The connection between social cohesion and personality: A multilevel study in the Kyrgyz Republic

As the discourse around societal cohesion grows and policy makers increasingly turn their attention towards improving cohesion, understanding its role for the lives of individuals becomes ever more important. Our study examines whether the social cohesion of the immediate living context is related to the strength of Big Five personality traits among individuals. Using data from a community survey of 6252 adults living in 30 rural sub-districts in the Kyrgyz Republic, where social cohesion is a sizable policy concern, we conduct a multilevel analysis of the relationship between sub-district cohesion and individual personality. Results indicate that higher levels of cohesion are significantly related to higher individual levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. However, no relationship is found with extraversion or neuroticism. Thus, where a social entity has higher cohesion, this entity will also have inhabitants with a greater prosocial and communal orientation towards others, greater conscientiousness and more openness to experience. These findings imply that social cohesion may be one geographical social indicator related to variation in personality traits. Moreover, the findings suggest that understanding social cohesion requires both macro- and micro-perspectives and that its connection to these particular personality traits should be taken into consideration.     

Compensatory Conscientiousness and Health in Older Couples

ABSTRACT— The present study tested the effect of conscientiousness and neuroticism on health and physical limitations in a representative sample of older couples ( N = 2,203) drawn from the Health and Retirement Study. As in past research, conscientiousness predicted better health and physical functioning, whereas neuroticism predicted worse health and physical functioning. Unique to this study was the finding that conscientiousness demonstrated a compensatory effect, such that husbands' conscientiousness predicted wives' health outcomes above and beyond wives' own personality. The same pattern held true for wives' conscientiousness as a predictor of husbands' health outcomes. Furthermore, conscientiousness and neuroticism acted synergistically, such that people who scored high for both traits were healthier than others. Finally, we found that the combination of high conscientiousness and high neuroticism was also compensatory, such that the wives of men with this combination of personality traits reported better health than other women.     

Personality and its links to quality of life: Mediating effects of emotion regulation and self-efficacy beliefs

We investigated the relationship between personality and quality of life (QoL) considering emotion regulation and self-efficacy beliefs as mediating factors. A total of 409 participants from the French-speaking regions of Switzerland and from France completed questionnaires on personality, emotion regulation, self-efficacy beliefs, and QoL. Our findings revealed that specific personality traits have significant direct and indirect effects on QoL, mediated by emotion regulation and self-efficacy. Particularly, neuroticism was strongly and negatively related to emotion regulation and QoL, but not significantly linked to self-efficacy, whereas extraversion and conscientiousness were positively associated with all variables. This is the first study to demonstrate that both emotion regulation and self-efficacy are important mechanisms that link specific personality traits to QoL, suggesting that they channel and modulate the personality effects. However, more work is needed to understand these relationships in more detail (e.g., how the personality traits concurrently influence each other as well as emotion regulation and self-efficacy).     

Major personality traits and regulations of social behavior: Cheaters are not the same as the reckless,and you need to know who you’re dealing with

This research explores the hypothesis that major personality traits are systematically associated with social regulation response tendencies. Specifically, the adaptive function of specific traits from ‘Big-Five’ and HEXACO models were evaluated in terms of how they are understood and utilized in predicting the behaviors of others. Big-Five factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness track tendencies to obey or break social contract and precautionary rules, but not discriminatively nor as predicted. HEXACO traits, however, provided discriminative patterns of associations between personality and response tendencies (within individuals and for third-person associations, cross-culturally) in greater accord with previous work. Honesty–humility is associated with social contract behaviors and conscientiousness is associated with precaution behaviors, consistent with conceptualizations as psychological adaptations for tracking fitness-relevant individual differences.     

Happy Like a Fish in Water? The Role of Personality–Situation Fit for Momentary Happiness in Social Interactions across the Adult Lifespan

Growing research on personality–relationship dynamics demonstrates that people's personality and their (enjoyment of) social relationships are closely intertwined. Using experience sampling data from 136 adults (aged 18–89 years) who reported on more than 50 000 social interactions, we zoom into everyday real‐world social interactions to examine how Big Five personality traits and social context characteristics shape people's happiness in social encounters across the adult lifespan. Results revealed that interactions that were social (vs. task‐oriented) and with close (vs. less close) others were associated with higher momentary happiness as were higher levels of the target person's extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and lower neuroticism. Of the 10 personality × situation interactions tested, only one reached significance (with p = .041): Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism benefitted more from interactions with friends than did individuals low in neuroticism. The role of social context characteristics for momentary happiness changed with age, but the role of personality or personality × social context did not, suggesting that personality effects on happiness in social context manifest in similar ways across the adult lifespan. We discuss implications for personality–situation research and the understanding of affective dynamics in everyday social interactions. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Variance in faking across noncognitive measures

