Personality Development at Work: Workplace Conditions,Personality Changes,and the Corresponsive Principle

Investigations concerning adult personality development have increasingly focused on factors that are associated with apparent personality trait changes. The current study contributes to this literature by replicating and extending previous research concerning personality trait development in young adulthood and perceptions of workplace conditions. Analyses were based on up to 442 individuals who participated in the ongoing Family Transitions Project (e.g., Conger & Conger, 2002). The current analyses included personality trait data from 1994 and 2003, high school grades and socioeconomic status indicators from 1994, and reports about work conditions in 2001, 2003, and 2005. Personality attributes were prospectively associated with work conditions and income. Findings also support the corresponsive principle of personality development (e.g., Roberts, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2003): Traits that were prospectively associated with particular workplace conditions often seemed to be accentuated by those conditions. Personality traits are prospectively associated with perceptions of the workplace. Workplace conditions are also associated with trait development.     

Differential Item Functioning on Antisocial Behavior Scale Items for Adolescents and Young Adults from Single-Parent and Two-Parent Families

We investigated measurement equivalence in two antisocial behavior scales (i.e., one scale for adolescents and a second scale for young adults) by examining differential item functioning (DIF) for respondents from single-parent (n = 109) and two-parent families (n = 447). Even though one item in the scale for adolescents and two items in the scale for young adults showed significant DIF, the two scales exhibited non-significant differential test functioning (DTF). Both uniform and nonuniform DIF were investigated and examples of each type were identified. Specifically, uniform DIF was exhibited in the adolescent scale whereas nonuniform DIF was shown in the young adult scale. Implications of DIF results for assessment of antisocial behavior, along with strengths and limitations of the study, are discussed.     

Contextual amplification of pubertal transition effects on deviant peer affiliation and externalizing behavior among African American children.

The effects of the pubertal transition on behavior problems and its interaction with family and neighborhood circumstances were examined with a sample of 867 African American children 10-12 years of age. Pubertal development status, pubertal timing, and primary caregivers' parenting behaviors were significantly related to affiliation with deviant peers and externalizing behaviors. Externalizing behavior among early-maturing children was associated positively with primary caregivers' use of harsh-inconsistent discipline and negatively with nurturant-involved parenting practices. Disadvantaged neighborhood conditions were significantly associated with deviant peer affiliation. The effect of pubertal transition varied according to family and neighborhood conditions: Early-maturing children living in disadvantaged neighborhoods were significantly more likely to affiliate with deviant peers. Early-maturing children with harsh and inconsistent parents were significantly more likely to have externalizing problems.     

The effect of social cues on the eating behavior of obese and normal subjects1

Schachter's externality hypothesis suggests that overweight individuals are more likely to be induced to eat by salient external cues than normal weight individuals. While a range of studies have demonstrated the plausibility of this hypothesis in the case of sensory stimuli (e.g., taste cues), there is little evidence that the hypothesis applies to social stimuli. The current study examines this latter proposition by exposing male and female, overweight and normal weight subjects to a same-sex or opposite-sex peer model. Under the guise of engaging in a taste experiment, the subjects were either exposed to a model who tasted experiment, the subjects were either exposed to a model who tasted no crackers (no eat), one cracker (low eat), or twenty crackers (high eat). In addition, control model-absent conditions were also run for purposes of establishing baseline eating rates. If the externality hypotheses were to prevail in social domains, one would expect overweight subjects to be more prone to model the cracker-eating behavior of the peer than normal weight individuals. However, the findings indicate that all subject groups regardless of weight evidence a rather clear modeling effect and all subjects evidence social inhibition effects on their eating behavior as well. Several intriguing interactions among subject sex, model sex, subject weight, and social condition were also found. The discussion explores the relevance of an externality model of overweight eating in social domains, and focuses upon the interesting and somewhat distinct pattern of socially mediated eating exhibited by overweight females.     

