Predicting and accepting personality test scores

Three studies are reported concerned with people's perception of their own personality, their acceptance of bogus ‘personality’ feedback, and the relationship between their ‘actual’ personality scores and their willingness to accept bogus feedback. In the first study subjects attempted to predict their own and a well-known other person's personality scores. They were fairly good at predicting some of their own scores (extraversion, neuroticism) but less so others, suggesting that people can recognize their own ‘correct’ personality feedback. In the second study subjects were given either positive (Barnum Statements) or negative (reverse Barnum Statements) ‘bogus’ feedback after a personality test. They tended to accept the positive feedback as more accurate than the negative feedback though this was not related to their actual scores. In the third study subjects were given four types of feedback statements after a personality test: general positive, general negative, specific positive and specific negative. As predicted, people tend to accept general rather than specific, and positive rather than negative feedback as true. Furthermore, acceptance was closely related to neuroticism and extraversion in a predicted direction. These results are discussed in terms of the uses and abuses of validation of personality feedback.     

Stereotypes and Personalities of Musicians

Folk fiddle players and Salvation Army brass band members completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI; H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck; 1964) and a questionnaire concerning their opinions about the personality characteristics of orchestral violinists, orchestral brass players, folk fiddlers, and Salvation Army brass band members. The EPI scores of the 2 groups showed a greater neuroticism among string players but not the greater extraversion of brass players found in previous studies on the personalities of musicians. Although participants' views about the personality characteristics of orchestral brass players and orchestral violinists echoed those found in previous research, their views on the Salvation Army (as brass players) and on folk fiddlers (as string players) did not. Results of this study showed that personality differences or stereotypes among musicians are probably determined more by the history and traditions of the group in which they are perceived to be involved than by the instruments they play.     

The moderating role of self-monitoring on the interpersonal aspects of attitude ambivalence

Extant research has found a relation between holding conflicting attitudes with a familiar person (interpersonal discrepancy) and subjective attitude ambivalence. In 2 studies, we investigated the role of interpersonal discrepancy in the experience of attitude ambivalence as a function of self-monitoring and level of liking of the other person. Building on balance theory, we proposed and found that high (vs. low) self-monitors feel most comfortable when they are in agreement with liked (vs. disliked) others. In Study 1, 80 university students revealed that when the significant other is a parent, high self-monitors feel more subjective ambivalence when there is more interpersonal discrepancy. In Study 2, 37 university students reported their feelings of subjective ambivalence when considering the interpersonal discrepancy between liked (vs. disliked) familiar people. Again, it was high self-monitors who were most susceptible to increased feelings of subjective ambivalence, particularly for discrepancies between their own attitude and the attitude of liked others. Taken together, our 2 studies broaden our understanding of the interpersonal foundations of subjective ambivalence by suggesting that they may depend on personality differences and the nature of the social relationship.     

自我监控理论评价

Snyder（1974）提出自我监控来解释自我呈现中的个体差异。他认为高自我监控者具有三个特征：关注行为的适宜性,对情境线索敏感,并以此作为行为调节的指南。以此为基础编制出一个25项目的自我监控量表。但随后的研究发现该量表测量到的与自我监控构念之间存在差距。为此,Lennox和Wolfe（1984）发展了修订版自我监控量表,Gangestad和Snyder（1985）把25项目自我监控量表精减成18项目,LiFeng等（1998）编制出中国版自我监控量表,但这些自我监控量表同样存在缺陷。该研究指出：其根源在于Snyder（1974）对自我监控的构念存在缺陷。     

自我监控概念的重构

Snyder（1974）提出自我监控来解释自我呈现中的个体差异。他认为高自我监控者具有3个特征：关注行为的适宜性,对情境线索敏感,并以此作为行为调节的指南。作者通过文献回顾指出,Snyder对高自我监控的定义不妥。该文通过对自我呈现功能分析,指出自我呈现既有自我功能,又有人际功能。想要给他人留下期望的印象,自我呈现不仅要维系人际和谐,而且要维系自我和谐。根据这两个维度,该文对自我监控概念进行了重构。把自我监控者分为4种：高自我监控者在自我呈现过程中既维系自我和谐,又维系人际和谐;他人导向监控者只注重人际和谐;自我导向监控者只注重自我和谐;低自我监控者既不注意人际和谐,也不注意自我和谐     

Self-monitoring processes in stutterers

The Self-Monitoring Scale developed by Snyder (1974) was administered to 26 adult stutterers and 26 nonstutterers. The purpose of the study was to determine if stutterers differed significantly in their level of self-monitoring compared with fluent speakers. It was hypothesized that stutterers would be classified as low self-monitoring individuals. The results lend support to this hypothesis. Analysis of the scores of the Self-Monitoring Scale, as suggested by Briggs et al. (1980), was also carried out. These findings add further support to the hypothesis that stutterers tend to be low self-monitors.     

