Implicit and explicit personality: a test of a channeling hypothesis for aggressive behavior

D. G. Winter, O. P. John, A. J. Stewart, E. C. Klohnen, and L. E. Duncan (1998) proposed that self-beliefs about personality influence the channels through which people express their implicit motives. On the basis of this hypothesis, the authors predicted that self-beliefs about aggressiveness would influence the channel(s) through which people express their aggressive motive and the justification mechanisms they use to defend expression of this motive. For example, the authors predicted that people who were implicitly prepared to rationalize a desire to harm others would engage in (a) overt aggression if they viewed themselves as aggressive or (b) passive aggression if they viewed themselves as nonaggressive. The implicit aspects of aggressiveness were measured via conditional reasoning (L. R. James et al., 2005). Results based on intramural basketball players supported the channeling hypothesis.     

Identity theory and personality theory: mutual relevance

Some personality psychologists have found a structural symbolic interactionist frame and identity theory relevant to their work. This frame and theory, developed in sociology, are first reviewed. Emphasized in the review are a multiple identity conception of self, identities as internalized expectations derived from roles embedded in organized networks of social interaction, and a view of social structures as facilitators in bringing people into networks or constraints in keeping them out, subsequently, attention turns to a discussion of the mutual relevance of structural symbolic interactionism/identity theory and personality theory, looking to extensions of the current literature on these topics.     

Implicit commitment in theory choice

The proper evaluation of a theory’s virtues seems to require taking into account what the theory is indirectly or implicitly committed to, in addition to what it explicitly says. Most extant proposals for criteria of theory choice in the literature spell out the relevant notion of implicit commitment via some notion of entailment. I show that such criteria behave implausibly in application to theories that differ over matters of entailment. A recent defence by Howard Peacock of such a criterion against this objection is examined and rejected. I go on to a develop a better proposal on which, roughly speaking, a theory is counted committed to a claim if and only if its best fully explicit extension is explicitly committed to the claim. Such extensions in turn are evaluated by ordinary standards of theory choice adapted to the case of theories assumed to articulate their intended content in a fully explicit fashion.     

Perceiving others is so simple: Implicit simplicity of personality perceptions in a dyadic design

People judge others on simplified trait structures when evaluating the Big Five, which is referred to as implicit simplicity (IS: Beer & Watson, 2008). The present study investigated IS in minimally acquainted informal dyads. Hundred and eighty-six participants interacted for a short time on a task, and then provided self- and peer-ratings on the IASR-B5 (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990). IS manifested in a global evaluative “halo-factor” with some accuracy and was related to perceivers’ interpersonal attraction ratings and personality traits. The driving forces behind IS are discussed.     

Reversal theory and personality: A review

Reversal theory is a new “mode-based” theory of motivation and personality which challenges some fundamental assumptions in these two fields and systematically develops an alternative account which emphasizes the complexity, changeability, and even inconsistency of much of behavior and experience. The present paper introduces some of the main concepts of the theory, including those of metamotivation, reversal, telic and paratelic modes, and telic dominance, and shows how the general approach involved can be characterized as “structural phenomenological.” The experimental, psychometric, psychophysiological, and other types of research which have been generated by the theory are reviewed and shown to be generally supportive of it.     

Implicit self- and other-associations in obsessive-compulsive personality disorder traits

This study investigated automatic associations with the self and with others in the context of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). Participants scoring high (n=20) or low (n=20) on DSM-IV OCPD traits performed three irrelevant-feature tasks in which language of the words (Dutch vs. English) was the relevant stimulus feature and word content (OCPD self-view, OCPD other-view, high self-esteem and low self-esteem) the irrelevant feature. Results showed that the high and low OCPD group differed with respect to both explicit and implicit OCPD cognitions. Typically, high OCPD participants showed better performance on OCPD-congruent trials than on OCPD-incongruent trials, whereas low OCPD participants displayed the opposite pattern. This was evident from a semantic Simon effect and from a semantic priming effect. Correlations between direct and indirect measures of OCPD beliefs and of self-esteem were low. Moreover, the indirect OCPD measures contributed uniquely and independently of explicit beliefs to the prediction of OCPD.     

