Thematic analysis of daily events as a method of personality assessment

I examined how themes in emotionally meaningful daily events can be used as a personality assessment technique. Eighty-eight student participants recorded their most positive and most negative experiences each day for 2 weeks. Common themes were identified in these events by the participants and judges. The convergent validity of the daily events measures was demonstrated through comparisons with a diverse set of personality measures of achievement and affiliation motivation, including a projective test (the Thematic Apperception Test), self-report questionnaires, and peer reports. Results suggest that a thematic analysis of daily life events may be a useful means of assessing the specific daily concerns and stressors experienced by individuals.     

Day-to-Day Variability in Empathy as a Function of Daily Events and Mood

Despite broad agreement that understanding a personality construct requires integrating trait and state levels of analysis, few studies have explicitly attempted such an integration. The present study did this by examining the relationships between trait and state measures of empathy. State measures were taken daily, with a focus on the day level (within-person) covariation between empathy and daily mood and events. Twice a week for up to 10 weeks, 103 participants provided measures of their daily empathy and mood (NA and PA) and described the events that occurred each day. Multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses found that daily empathy covaried positively with the impact of daily positive and negative social events and with daily positive and negative affect. Empathy did not covary with achievement-related events. Analyses that simultaneously included empathy, mood, and events suggested that daily NA mediated relationships between daily empathy and daily negative social events. Although mean daily empathy was positively related to trait empathy, trait empathy did not moderate relationships between daily empathy and events nor between daily empathy and mood. Moreover, daily empathy did not covary with daily depressogenic thinking, need for cognition, nor self-esteem, suggesting that empathy is distinct from these constructs. Possible mechanisms linking social events and empathy, such as emotional contagion, are discussed.     

Themes of Agency and Communion In Significant Autobiographical Scenes

ABSTRACT In three studies employing over 350 community adults and college students, participants wrote or told narratives of personally important scenes in their lives. The autobiographical accounts were coded for themes of agency and communion, the two general content dimensions in lives and life stories that have been identified by many theorists and researchers. The four agentic themes of self-mastery, status, achievement/responsibility, and empowerment were positively associated with Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) measures of achievement and power motivation, self-report scales of dominance and achievement, and personal strivings concerning being successful and feeling strong. Similarly, the four communal themes of love/friendship, dialogue, care/help, and community were positively associated with intimacy motivation, needs for affiliation and nurturance, and personal strivings concerned with warm and close relationships. The results suggest a thematic coherence in personality across the arenas of key autobiographical memories, social motives, and daily goals.     

The relationship of borderline personality disorder, life events and functioning in an Australian psychiatric sample

Studies have documented poor functioning and higher rates of negative life events in association with personality disorders (PDs), in particular with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The current study investigated the impact of recent life events, daily hassles and uplifts on psychosocial functioning in patients with PDs, while extending previous research by examining the role of perceived coping effectiveness and perceived stress of recent life events. Ninety-seven participants (Axis I group, N = 30; BPD group, N = 23; Other PD group, N = 44) completed measures of functioning, recent life events, daily hassles and uplifts. Results indicated that the BPD group reported the poorest levels of functioning, especially interpersonal functioning. The BPD group also reported more negative life events, particularly in the interpersonal relationships, personal health, crime, and financial domains. The BPD group experienced less uplifts, more hassles and found employment circumstances particularly stressful and difficult to cope with. Intensity of hassles was a predictor of functioning independent of a BPD diagnosis. A greater frequency of life events was closely associated with a non-BPD diagnosis in predicting a decrease in psychosocial functioning.     

