Personality Trait Development and Social Investment in Work

A longitudinal study of employed individuals was used to test the relationship between social investment at work—the act of cognitively and emotionally committing to one’s job—and longitudinal and cross-sectional personality trait development. Participants provided ratings of personality traits and social investment at work at two time-points, separated by approximately 3 years. Data were analyzed using latent change models. Cross-sectional results showed that extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability were related to social investment at work. Additionally, a positive association was found between longitudinal change in social investment in work and change in personality traits—especially conscientiousness. Finally, the correlated changes in social investment and personality traits were invariant across age groups, suggesting that personality traits remain malleable across the lifespan.     

The mini-IPIP scales: tiny-yet-effective measures of the Big Five factors of personality

The Mini-IPIP, a 20-item short form of the 50-item International Personality Item Pool-Five-Factor Model measure (Goldberg, 1999), was developed and validated across five studies. The Mini-IPIP scales, with four items per Big Five trait, had consistent and acceptable internal consistencies across five studies (= at or well above .60), similar coverage of facets as other broad Big Five measures (Study 2), and test-retest correlations that were quite similar to the parent measure across intervals of a few weeks (Study 4) and several months (Study 5). Moreover, the Mini-IPIP scales showed a comparable pattern of convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity (Studies 2-5) with other Big Five measures. Collectively, these results indicate that the Mini-IPIP is a psychometrically acceptable and practically useful short measure of the Big Five factors of personality.     

Choosing among multiple alternatives: Relative and overall reinforcer rates

Choice behavior among two alternatives has been widely researched, but fewer studies have examined the effect of multiple (more than two) alternatives on choice. Two experiments investigated whether changing the overall reinforcer rate affected preference among three and four concurrently scheduled alternatives. Experiment 1 trained six pigeons on concurrent schedules with three alternatives available simultaneously. These alternatives arranged reinforcers in a ratio of 9:3:1 with the configuration counterbalanced across pigeons. The overall rate of reinforcement was varied across conditions. Preference between the pair of keys arranging the 9:3 reinforcer ratio was less extreme than the pair arranging the 3:1 reinforcer ratio regardless of overall reinforcer rate. This difference was attributable to the richer alternative receiving fewer responses per reinforcer than the other alternatives. Experiment 2 trained pigeons on concurrent schedules with four alternatives available simultaneously. These alternatives arranged reinforcers in a ratio of 8:4:2:1, and the overall reinforcer rate was varied. Next, two of the alternatives were put into extinction and the random interval duration was changed from 60 s to 5 s. The ratio of absolute response rates was independent of interval length across all conditions. In both experiments, an analysis of sequences of visits following each reinforcer showed that the pigeons typically made their first response to the richer alternative irrespective of which alternative was just reinforced. Performance on these three‐ and four‐alternative concurrent schedules is not easily extrapolated from corresponding research using two‐alternative concurrent schedules.     

Propositions for the Study of Moral Personality Development

Most of us have at one point speculated about why one individual grew up to be honest and fair while another became wicked and untrustworthy. In the current review, we present the case that new directions in the empirical study of moral personality development are needed. We set the stage for this future work by presenting six propositions that should serve as the foundation for future research in the field. We conclude by providing an example of how using a more integrative and inclusive framework for studying personality can readily incorporate these propositions.     

Compound-stimulus information processing by 3-month-old infants

According to Cohen's (1973) component-compound developmental hypothesis, before 20 weeks of age, infants do not process compound-stimulus information when presented with simple colored forms. This hypothesis was examined in the present study. Eighty 3-month-old infants were presented with novel and familiar simple colored forms (e.g., red square vs. green square). Conditions were controlled so that novelty discriminations based on component- or compound-stimulus information could be separated. Contrary to the component-compound developmental hypothesis, the results indicate that by 12 weeks of age infants encode compound-stimulus information when presented with simple colored forms. These results are discussed in terms of the property-set model of stimulus recognition (Hayes-Roth & Hayes-Roth, 1977).     

Revaluating the evidence for the General Factor of Personality in the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire: Concerns about Rushton and Irwing (2009)

We evaluated whether the Big Five-based hierarchical model for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) reported by Rushton and Irwing (2009) would replicate in a second sample of 733 participants. We were unable to confirm their hierarchical model and detected problems with the reporting of the original results. Exploratory factor analytic investigations generally supported the canonical three factor solution for the MPQ described in the existing literature. This was the case for both the present dataset and for the correlation matrix analyzed by Rushton and Irwing.     

Concurrent and prospective relationships between social engagement and personality traits in older adulthood

The current research examined the longitudinal relationship between social engagement and personality traits in older adults. Specifically, the present research examined how engagement in family and community roles related to conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability in a sample of 100 Illinois residents age 60-86 years assessed twice over a period of 2.5 years. Social engagement and personality traits were related in three ways. First, concurrent relationships during Wave 1 suggested that agreeable older adults are more socially engaged. Next, Wave 1 standing on both personality traits and social engagement predicted respective change over time. In addition, changes in engagement and personality traits covaried over time. The specific patterns presented in this study suggest that although some relationships were consistent with research findings in young adulthood and midlife, role investment in old age may have a distinctly different meaning than role investment earlier in the life span. These patterns suggest that personality traits can both inform our understanding of engagement during older adulthood and that personality traits may be meaningful outcomes of the aging experience in their own right. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Creating partially deleted objects for perception research

Line drawings are commonly used in perception research. A basic strategy used in such research is to remove portions of the line drawings in order to determine what features of an object are important for recognition. However, it is important to monitor the amount of contour and type of information that are deleted when one is making partially deleted or fragmented objects. With the Image Fragmenting Program, researchers can use random or manual contour deletion strategies to create fragmented objects while controlling for the amount of contour removed from the images.     

Reexamining the vocabulary spurt

The authors asked whether there is evidence to support the existence of the vocabulary spurt, an increase in the rate of word learning that is thought to occur during the 2nd year of life. Using longitudinal data from 38 children, they modeled the rate of word learning with two functions, one with an inflection point (logistic), which would indicate a spurt, and one without an inflection point (quadratic). Comparing the fits of these two functions using likelihood ratios, they found that just 5 children had a better logistic fit, which indicated that these children underwent a spurt. The implications for theories of cognitive and language development are considered.