There are discrepant findings in the literature regarding the effects of applicant faking on the validity of noncognitive measures. One explanation for these mixed results may be the failure of some studies to consider individual differences in faking. This study demonstrates that there is considerable variance across individuals in the extent of faking 3 types of noncognitive measures (i.e., personality test, biodata inventory, and integrity test). Participants completed measures honestly and with instructions to fake. Results indicated some measures were more difficult to fake than others. The authors found that integrity, conscientiousness, and neuroticism were related to faking. In addition, individuals faked fairly consistently across the measures. Implications of these results and a model of faking that includes factors that may influence faking behavior are provided.     

Associations between personality and driving behavior are mediated by mind-wandering tendency: A cross-national comparison of Australian and Italian drivers

ObjectiveThis study examined the associations between personality traits (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and aberrant driving behaviors in a sample of Australian and Italian drivers by investigating the mediation effect of mind-wandering (MW) tendency.BackgroundAlthough unsafe driving behaviors are influenced by both a driver’s MW tendency and personality traits, the potential interaction between these variables and their association with aberrant driving behaviors has not been previously investigated.MethodNine-hundred and four active drivers (n = 452 Australians, n = 452 Italians) completed an online survey related to their self-reported personality traits, driving behaviors, and MW tendency.ResultsA multi-group path analysis showed that MW tendency significantly mediated the effects of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness on aberrant driving behavior with invariances across nationality groups.ConclusionThese results suggest that the association between personality traits and aberrant driving behaviors is partially explained by a driver’s MW tendency while driving. Further research is needed to understand these relationships using objective measures of MW while driving (e.g., the probe-caught method). The findings of this study suggest that the assessment of personality traits may have important implications for inattentive and distracted driving and fitness-to-drive evaluation purposes.     

Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations

The present study examined the relationship between the Big Five and the use of Facebook to fulfill belonging and self-presentational needs. One hundred and eighty four undergraduates completed a survey assessing personality and Facebook behaviors and motivations. High agreeableness and neuroticism were the best predictors of belongingness-related behaviors and motivations. Extraversion was associated with more frequent use of Facebook to communicate with others. Self-presentational behaviors and motivations were best predicted by low conscientiousness and high neuroticism. Results suggest that conscientious individuals are cautious in their online self-presentation. Neuroticism, agreeableness, and extraversion were positively associated with the tendency to express one’s actual self. Neuroticism was positively associated with the expression of ideal and hidden self-aspects. The motivation to express these self-aspects mediated the relationship between neuroticism and self-disclosure.     

Conscientiousness and Agreeableness as Moderators of the Relationship Between Neuroticism and Counterproductive Work Behaviors: A constructive replication

Several previous studies examining the predictors of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) have found positive relationships for neuroticism and negative relationships for conscientiousness and agreeableness. We extend this research by examining whether employee personality traits interact with each other to influence CWBs. Because conscientiousness and agreeableness may suppress one's tendency to engage in CWBs, we hypothesized that the neuroticism–CWB relationship will be weaker among workers who are high in either conscientiousness or agreeableness than among workers who are low in these traits. Data from three independent samples provide support for these hypothesized moderator effects.     

On friendship development and the Big Five personality traits

In this paper, we argue that friendship should receive more attention in social/personality research. Here, we focus on our area of expertise, personality traits, and review the literature on how personality traits influence friendship formation, maintenance, and dissolution. Specifically, we examine how personality traits of the actor and partner influence friendship development (i.e., who is more likely to initiate and end friendships, and who is more likely to be the target of friendship initiation and termination). We also discuss dyadic effects, such as personality similarity, on friendship development. Throughout this review, we draw on the literature on personality and romantic relationships to identify the most important gaps in the literature on personality and friendships. Our review suggests that agreeableness has the most consistent effects on both romantic relationships and friendships, followed by neuroticism. Extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience have all been shown to influence relationship development, but their effects are inconsistent. We end with a call for more research on friendship beyond the role of personality traits and suggestions for specific future directions.     