Predicting the Everyday Life Events of Older Adults

Predicting the everyday life events of people is a relatively unexplored topic, although several major theoretical approaches deal with related issues. The dispositional approach would assign a causal role to personality, while the situational approach would locate causation in the person's environment. Variations on these two extreme themes invoke an interactionist interpretation. Beyond this, a genuinely transactional approach focuses on the enduring person-environment relationship established as people deal with major and everyday life events. This study investigated a wide range of predictors of daily positive, negative, and ill-health events over time in a sample of 206 older adults. Results showed that personality variables played only a minor role in predicting daily events, although an interaction between extraversion and social network size was significant. Background demographic variables and the major stressors of recent conjugal bereavement and physical disability played a role in daily event occurrences. Overall, the strongest degree of predictability of events came from the events themselves: The high degree of event stability over time indicated the value of a genuinely transactional model in understanding the occurrence of everyday events.     

Moral personality of brave and caring exemplars

Two contrasting types of moral exemplars were examined so as to identify personality variables associated with moral action. The sample comprised 50 Canadian awardees for either exceptional bravery or caring, as well as 50 comparison participants. Participants responded to a set of personality questionnaires and a life-review interview. Personality variables were found to substantially augment moral cognition in the prediction of exemplary action. In support of the notion that there is a personological core to the moral domain, it was found that moral exemplars were distinguished from the comparison groups by themes embodied in their life narratives. Specifically, moral exemplars had stronger motivational themes of both agency and communion, were more likely to construe critical life events redemptively, more frequently identified helpers in early life, and reported more secure attachments. Furthermore, the personality of caring exemplars was more nurturant, generative, and optimistic than that of brave exemplars; these somewhat divergent personality profiles imply multiple ideals of moral maturity.     

The Effects of Social Roles and Personality Motives on Autobiographical Memory

In the present study we examined how agentic and communal social roles and personality motives were related to the quality (including emotions and agentic and communal themes) and cognitive structure (differentiation and integration) of women's autobiographical memories. One hundred twenty-seven college-aged women were asked to describe a personal memory after being randomly assigned to either agentic or communal task conditions. In the agentic task condition, participants completed a creative building task alone, and in the communal task condition, participants completed the same task with a confederate. Personality motives were measured by both explicit (self-report) and implicit (TAT stories) measures. Following the task, participants wrote about an autobiographical experience in which they were in either agentic or communal social roles. Linear multiple regression analyses indicated that participating in an agentic task, as compared to a communal task, was related to the inclusion of fewer agentic themes as well as to a higher frequency of shame and anger words in autobiographical memories. Congruence between social roles and implicit personality motives (e.g., an agentic task assignment and high agentic motives) yielded less negatively laden autobiographical memories than incongruence between social roles and personality motives (e.g., an agentic task assignment and high communal motives). Furthermore, participants who scored high on both explicit agentic and communal motives included more positive emotion words in their memories than did other groups.     

Personality and daily experience revisited

In this introduction to the Journal of Personality special issue devoted to "Advances in Personality and Daily Experience" we attempt to trace recent progress in the study of personality and daily life. We begin by comparing and contrasting the methods of daily experience research adopted by investigators who authored empirical articles in the 1991 and current special issues according to the mode, schedule, and sampling frame for data collection. We then compare data analytic strategies across the 14 years between the two special issues and conclude that although the nature of the questions addressed has not changed dramatically, newer analytic methods and associated software have enhanced our ability to answer these questions more precisely. Finally, we provide an overview of the special issue contributions organized around three broad themes: personal vulnerabilities and resources that predict reactions to everyday events, interpersonal manifestations of personality in daily experience, and how personality in daily life affects physical and mental health and relates to disease risk.     

Personality moderates the interaction between positive and negative daily events predicting negative affect and stress

A 30-day diary study examined personality moderators (neuroticism and extraversion) of the interaction between positive and negative daily events predicting daily negative affect and night-time stress. Multilevel analyses revealed positive daily events buffered the effect of negative daily events on negative affect for individuals low in neuroticism and individuals high in extraversion, but not for individuals high in neuroticism or individuals low in extraversion. Positive daily events also buffered the effect of negative daily events on that night’s stress, but only for participants low in neuroticism. As such, this research linked today’s events to tonight’s stressfulness. This study advances our understanding of how neuroticism and extraversion influence within-person associations between positive and negative events predicting negative affect and stress.     

