Integrating the dynamics of personality and close relationship processes: methodological and data analytic implications

A common theme that has emerged from classic and contemporary theoretical work in both the fields of personality and relationship science is a focus on process. Current process-focused theories bearing on personality invoke a view of the individual in ongoing action and interaction with the environment, reflecting a flow of experience rather than a static depiction. To understand the processes by which personality interacts with the social environment (particularly dyads), investigations must capture individuals interacting in multiple interpersonal situations, which likely necessitates complex study designs and corresponding data analytic strategies. Using an illustrative simulated data set, we focus on diary methods and corresponding individual and dyadic multilevel models to capture person-situation interaction within the context of processes in daily close relationship life. Finally, we consider future directions that conceptualize personality and close relationship processes from a dynamical systems theoretical and methodological perspective.     

Optimistic personality and psychosocial well-being during treatment predict psychosocial well-being among long-term survivors of breast cancer.

In considering well-being among survivors of life-threatening illnesses such as breast cancer, 2 important questions are whether there is continuity between initial adjustment and longer term adjustment and what role personality plays in long-term adjustment. In this research, a sample of 163 early stage breast cancer patients whose psychosocial adjustment was first assessed during the year after surgery completed the same measures 5-13 years after surgery. Initial reports of well-being were relatively strong predictors of follow-up well-being on the same measures. Initial optimism and marital status also predicted follow-up adjustment, even controlling for earlier adjustment, which exerted a substantial unique effect in multivariate analyses. In contrast, initial medical variables played virtually no predictive role. There is substantial continuity of subjective well-being across many years among survivors of breast cancer, rooted partly in personality and social connection.     

Perceived stress management skill mediates the relationship between optimism and positive mood following radical prostatectomy.

This study evaluated relations among optimism, perceived stress management skills (PSMS),and positive mood in 46 men who had surgical treatment for localized prostate cancer. The authors found that optimism, PSMS, and positive mood scores were positively correlated. Positive mood was unrelated to demographic and disease-related control variables. In a hierarchical regression model controlling for PSMS, the relationship between optimism and positive mood became nonsignificant, whereas PSMS remained a correlate of positive mood. Results suggest that the relationship between optimism and positive mood may be mediated by belief in being able to use stress management techniques effectively.     

Concerns about breast cancer and relations to psychosocial well-being in a multiethnic sample of early-stage patients.

Much work on psychosocial sequelae of breast cancer has been guided by the assumption that body image and partner reaction issues are focal. In a tri-ethnic sample of 223 women treated for early-stage breast cancer within the prior year, the authors assessed a wider range of concerns and relations to well-being. Strongest concerns were recurrence, pain, death, harm from adjuvant treatment, and bills. Body-image concerns were moderate; concern about rejection was minimal. Younger women had stronger sexual and partner-related concerns than older women. Hispanic women had many stronger concerns and more disruption than other women. Life and pain concerns and sexuality concerns contributed uniquely to predicting emotional and psychosexual disruption; life and pain concerns and rejection concerns contributed to predicting social disruption. In sum, adaptation to breast cancer is a process bearing on several aspects of the patient's life space.