Big Five personality traits contribute to prosocial responses to others’ pain

ObjectivesTwo studies examined whether observers’ personality traits contribute to prosocial responses to others’ facial expression of pain. Experiment 1 examined the personality traits that could account for observers’ variability in estimating others’ pain intensity. Experiment 2 questioned to what extent the contribution of personality traits on inclination to help people in pain depend on observers’ beliefs about pain’ characteristics.Method59 (experiment 1) and 76 (experiment 2) participants observed to 3-D realistic synthetic face movements mobilizing action units of pain, in order to estimate others’ pain. In experiment 2, painful localizations (e.g., chest, hand) were also manipulated. In each experiment, Big Five personality traits were assessed.ResultsExperiment 1 revealed that agreeableness and conscientiousness contributed to observers’ pain estimates across the increase of facial expression intensity. Experiment 2 showed that conscientiousness contributed to observers’ judgments whatever pain’ characteristics. Neuroticism was only salient for pain referring to life-threatening pain.ConclusionProsocial response to others’ pain depends on agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. However, these links are modulated by the pain behavior elicited and observers’ belief about the characteristic of pain.     

Big-five personality and BIS/BAS traits as predictors of career exploration: The mediation role of career adaptability

Based on career construction theory, the current research examined whether career adaptability mediates the relations of the personality traits (Five-Factor Model personality traits and behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS)) to career exploration behavior. Results from a survey in Chinese university students (N = 264) showed that career exploration correlated negatively with neuroticism, and positively with openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS. Results of regression analyses further showed that openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS served as the strongest predictors for career exploration. In addition, career adaptability was shown to be a key mediator for the relationships between personality traits and career exploration behavior. Career concern and career curiosity were the more important dimensions in the mediation model. These findings advance current understandings on how different personality traits predict career exploration behavior.     

Perfectionism and health: a mediational analysis of the roles of stress, social support and health-related behaviours

This study tested a model derived from personality theory in which perceived stress, perceived social support, health-risk and health-promotion behaviours mediate the relationship between perfectionism and perceived physical health. A sample of 538 undergraduate students completed a web-based survey assessing multi-dimensional perfectionism, perceived stress, perceived social support, health behaviours, physical health and a scale tapping elements of the five-factor model of personality. Analyses that account for the effects of traits from the five-factor model (e.g., neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion) indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with poorer physical health and this association was fully mediated by higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of perceived social support. Self-oriented perfectionism was related complexly to health such that it was related to poorer health via higher levels of perceived stress, but was also related to better health via higher levels of perceived social support. Our findings illustrate the need for considering key mediators of the link between perfectionism and poor health outcomes.     

Perfectionism and health: A mediational analysis of the roles of stress,social support and health-related behaviours

This study tested a model derived from personality theory in which perceived stress, perceived social support, health-risk and health-promotion behaviours mediate the relationship between perfectionism and perceived physical health. A sample of 538 undergraduate students completed a web-based survey assessing multi-dimensional perfectionism, perceived stress, perceived social support, health behaviours, physical health and a scale tapping elements of the five-factor model of personality. Analyses that account for the effects of traits from the five-factor model (e.g., neuroticism, conscientiousness and extraversion) indicated that socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with poorer physical health and this association was fully mediated by higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of perceived social support. Self-oriented perfectionism was related complexly to health such that it was related to poorer health via higher levels of perceived stress, but was also related to better health via higher levels of perceived social support. Our findings illustrate the need for considering key mediators of the link between perfectionism and poor health outcomes.     

The impact of individual differences on influence strategies

Persuasion and its applications aim at positively changing human behavior and they work the best when they are tailored to individuals. Recent studies show that individuals could give different responses to the same persuasion strategies which lead to personalization of persuasion strategies for better effectiveness. This study investigates what persuasion strategies are more effective for whom. More specifically, the relationship between the Big Five Personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness) and six persuasion strategies (authority, reciprocation, scarcity, liking, commitment and consensus) is explored. This study was conducted with 381 university students. A structured questionnaire comprising the Big Five Inventory Personality Trait scale and the Susceptibility to Persuasion Strategies scale was used to collect data. The Bayesian estimation was employed to reveal causal relationships. The results show that there are significant relations between personality traits and influence strategies.     

Personality links to anger: Evidence for trait interaction and differentiation across expression style

Anger is a commonly experienced emotion, although marked individual differences in the expression of anger are observed. Basic dimensions of personality (e.g., Big Five traits) have been shown to predict the experience of trait anger; however, little work has addressed the personality correlates of broader conceptualisations of trait anger (e.g., inward or outward expressions). Additionally, while some recent work has suggested that basic personality traits may show interactive influences on anger expression this work has yet to be independently confirmed. In a large sample of adults we examined, firstly, how Big Five traits associated with several components of anger as measured by the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Secondly, we examined whether these associations were further qualified by interactions between Big Five traits. Results indicated neuroticism and, to a lesser extent, (low) agreeableness, were the traits most associated with components of trait anger. Conscientiousness and extraversion were also noted to show links to more focal components of anger. Moderation was observed: conscientiousness moderated neuroticism’s relationship with anger control, and agreeableness and conscientiousness, in a three-way interaction, moderated neuroticism’s relationship with trait anger. These observations help to further clarify the role of Big Five personality traits as a foundation for the experiences of anger, demonstrating how anger style varies across personality configuration.     