Memory in posttraumatic stress disorder: properties of voluntary and involuntary, traumatic and nontraumatic autobiographical memories in people with and without posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

One hundred fifteen undergraduates rated 15 word-cued memories and their 3 most negatively stressful, 3 most positive, and 7 most important events and completed tests of personality and depression. Eighty-nine also recorded involuntary memories online for 1 week. In the first 3-way comparisons needed to test existing theories, comparisons were made of memories of stressful events versus control events and involuntary versus voluntary memories in people high versus low in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. For all participants, stressful memories had more emotional intensity, more frequent voluntary and involuntary retrieval, but not more fragmentation. For all memories, participants with greater PTSD symptom severity showed the same differences. Involuntary memories had more emotional intensity and less centrality to the life story than voluntary memories. Meeting the diagnostic criteria for traumatic events had no effect, but the emotional responses to events did. In 533 undergraduates, correlations among measures were replicated and the Negative Intensity factor of the Affect Intensity Measure correlated with PTSD symptom severity. No special trauma mechanisms were needed to account for the results, which are summarized by the autobiographical memory theory of PTSD.     

Age differences in life stories and neuroticism mediate age differences in subjective well-being

We examined whether age differences in life stories and personality traits mediated age differences in subjective well-being. One hundred one young, 77 middle-aged, and 81 older participants completed measures of subjective well-being and personality traits. They described chapters and specific memories in their life stories and rated these on emotional tone and positive and negative self-event connections. Older participants scored higher on subjective well-being, rated their life stories as more positive, and scored lower on neuroticism compared with both young and middle-aged participants. Age differences in subjective well-being were mediated by life stories and neuroticism, with neuroticism being the strongest mediator. We suggest that changes in personality may enable older individuals to interpret events and themselves in a positive light, which help enhance their subjective well-being.     

The Relationship Between Secondary Traumatic Stress and Personal Posttraumatic Growth: Personality Factors as Moderators

This present study examined the relationship between secondary traumatic stress, personality factors, and personal posttraumatic growth for persons indirectly exposed to traumatic life events. A sample of 162 nurses and physicians completed the self-report measures describing symptoms of secondary traumatic stress, personality factors and vicarious posttraumatic growth. The results indicated that secondary traumatic stress negatively correlated with vicarious posttraumatic growth. Moreover, this relation is moderated by personality factors. A low level of secondary traumatic stress symptoms is associated with a higher level of perceived posttraumatic growth for participants with a high level of openness, agreeability and conscientiousness. These findings emphasize the differences in perceiving posttraumatic growth in the context of secondary exposure to traumatic life events.     

Quantifying Idiodynamics: A Process Approach to Personality Psychology

Rosenzweig's (1950) concept of idiodynamics is presented, and the importance of time in applied idiodynamics is stressed. Time-series analyses are proposed as one method for realizing the potential of idiodynamics for understanding and modeling individual lives. Building on this, and incorporating Cattell's (1966) notion of the data box, a process approach to personality research is proposed. This approach begins with idiodynamic analyses at the level of individual lives in an effort to identify patterns or themes, then proceeds to examine individual differences in the patterns or themes so identified. Examples of applying this process approach to personality questions are provided. These include identification of cycles in daily moods, assessing the link between each individual's moods and the events in his/her daily life, and the relation between repressive coping style and the experience of and memory for affect-charged life events. Conclusions emphasize how this approach can retain the appeal of the dynamic while maintaining the precision and rule-governed discourse afforded by quantification.     

Affect, personality, and social activity.