Religious coping research and contemporary personality theory: An exploration of Endler's (1997) integrative personality theory

Notable weaknesses in the literature on religion and mental health include theoretical inconsistencies and lack of integration with contemporary personality theory. The current study explored a potential solution to these theoretical limitations. A modified form of Endler's (1997) interactive model of personality was applied to the prediction of religious coping and tested using structural equation modelling. As predicted by the model, personality dispositions predicted coping directly, as well as indirectly through perception of the situation and situational anxiety. These patterns were, as expected, found to interact with the type of situation. Results indicated that having a positive disposition appears to buffer one's negative perceptions of situations over which one has little control. Participants tended to use more religious coping in low‐control situations; in high‐control situations, participants tended not to use negative religious coping techniques such as pleading for miracles.     

Birth order and personality: Some empirical findings and a biobehavioral theory

The birth-order variables assessed included sex and number of siblings, assignment to 2- or 3-child family for separate sample analysis, family position as appropriate to given sample, spacing effect—was the birth of the second child spaced 4 years or more after the first child—dominance relationships in the family, sex of nearest siblings, sex of other siblings as appropriate, whether raised by both original parents, whether raised by foster parent(s). The personality variables assessed included sociability, anxiety, dominance, superego, phlegmatic temperament, involvement, self-regard and other scales measured by the new Howarth Personality Questionnaire. Samples of 50 for the 2-child families and 58 for the 3-child families were analyzed and it was found that: (a) in the 2-child families eldest children were less cooperative than younger, that those reporting dominance by another sibling were higher in state anxiety and this also applied to the younger of the pair, that those spaced in birth order were less afraid of being socially unacceptable, that those raised by both parents were higher in involvement; (b) in the 3-child families those dominated by a sibling, regardless of position, had more hypochondriac symptoms (a sign of anxiety), and that those spaced in birth order showed less cooperativeness. A biobehavioral theory to encompass biological-hormonal spacing effects and dominance as well as other intrafamilial behaviors was proposed.     

Using theory to evaluate personality and job-performance relations: a socioanalytic perspective

The authors used socioanalytic theory to understand individual differences in people's performance at work. Specifically, if predictors and criteria are aligned by using theory, then the meta-analytic validity of personality measures exceeds that of atheoretical approaches. As performance assessment moved from general to specific job criteria, all Big Five personality dimensions more precisely predicted relevant criterion variables, with estimated true validities of .43 (Emotional Stability), .35 (Extraversion-Ambition), .34 (Agreeableness), .36 (Conscientiousness), and .34 (Intellect-Openness to Experience).     

On the renaissance of personality assessment and personality theory

Both personality assessment and personality theory have experienced a significant decline in the past two or three decades, giving way to alternate professional interests by some, and being attacked as both empirically unsupportable and devoid of conceptual merit by others. Several tangible signs suggest that a resurrection is underway owing to position reversals by former critics, the changing character of patient populations, refinements in personality-oriented psychometric techniques, the refurbishing of analytic, interpersonal, and learning theories of personality, and the central role assigned personality disorders in the multiaxial format of the DSM-III. Looking toward the future, the paper proposes a series of comprehensive and parallel diagnostic criteria for the personality disorders to be included in either DSM-IIIR or DSM-IV.     

Implicit self-esteem in the context of trait models of personality

Although the basic dimensions of personality are strongly associated with individual differences in (explicit) self-esteem, the relations between personality and implicit self-esteem have not been systematically researched. In three studies, implicit self-evaluations (measured both with the Name-Letter Test and the self-esteem IAT) were generally independent of personality self-reports (Studies 1–3) and peer-reports (Study 3). Moreover, the implicit measures were also independent of one another. Discussion centers on the problems and promises of implicit measures as indicators of individual differences in self-esteem and their relation to personality.     

Factor analysis and personality theory

This article deals with the factor analytic approach to personality. More specifically, it deals with problems in factor analyses of personality questionnaires which contribute to factorial confusion. It is stated that in fact the factorial results make better sense than is usually admitted. The apparent disparity of results can be accounted for by technical defects in the chosen factor analytic method. Furthermore, it is shown that another source of disagreement lies in the interpretation of what are essentially the same factors.