Be yourself,believe in yourself,and be happy: Self‐efficacy as a mediator between personality factors and subjective well‐being

Strobel, M., Tumasjan, A. & Spörrle, M. (2011). Be yourself, believe in yourself, and be happy: Self‐efficacy as a mediator between personality factors and subjective well‐being. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 52, 43–48. Research has shown close connections between personality and subjective well‐being (SWB), suggesting that personality traits predispose individuals to experience different levels of SWB. Moreover, numerous studies have shown that self‐efficacy is related to both personality factors and SWB. Extending previous research, we show that general self‐efficacy functionally connects personality factors and two components of SWB (life satisfaction and subjective happiness). Our results demonstrate the mediating role of self‐efficacy in linking personality factors and SWB. Consistent with our expectations, the influence of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness on life satisfaction was mediated by self‐efficacy. Furthermore, self‐efficacy mediated the influence of openness and conscientiousness, but not that of neuroticism and extraversion, on subjective happiness. Results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and SWB.     

The relationship between interpersonal perception and post‐traumatic stress disorder‐related functional impairment: a social relations model analysis

This study used Kenny's social relations model to examine the relationship between Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder‐related impairment and interpersonal perceptions. Participants were 124 students who had previously completed the Post‐traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale as part of a larger study. After engaging in brief dyadic conversations with 3 other students, participants recorded perceptions of personality traits for themselves, their interaction partners and how they believed their partners saw them (metaperceptions). Results indicated that those with more severe post‐traumatic stress disorder‐related impairment saw themselves negatively and believed their interaction partners also viewed them negatively. However, these individuals were not seen differently by others, except that they were rated as less dependable. Our findings suggest that post‐traumatic stress disorder is associated with negative beliefs about the self that may influence self‐esteem and interpersonal relationships.     

Neuroticism and psychopathy predict brain activation during moral and nonmoral emotion regulation

Functional neuroimaging has identified brain regions associated with voluntary regulation of emotion, including the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. The neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in emotion regulation have not been extensively studied. We investigated the neural correlates of neuroticism and psychopathic personality traits in the context of an emotion regulation task. Results showed that amygdala activity elicited by unpleasant pictures was positively correlated with neuroticism and negatively correlated with a specific psychopathic trait related to emotional underreactivity. During active attempts to decrease emotional responses to unpleasant pictures, superior and ventrolateral prefrontal activity was positively correlated with psychopathy, but not with neuroticism. In contrast, dorsolateral prefrontal activity was positively correlated with neuroticism, but not with psychopathy. Psychopathy was also negatively correlated with medial prefrontal activity in response to pictures depicting moral violations, suggesting reduced emotional responses to moral stimuli in individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits. These results demonstrate dissociable influences of different personality traits on neural activity associated with responses to emotional stimuli and on the recruitment of regulation-related brain activity during the active down-regulation of responses to negative emotional stimuli. These results have implications for the etiology of trait-based psychopathology involving emotional dysregulation.     

人格特质及脑功能连接对社交网络的影响

采用网络分析的方法, 本研究从个体受欢迎程度和个体间亲密程度两方面探究了人格特质对社交网络的影响, 并在此基础上进一步探究了个体间大脑静息态功能连接相似性和社交网络的关系。结果发现：(1)高尽责性的个体在需要“值得信任”特质的社交网络中更受欢迎, 高宜人性的个体在需要“共享时光”的社交网络中更受欢迎; (2)在需要“相同兴趣”特质的社交网络中, 个体间人格相似性和社会距离呈显著负相关关系; (3)同样在需要“相同兴趣”特质的社交网络中, 个体间部分功能连接相似性与社会距离呈显著负相关关系, 这些功能连接主要集中在额顶控制网络以及背侧注意网络; 同时, 部分节点功能连接相似性与社会距离呈显著正相关关系, 这些功能连接主要集中在默认网络。研究结果揭示了人格特质对不同社交网络结构的影响, 以及个体间人格特质相似性和静息态脑网络相似性与社会距离的关系。本研究对理解社交网络的结构, 形成规律以及其中的信息传播规律有着重要启示意义。