Lay Personality Theories in Interactive Decisions: Strongly Held,Weakly Supported

In interactive decisions, cues to what others will do are important in forming a strategy. Information about others' personalities appears to be potentially valuable for this purpose. We report a series of four studies examining how information about another actor's personality influences people's own choices in interactive decisions. The studies found widespread beliefs that others' personality characteristics are strongly predictive both of broad classes of decision behavior (competition/cooperation, risk‐seeking/risk‐aversion) (Study 1) and of specific choices (Study 2) in single‐agent settings. These beliefs extended to predicting others' choices in interactive decisions (Study 3) and to shaping the predictor's own decisions in interactive play in Chicken and Assurance games (Study 4). Overall, we found extensive evidence that laypeople believe that the personality traits we selected (angry‐hostility, anxiety, assertiveness, excitement‐seeking, and warmth) have substantial effects on behavior in interactive decisions and they act on those beliefs when making their own decisions. The empirical evidence supporting the predictive validity of these traits was, however, quite weak. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality and relaxation therapy: changes among clinical and normal subjects

There are increasing numbers of self-referral stress-management programs, a few of which use group-relaxation techniques, but few data are available on the personalities of the symptomatic and asymptomatic clients who attend or on any changes in personality after the program. Scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory, Multiple Health Locus of Control, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory as well as demographic information were obtained from 255 adults who attended a 10-session, university-based, group-relaxation program. The symptomatic clients reported significantly less anxiety, less neuroticism, were more extraverted and ascribed less of their behavior to chance at a 1 month post-treatment follow-up than at intake. The small group of asymptomatic clients also reported less anxiety and neuroticism at the follow-up. There were no sex differences on the Eysenck inventory or the anxiety scales but there were for the Multiple Health internal and control scales. It was concluded that group relaxation appeared to improve mental health scores effectively for both stressed and nonstressed adults and that age was significantly related to some personality scores.     

Self-monitoring without awareness: using mimicry as a nonconscious affiliation strategy

This research sought to extend the current conceptualization of self-monitoring by examining whether self-monitoring motives and behaviors can operate outside of conscious awareness. Two studies examined nonconscious mimicry among high and low self-monitors in situations varying in affiliative cues. Participants interacted with a confederate who shook her foot (Study 1) or touched her face (Study 2). In both studies, high self-monitors were more likely to mimic the confederate's subtle gestures when they believed the confederate to be a peer (Study 1) or someone superior to them (Study 2). Low self-monitors mimicked to the same degree across conditions. Thus, when the situation contains affiliative cues, high self-monitors use mimicry as a nonconscious strategy to get along with their interaction partner.     

Premenstrual tension and personality

The premenstrual symptomalogy (PMT) of 165 students of nursing and midwifery was studied and their personality was assessed using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ). Thirty-four per cent of the Ss showed severe and 42% moderate PMT symptomatology. Ss with severe PMT symptomatology gave significantly higher scores in the neuroticism scale of the EPQ. Abdominal and pelvic pain as well as low back pain, i.e. symptoms of dysmenorrhoea, did not correlate with high neuroticism scores.     

Knowing and Faking One's Five-Factor Personality Score

This article reports on 2 studies, both concerned with the validity of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). The first study, replicated over 3 samples, concerned the validity of the measure as determined by self-ratings. Results indicated that participants were able to predict their extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism scores with reasonable accuracy, but agreeableness and openness-to-experience less so. In addition, participants were not very reliable in predicting others' test scores, although they believed themselves to have scores moderately similar to the other, self-nominated person. The second study showed that the NEO-FFI was highly susceptible to faking, although the all-important fake good versus control comparisons were significant only for agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. The implications of these studies for applied personality measurement are considered.     

The ripple effect of personality on social structure: self-monitoring origins of network brokerage

Despite growing interest in social network brokerage, its psychological antecedents have been neglected. One possibility is that brokerage relates to self-monitoring personality orientation. High self-monitors, relative to low self-monitors, in adapting their self-presentations to the demands of different groups, may occupy positions as brokers between disconnected social worlds. For 162 Korean expatriate entrepreneurs in a Canadian urban area, the results showed that those high in self-monitoring tended to occupy direct brokerage roles within the Korean community--in terms of their direct acquaintances being unconnected with each other. Those high in self-monitoring also tended to occupy indirect brokerage roles--in terms of the acquaintances of their acquaintances being unconnected with each other. Finally, for recent arrivals, those high in self-monitoring tended to establish ties to a wider range of important non-Korean position holders outside the community. These results (which controlled for strongly significant effects of network size on individuals' brokerage within the community) suggest a ripple effect of self-monitoring on social structure and contribute to a clearer understanding of how personality relates to brokerage at different levels.     

