Personality traits change in adulthood: reply to Costa and McCrae (2006)

In a response to comments by P. T. Costa, Jr., and R. R. McCrae on the current authors' original article, the authors show that Costa and McCrae's writings on personality suggest a belief in immutability of personality traits. The authors agree with Costa and McCrae that new personality trait models that provide an accurate lower order structure of personality traits are needed and explain why the Revised NEO Personality Inventory is not the correct model for that purpose. The authors provide direct evidence refuting the hypothesis that personality traits change only because of biologically based intrinsic maturation. The authors present arguments supporting the contention that meta-analyses should be preferred to single longitudinal studies when drawing inferences about general patterns of personality development. Finally, the authors point out why the differences between their position and Costa and McCrae's are important.     

Cross-sectional and longitudinal tests of the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model (PRISM)

A conceptual hierarchy termed the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model, or PRISM, is offered as a framework for incorporating situational information into trait models. PRISM assumes that personality is structured hierarchically with general dispositions subsuming context-specific dispositions (role identities), which, in turn, subsume role-based thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. At Wave 1 (N = 149), we found that general traits account for commonalities across traits measured within role identities and that role identities mediate the relationship between general traits and role criteria. In a longitudinal follow-up of a subsample of the original participants (Wave 2; N = 62), we found that general traits and role-identity traits were more stable than role experiences over time. Also, changes in role experiences were related to changes in role-identity traits, and, in turn, changes in role-identity traits were related to changes in general traits. The potential of PRISM for use in understanding the development of personality traits is discussed.     

Which comes first: employee attitudes or organizational financial and market performance?

Employee attitude data from 35 companies over 8 years were analyzed at the organizational level of analysis against financial (return on assets; ROA) and market performance (earnings per share: EPS) data using lagged analyses permitting exploration of priority in likely causal ordering. Analyses revealed statistically significant and stable relationships across various time lags for 3 of 7 scales. Overall Job Satisfaction and Satisfaction With Security were predicted by ROA and EPS more strongly than the reverse (although some of the reverse relationships were also significant); Satisfaction With Pay suggested a more reciprocal relationship with ROA and EPS. The discussion of results provides a preliminary framework for understanding issues surrounding employee attitudes, high-performance work practices, and organizational financial and market performance.     

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).     

Discriminators of suicide thoughts and attempts among homeless veterans who abuse substances

Six hundred homeless military veterans who abused substances were examined to determine what factors discriminate between nonsuicidal veterans, those who had suicidal thoughts, and persons who had attempted suicide. Several factors were considered based on attachment theory, including caregiver attachment, sexual abuse, physical abuse, resilience, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Suicide attempters were discriminated from others by psychiatric comorbidity, early abuse, severity of substance abuse, and longevity of drug use. In contrast, the discriminators between nonsuicidal homeless substance abusers and others were elements of attachment and commitments such as marriage, employment, and religiosity. Some implications of the findings for intervention are discussed.     

Stability of self-esteem across the life span

Two studies examined the rank-order stability of self-esteem from age 6 to 83: Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 50 published articles (N = 29,839) and Study 2 analyzed data from 4 large national studies (N = 74,381). Self-esteem showed substantial continuity over time (disattenuated correlations ranged from the .50s to .70s), comparable to the stability found for personality traits. Both studies provided evidence for a robust developmental trend: Self-esteem stability was low during childhood, increased throughout adolescence and young adulthood, and declined during midlife and old age. This trend could not be explained by age differences in the reliability of self-esteem measures, and generally replicated across gender, ethnicity, self-esteem scale, nationality (U.S. vs. non-U.S.), and year of publication.     

The metaphysics of quantity

A formal theory of quantity T _Q is presented which is realist, Platonist, and syntactically second-order (while logically elementary), in contrast with the existing formal theories of quantity developed within the theory of measurement, which are empiricist, nominalist, and syntactically first-order (while logically non-elementary). T _Q is shown to be formally and empirically adequate as a theory of quantity, and is argued to be scientifically superior to the existing first-order theories of quantity in that it does not depend upon empirically unsupported assumptions concerning existence of physical objects (e.g. that any two actual objects have an actual sum). The theory T _Q supports and illustrates a form of naturalistic Platonism, for which claims concerning the existence and properties of universals form part of natural science, and the distinction between accidental generalizations and laws of nature has a basis in the second-order structure of the world.     

The Ontogeny,Cultural Context,and Treatment of Disgust

This article links Lawrence Josephs’ valuable thoughts on The Treatment of Oedipal Disgust: When one Person’s Sexual Delight is Another’s Disgust to Freud’s ideas concerning negation and the origins of judgment. In keeping with a comparative-integrative spirit, the author references relevant concepts from diverse contributors, from classical to contemporary. Jacobson and Christensen’s acceptance approach that Josephs found useful in a couple’s treatment where disgust was a major issue is discussed in terms of how it might be seen from a variety of psychoanalytic perspectives, with particular reference to the founder of our discipline. The fundamental importance of boundaries is emphasized throughout, with disgust providing an excellent illustration of their significance to the establishment and protection of the self. The evolution of revulsion in individual and cultural development is described. Case material is introduced to illustrate potent links between oral disgust stimulated by relational stress and trauma in the first year of life and subsequent disgust (e.g., oedipal). Revulsion’s role in negative therapeutic reactions is examined.     

The Kind of Student You Were in Elementary School Predicts Mortality

We examined the association of self‐reported and teacher‐rated student characteristics assessed at the end of primary school with all‐cause mortality assessed through age 52. Data stem from a representative sample of students from Luxembourg assessed in 1968 (N = 2,543; M = 11.9 years, SD = 0.6; 49.9% female; N = 166 participants died). Results from logistic regression analyses showed that the self‐reported responsible student scale (OR = .81; CI = [.70; .95]) and the teacher rating of studiousness (OR = .80; CI = [.67; .96]) were predictive for all‐cause mortality even after controlling for IQ, parental SES, and sex. These findings indicate that both observer–rated and self–reported student behaviors are important life‐course predictors for mortality and are perhaps more important than childhood IQ.