Resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality prototypes in childhood: replicability, predictive power, and the trait-type issue.

In a longitudinal study, Q-sort patterns of German preschool children were analyzed for personality prototypes and related to developmental outcomes up to age 12. Q-factor analyses confirmed 3 prototypic patterns that showed a high continuity and cross-judge consistency; were similar to those found for North American, Dutch, and Icelandic children; and can be interpreted as resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled. Relations reported by R. W. Robins, O. P. John, A. Caspi, T. E. Moffitt, & M. Stouthamer-Loeber (1996) between these 3 patterns and the Big Five were fully replicated. Growth curve analyses showed that the 3 patterns predicted important developmental outcomes in both the social and the cognitive domains. Evidence was found for both traits and types: A continuous dimension of resiliency bifurcates in its lower part into two relatively discrete personality types, overcontrollers and undercontrollers.     

Five types of personality continuity in childhood and adolescence

This study examines 5 types of personality continuity--structural, mean-level, individual-level, differential, and ipsative--in a representative population (N=498) and a twin and sibling sample (N=548) of children and adolescents. Parents described their children on 2 successive occasions with a 36-month interval using the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (I. Mervielde & F. De Fruyt, 1999). There was evidence for structural continuity in the 2 samples, and personality was shown to be largely differentially stable. A large percentage had a stable trait profile indicative of ipsative stability, and mean-level personality changes were generally small in magnitude. Continuity findings were explained mainly by genetic and nonshared environmental factors.     

The predictive power of low-arousal positive affect

Motivation and Emotion - Relative to high-arousal positive affect (HAPA), low-arousal positive affect (LAPA) is less likely to be included in research on positive affect and emotion. To gauge the...     

Empirical significance,predictive power,and explication

Synthese - Criteria of empirical significance are supposed to state conditions under which (putative) reference to an unobservable object or property is “empirically meaningful”. The...     

Evidence of 12-year predictive and concurrent validity for SII Occupational Scale scores

This longitudinal study assessed the power of the Occupational Scales (OSs) of the Strong Interest Inventory to predict the participants’ occupations 12 years after Time 1 testing, 8 years after Time 2 testing, and concurrently at Time 3. Results indicated that OS scores predicted occupational membership at a level substantially higher than chance at all three points in time. Eight-year and concurrent prediction hit rates were not significantly different from each other but were significantly higher than 12-year hit rates. No significant gender differences were found, and OSs predicted membership equally well for occupations that corresponded directly to those represented on the SII profile and occupations indirectly represented on the inventory. These findings are important for informing counseling practice and providing validity evidence for SII scale scores.     

Long-term predictive validity of the WPPSI: An 11-year follow-up study

As part of a longitudinal study, a control group of 85 children were tested on the WPPSI at 5$\text{1}\text{2}$ years and the WISC-R at 16$\text{1}\text{2}$ years. Educational attainment was also assessed in adolescence. Data are presented illustrating the long-term predictive validity of the WPPSI. The Full Scale IQs on the two tests intercorrelated +0.86.     

Fulfillment of promise: 40-year follow-up of creative adolescent girls

A 40-yr. follow-up study of 7 women from among 10 identified as exceptionally creative during adolescence indicated that all had achieved moderate success in one or more artistic domains. A self-report measure of creative achievement was used, and influences which facilitated and inhibited creativity were described by the women. A continuing creative self-concept and social support were the most commonly cited facilitative factors, while financial concerns were listed as one of the primary inhibitors of further achievement.     

Revisiting the predictive power of thinking styles for academic performance

The present study is a further examination of the contributions of thinking styles to academic achievement (see L-F. Zhang, 2001a, 2001b, 2002f; L-F. Zhang & R. J. Sternberg, 1998). Secondary school students in Hong Kong (N = 250; 131 from a Catholic boys' school and 119 from a Protestant girls' school) participated in the study. Students' scores on the Thinking Styles Inventory (R. J. Sternberg & R. K. Wagner, 1992) were used to predict their academic achievement in 16 subjects after age, gender, school class level, and performance on the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test (R. J. Sternberg, 1993) were controlled. Results indicated that the use of the hierarchical thinking style significantly contributed to better achievement in the social sciences and humanities and that the use of the judicial style uniquely contributed to better achievement in the natural sciences. The use of the monarchic thinking style significantly predicted students' achievement in design and technology. The results of this study suggest that thinking styles should be taken into account in school settings and that thinking styles that generate creativity should be cultivated in students.     