The Developing Personality as a Joint Function of Convergence and Divergence

Summary

The effect of change in conditions of test administration on self-reported introversion-extraversion and neuroticism was investigated at a North American, Central American, and South American university. Standard conditions, based on standard test norms, were compared with a condition in which S knew that self-report would be compared with reports about him by three well known Ss named by him. Self-reported scores and others' reports agreed with standard test norms on introversion-extraversion, but self-reported neuroticism was significantly higher compared to test norms and others' reports. There were no significant differences between universities. The differential effect on self-reported neuroticism was interpreted in terms of social desirability response set.     

Nonverbal display of emotion in public and in private: self-monitoring, personality, and expressive cues.

Individual differences in the expression and regulation of emotion are important components of social skill. The present study focused on the concealing of spontaneous expressions of happiness after winning in a competitive situation against peers. In a repeated measures design, spontaneous expressive behaviors in response to triumph were secretly videotaped when Ss (N = 38) were alone in a room and when they were with 2 fellow competitors (confederates). Edited tapes were analyzed by naive raters and trained coders. As predicted, the social context strongly influenced the expressive behaviors of Ss, providing support for a social inhibition effect. More important, the self-monitoring construct (Snyder, 1987) was helpful in explaining individual differences in expressive regulation, with high self-monitors being successful at hiding their happiness when appropriate; and they did so in particular ways. Low self-monitors did not conceal their emotions. Other findings with regard to personality and sex differences were also uncovered.     

Book review of Conversations of Friends: Speculations on Affective Development

Two experiments examined the affective consequences associated with self-monitoring in a job application context. Study 1 examined reactions of high and low self-monitors to slides of interviewers whose faces fit or did not fit an occupation. It was hypothesized that high self-monitors would experience the most negative affect when the face did not fit the occupational stereotype because such a mismatch would provide unclear or conflicting cues for expected behavior, whereas low self-monitors would experience the most negative affect when the face matched the stereotype because expectations for stereotypical behavior would constrain their expression of self. Results confirmed the hypotheses. In Study 2, subjects were asked to give the "right answers" on a personality test to get a job which either fit or did not fit their personality. Low self-monitors, more concerned with accurate self-presentation, experienced heightened negative affect if the job did not fit their personality, whereas high self-monitors who are accustomed to controlling their self-presentation experienced less negative affect. In both studies, situational cues or demands that conflicted with the motivational concerns of self-monitoring style differentially produced negative affect for high and low self-monitors. Implications of making hiring decisions on the basis of interviews and other devices subject to impression management were discussed.     

Social dissimulation,perceived competence and personality

The Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ) (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975) was completed by 129 boys (mean age 10 yr 10 months: SD = 4 months) and 119 girls (mean age 10 yr 11 months; SD = 3 months) from Belfast. Belfast boys' and girls' scores were significantly (P < 0.001) higher than the English standardisation data on psychoticism and extraversion, but their mean scores for neuroticism and the lie scale were remarkably similar. Belfast boys display significantly different intercorrelations in comparison with (i) the standardisation data—neuroticism/psychoticism (P < 0.01) and lie scale/neuroticism (P < 0.05)—and (ii) Belfast girls—neuroticism/psychoticism (P < 0.05). Psychoticism appears to play a highly salient role in Belfast boys' self-construals. Most of these pupils (n = 189) also completed the Perceived Competence Scale for Children (PCSC) (Harter, 1982). The PCSC minimises social dissimulation: the highest positive correlation with the lie scale being (r = 0.1). Correlations with the domains of the PCSC display the saliency of extraversion for girls' self-perceived physical competence and general competence, and for boys' self-perceived social competence, and the saliency of neuroticism for girls' self-perceived social competence.     

Toward an Understanding of “The Sex Game”: The Effects of Gender and Self-Monitoring on Perceptions of Sexuality and Likability in Initial Interactions1

Results of several studies indicate that men attribute more sexual meaning to heterosexual interactions than do women. Based on Abbey's (1982) findings, we hypothesized that males, in comparison to females, would attribute more sexuality to opposite-sex partners. Based on findings from several self-monitoring dating studies, we predicted that high self-monitors would rate their partners and themselves higher on sexuality and likability traits than would low self-monitors. A laboratory study was conducted in which mixed-sex pairs of participants discussed their likes and dislikes about college life. Participants then rated themselves and their opposite-sex partners on a set of sexuality and likability trait adjectives and indicated their interest in getting to know their partner better. Results supported the gender hypotheses, whereas they only partially supported the self-monitoring predictions. The self-monitoring effects on self-ratings of sexuality and partner ratings of likability are used to explain why high self-monitors are more successful than low self-monitors in establishing heterosexual relationships.