Variability in Personality Expression Across Contexts: A Social Network Approach

The current research investigated how the contextual expression of personality differs across interpersonal relationships. Two related studies were conducted with college samples (Study 1: N = 52, 38 female; Study 2: N = 111, 72 female). Participants in each study completed a five‐factor measure of personality and constructed a social network detailing their 30 most important relationships. Participants used a brief Five‐Factor Model scale to rate their personality as they experience it when with each person in their social network. Multiple informants selected from each social network then rated the target participant's personality (Study 1: N = 227, Study 2: N = 777). Contextual personality ratings demonstrated incremental validity beyond standard global self‐report in predicting specific informants' perceptions. Variability in these contextualized personality ratings was predicted by the position of the other individuals within the social network. Across both studies, participants reported being more extraverted and neurotic, and less conscientious, with more central members of their social networks. Dyadic social network–based assessments of personality provide incremental validity in understanding personality, revealing dynamic patterns of personality variability unobservable with standard assessment techniques.     

On the conditions necessary for obtaining argument structure complexity effects.

Schmauder (1991), studying eye movements during reading, cross-modal naming, and cross-modal lexical decision (CMLD) tasks, failed to find evidence of verb argument structure complexity as Shapiro, Zurif, and Grimshaw (1987) had reported for the CMLD task. Shapiro, Brookins, Gordon, and Nagel (1991) suggested that Schmauder did not detect the effect in the CMLD task because the monosyllabic secondary lexical decision (LD) probes she used did not produce enough processing load to detect an effect of argument structure complexity. The present experiment compared the LD probes used by Schmauder with the LD probes used by Shapiro et al. (1987) and failed to find any evidence for the argument structure complexity effect for either type of probe.     

Book reviews

Commons, M. L., Herrnstein, R. J. and Wagner, A. R. (Eds.). Quantitative analyses of behavior. Vol. 3: Acquisition. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1983. Pp. xxiii + 468. ISBN 0-88410-740-X. $55.00.

Keehn, J. D. Animal models for psychiatry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1985. Pp. 251. ISBN 0-7102-0562-7. £20.00.

Le Magnen, J. Hunger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985. Pp. 157. ISBN 0-521-26450-2. £20.00 (Hardback). ISBN 0-521-31122-5. £7.95 (Paperback).     

Book reviews

Balsam, P. D. and Tomie, A. (Eds.) Context and learning. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1985. Pp. xi+ 419. ISBN 0-89859-442-1. £39.95.

Greenberg, G. and Tobach, E. (Eds.). Behavioral evolution and integrative levels: The T. C. Schneirla Conference Series. Hillsdale, N. J., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. 307. ISBN 0-89859-363-8. $34.50. £28.75.

Commons, M. L. and Nevin, J. A. (Eds.). Quantitative analyses of behavior. Vol. 1: Discriminative properties of reinforcement schedules. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger. 1981. Pp. xxvii + 437. ISBN 0-88410-377-3 (v.1). Hardback. $42.50.

Lynch, G., McGaugh, J. L. and Weinberger, N. M. (Eds.). The neurobiology of learning and memory. New York: The Guilford Press. 1984. Pp. 528. ISBN 0-89862-645-5. £65.00.

Toates, F. M. Motivational systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986. ISBN 0-521-26854-0 (Hardback) £22.50; ISBN 0-521-31894-7 (Paperback) £7.95.