Predictors and consequences of childhood depressive symptoms: a 5-year longitudinal study.

A 5-year longitudinal study investigated the interrelationships among children's experiences of depressive symptoms, negative life events, explanatory style, and helplessness behaviors in social and achievement situations. The results revealed that early in childhood, negative events, but not explanatory style, predicted depressive symptoms; later in childhood, a pessimistic explanatory style emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, alone and in conjunction with negative events. When children suffered periods of depression, their explanatory styles not only deteriorated but remained pessimistic even after their depression subsided, presumably putting them at risk for future episodes of depression. Some children seem repeatedly prone to depressive symptoms over periods of at least 2 years. Depressed children consistently showed helpless behaviors in social and achievement settings.     

Estimating the Expected Replicability of a Pattern of Correlations and Other Measures of Association

Replication is at the heart of all empirical sciences. However, there are no standard procedures for establishing the replicability of a pattern of correlations found linking a particular variable to an inventory or battery of other measures. This article introduces 2 statistics for quantifying the expected replicability of a pattern of associations (i.e., correlations, slope coefficients) between a variable of interest and a SET of other variables, items, measures, and so on. Using simulations and real data, we illustrate that these statistics are highly accurate estimates of the expected replicability of an observed pattern of correlations. These statistics can readily be used to indicate the replicability of patterns of association indexed by other statistics (e.g., regression slopes or covariances) and can be applied to other contexts, such as estimating the reliability of profile correlations. It is recommended that these statistics are regularly reported in such studies.     

Head‐to‐head comparison of the predictive validity of personality types and dimensions

The utility of a configural type approach for predictions from personality is currently controversial. Configural types predict important personality correlates, but continuous dimensions based on the same data often fare much better in cross‐sectional head‐to‐head comparisons. However, many such comparisons can be considered unfair to the type approach, confound diverse differences between type and dimensional approaches, and rely only on cross‐sectional data. A sequence of analyses is reported that include fairer comparisons and deconfound differences due to the number of predictors, categorical versus dimensional predictors, dichotomized dimensions versus configural types, dimensional versus type criterion variables, and cross‐sectional versus longitudinal predictions. The results suggest incremental validity of configural types over dimensions only in a very few cases. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Paths of psychological health: Examination of 40-year trajectories from the Intergenerational Studies

Patterns of stability and change in psychological health, as assessed via the California Psychological Inventory’s v3 scale, are examined in two long-term longitudinal samples (N = 279). Longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicate a modest, but significant, linear increase in v3 from age 33 to 75 for the sample as a whole, with significant individual differences in v3 change also evident. When psychological health is categorized as either high or low, using a v3 cut-off score of 36, the majority of individuals show stable high psychological health from age 33 to 75; significant minorities show stable low, increased, and decreased psychological health with age. Differential patterns of psychological health change are successfully predicted by preadult psychological health resources, adult cognitive and social resources, and early adult norm-orientation. Overall, results illustrate the complexity of normal adult development, and the differential mechanisms involved in maintaining, attaining, and losing psychological health over a 40-year period.     

The predictive power of Cattell's personality questionnaires: An eighteen month prospective study

An 18 month prospective study of personality traits (as assessed by Cattell's Children's Personality Questionnaire and Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire) was conducted on twin pairs and their parents. The primary personality trait scores for both the adults and children had relatively low stability over the 18 month interval; in addition, in some cases, the inter-factor stability coefficients exceeded the intra-factor coefficients. This finding, coupled with the lack of parent/offspring similarity for the primary personality traits, places in question the predictive power of Cattell's personality questionnaires. A factor analysis on the original items indicated that 5 oblique factors for the children and 6 oblique factors for the adults need be retained. These factors were not only more stable than the primary trait scores, but they also did not have such high inter-factor stability coefficients. Except for Neuroticism and IQ, the adult and juvenile factors do not show structural similarities.