These studies examined relations between social activity and state and trait measures of Positive and Negative Affect. In Study 1 Ss completed scales relevant to 3-factor models of personality and a weekly mood and social activity questionnaire for 13 weeks. In Study 2 Ss completed measures of the 5-factor model of personality and a daily mood and social activity survey for 6-7 weeks. In within- and between-Ss analyses, socializing correlated significantly with state measures of Positive Affect and with trait measures of Extraversion/Positive Emotionality. These relations were relatively general across various types of positive affect and social events; however, specific types of social events also were differentially related to affect. In contrast, social activity had no consistent association with measures of Negative Affect or the other personality dimensions. The results support a temperamental view of Extraversion.     

Affect- and self-based models of relationships between daily events and daily well-being

The present study examined affect- self-based explanatory models of relationships between daily events and daily well-being. Twice a week for up to 10 weeks, participants described the events that occurred each day and provided measures of their daily affect, self-esteem, and depressogenic thinking. Participants also provided trait-level measures of affect, depression, and self-esteem. Measures of daily well-being representing each model covaried jointly and independently with daily negative and positive events. Positive events buffered the effects of negative events on daily self-esteem and daily depressogenic thinking, whereas there was no buffering effect for daily affect. More depressed people were more reactive to positive events, and those higher in trait PA were less reactive to negative events. Buffering effects for self-esteem were pronounced for those with lower trait self-esteem, and buffering effects for daily depressogenic adjustment were now more pronounced for those with higher trait negative affect. The results suggest that affect- and self-based models provide complementary perspectives on relationships between psychological well-being and daily events.     

Reactions to daily events as a function of familiarity with an environment

Undergraduate participants provided measures of their psychological well‐being and described the positive and negative events that occurred each day, once during the first and second semesters of an academic year. For four of the five measures of daily well‐being, reactivity to negative events decreased from the first to second semester, whereas for four of the five measures of well‐being, reactivity to positive events did not change over the year. These results suggest that familiarity with an environment moderates reactivity to negative daily events. As people become more familiar with an environment, negative events may elicit smaller decreases in well‐being. In contrast, increases in well‐being elicited by positive events appear to be unrelated to familiarity with the environment. More broadly, these differences suggest that the reactivity to positive and negative events reflect the operation of different processes. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personal Strivings, Daily Life Events, and Psychological and Physical Well-Being

Interactional models of life events and personality posit domains of vulnerability within which individuals are most likely to be affected by negative life events. A variation of this model was tested in a study of the separate as well as interactive effects of daily life events and personal strivings on psychological and physical well-being. Subjects listed 15 of their personal strivings,which were later categorized as reflecting either achievement, affiliation, intimacy, or power. For 21 consecutive days, subjects recorded up to eight events that most influenced their moods each day, and completed mood and physical symptom checklists. Power strivings were negatively correlated with well-being. Affiliation strivings were correlated with positive affect. No significant between-subject interactions occurred between strivings and events. However, within-subject analyses revealed several significant effects. Achievement-oriented individuals tended to be affected by good achievement events; similarly, the moods of affiliation- and intimacy-oriented individuals were affected by interpersonal events. Results are interpreted within a transactional framework, and implications for research on personality, life events, and well-being are discussed.     

Day-to-Day Physical Symptoms: Individual Differences in the Occurrence, Duration, and Emotional Concomitants of Minor Daily Illnesses

Even minor illnesses represent significant events in the ongoing lives of most people. As such, daily event methodologies could be applied to the study of ongoing health and illness. When daily health is considered as a temporal process, it is possible to expand our formulation of the relation between personality and day-to-day health. We used a daily event approach to model three temporal parameters of day-to-day health: the occurrence rate of symptoms, the duration of symptoms, and the covariation of symptoms and moods over time. We then examine whether these three models of day-to-day health are related to personality variables commonly used in health psychology research. The occurrence of illness related most strongly to neuroticism, the duration of illness related most strongly to the trait of aggressive responding, and Type A behavior related to less unpleasant affect reported during episodes of respiratory infection, aches, and depressive symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of how alternative models of health/illness are made possible by the daily event perspective.