and self-expectations about gender roles, while implicit self-concepts may mostly reflect self-related experiences.     

Individual differences in hypothetic-deductive reasoning: importance of cognitive skills and flexibility

Recent investigations show that people's differential performance when solving reasoning tasks is due to differences not only at computational level, but also at the rational or intentional level. This study is within the framework of this context and it specifically analyses individual differences in hypothetic-deductive reasoning, taking into account the characteristics associated with the task itself (content and instructions) as well as the individuals' differential characteristics. Two hundred and seventy-six students from the University of Santiago de Compostela participated in this study. Several psychometric tests were administered and participants were requested to solve various reasoning tasks. The results obtained confirm that, in effect, the differences between competent and non-competent reasoners are observed at both the above-mentioned levels: cognitive skills and abilities (algorithmic level) and cognitive flexibility (intentional level).     

Individual differences in misremembering pre-psychotherapy distress: personality and memory distortion

In 2 studies, clients were asked, after terminating psychotherapy, to complete a measure of symptomatic distress exactly as they had in their pre-therapy assessment. Most clients overestimated their pre-therapy distress, which may lead to an illusion of positive change. A 3rd study found no overestimation of previously reported distress in a control sample. The degree of overestimation for psychotherapy clients was positively correlated with anxiety, depression, and neuroticism, and negatively correlated with ego strength, self-deception, and lying. Distress levels at termination mediated these effects of individual differences. Individual differences were also correlated with specific types of recall error, such as adding to, exaggerating, omitting, and minimizing previously reported symptoms. Misremembering prior emotions may both reflect and create individual differences.     

Individual differences in cognition: Some relationships between personality and memory

Individual differences in cognition were studied in the form of the hypothesis that arousal, as indexed by personality measures of extraversion and neuroticism, affects the way in which verbal material is organized in memory. Subjects pretested on measures of these personality variables participated in either a paired-associates learning or a free-recall experiment. On the paired-associates task, subjects who were thought to be high on arousal made fewer errors when response terms were semantically similar than low arousal subjects. On the other hand, subjects thought low on arousal made fewer errors when response words were phonetically similar than high arousal subjects. On the free-recall task, low arousal subjects were found to cluster words together on the basis of semantic category at a higher rate than high arousal subjects. These results were taken to support the view that high arousal (as indexed by personality measures) leads to a focus on the physical aspects of verbal material, whereas low arousal leads to a memory organized around semantic aspects. The implications of these findings for other views of memory are discussed.     

Individual differences in creativity: personality,story writing,and hobbies

This study investigated the relationship between creativity and personality among college students from a variety of major fields of study. Indicators of creativity were ratings of written stories, lists of personal hobbies, and scores on the Creative Personality Scale (CPS; Gough, 1979 ). Personality was assessed broadly using the NEO‐Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1985 ) as well as measures of depersonalization, intolerance of ambiguity, faith in intuition, and problem‐solving styles. The results showed a positive relationship between openness to experience and all creativity measures. Moreover, high scores on intuition and extraversion were the best predictors for creativity as measured by the CPS. Story creativity was predicted by low scores on conscientiousness. Depersonalization was not significantly related to creativity. The results of this investigation confirm and extend previous research in demonstrating a close association between creativity and specific personality traits. Future research should clarify the nature of the creative personality across individuals of differing levels and domains of expertise. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: robust and surprising findings

Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from 26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest that gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.     

Autotelic personality through a five-factor lens: Individual differences in flow-propensity

Autotelic personality represents an individual difference factor believed to have an increased propensity to experience flow. In 316 young adults, we administered the Dispositional Flow Scale-2 (DFS-2; Jackson & Eklund, 2002) targeted to general life activities to capture cross-situational consistency in the propensity to experience flow, and a well-established measure of the Five Factor Model of personality (i.e., the NEO Personality Inventory Revised; NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). NEO-PI-R domains of Neuroticism (−), Extraversion (+), Agreeableness (−), and Conscientiousness (+) predicted global flow propensity, accounting for 38% of the measured variance. Canonical correlation analysis highlighted these domains in relation to DFS-2 components of flow with the first canonical correlation (R = .73) accounting for 53.4% of the shared variance between NEO domains and DFS-2 subscales. Individually, DFS-2 subscales were variously predicted by NEO domains (e.g., Time Transformation at 4%; Clear Goals at 44%). NEO Openness was notably lacking in predicting flow components. These findings emphasize the strong and substantial relationship of FFM personality traits to flow-propensity.     

Microstructural white matter alterations and personality traits: A diffusion MRI study

Personality traits refer to a set of independent patterns of behaviour, cognition, and emotion. The Big-Five of Personality (NEO-FFI), is one of the most generally recognized taxonomies of personality. The current structural and functional correlates of personality are divergent and inconsistent in some cases, which necessitate further investigation of it. Herein, we aimed to investigate the white matter (WM) microstructural correlates of personality traits using diffusion MRI connectometry. Overall, the main findings of this study were located in different parts of the corpus callosum (CC) and middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP), highlighting the significant role of WM local connectome in the CC and MCP in the regulation of personality traits. Future studies need to validate our results.