Sex differences in developmental trends of suicide ideation, plans, and attempts among European American adolescents

Although suicide ideation, plans, and attempts increase during adolescence, it remains unclear whether boys' and girls' risk for these outcomes peaks at different ages. We used longitudinal categorical data (never, once, 2+ times) from the Family Transitions Project (N = 1,248 rural European Americans, ages 11-19) to investigate whether yearly prevalence rates of adolescent suicidal episodes follow different patterns by sex. Multiple-group growth models revealed that peak levels of past-year ideation and plans occurred during mid adolescence for girls, but slowly increased through late adolescence for boys. We found that prevalence patterns for attempts were very similar for boys and girls, with both increasing through mid adolescence and then declining, although girls' risk declined slightly more rapidly. This information may help alert gatekeepers to developmental periods during which boys and girls are particularly vulnerable to suicide-related experiences, and also may help inform the timing of preventive efforts.     

Personality, family history, and competence in early adult romantic relationships

The present investigation tested how well family characteristics and the personality traits assessed by the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (A. Tellegen, 1982) measured in late adolescence predict aspects of romantic relationships in early adulthood. Nurturant-involved parenting practices and personality traits were related to observed negative interactions and to couples' reports of relationship quality. These results from a prospective longitudinal study suggest that the origins of competence in romantic relationships can be found both in individual differences in personality (especially in negative emotionality) and in differences in developmental experiences. Discussion further develops an account of relationship success and dysfunction that integrates proximal factors, such as couple interactions, with more distal factors such as personality and socialization experiences.     

Economic pressure in African American families: a replication and extension of the family stress model

This study of 422 two-caregiver African American families, each with a 10-11-year-old focal child (54% girls), evaluated the applicability of the family stress model of economic hardship for understanding economic influences on child development in this population. The findings generally replicated earlier research with European American families. The results showed that economic hardship positively relates to economic pressure in families. Economic pressure was related to the emotional distress of caregivers, which in turn was associated with problems in the caregiver relationship. These problems were related to disrupted parenting practices, which predicted lower positive child adjustment and higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The results provide significant support for the family stress model of economic hardship and its generalizability to diverse populations.     

The relationship of anger and social skills to psychological symptoms

The link between anger, social skills, and psychological symptoms was investigated in a college population. Seven hundred and nine individuals were administered the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory, the Anger Inventory, the Social Problem Solving Inventory, the Social Skills Inventory, and a series of questions about the degree to which anger affected their lives. Symptomatology was measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory and served as the criterion measure for a series of multiple regression analyses. Results indicated that both anger and social factors related to measures of psychological distress. Implications of the relationship between anger, social skills, and psychological symptoms are discussed in terms of research and assessment of individuals who may suffer from anger problems.     

A direct nomination method for the identification of neglected members in children's peer groups

This paper describes two studies that compared a direct nomination method for identifying the neglected members of children's peer groups with the commonly used derived social impact score method. In the first study, first-grade children were asked to nominate peers to a neglect dimension in addition to the traditional sociometric dimensions of like and dislike. Both neglect and social impact scores were quite stable over time. Social impact scores were significantly more stable than neglect scores when the full range of scores was considered; however, when the two measures were compared in terms of the stability with which children are identified as extreme scores, the two methods were equally reliable. In spite of this similarity, the two measures identified different children as extreme scorers on each occasion. In an attempt to explain this confusion, the second study investigated the patterns of correlations between observed behaviors and directly nominated neglect, like, and dislike scores and derived social preference and social impact scorers. Results indicated that directly nominated neglect scores were correlated with observed behavioral variables that are consistent with the notion of social neglect. Derived social impact scores were related to observed behavioral variables exactly as their component parts (directly nominated like and dislike scores) were related to these variables; thus, they carried little new information.     

Behavior, Attitudes, and Cognitions of Anger-Prone Individuals

This research explored facets of anger based on a multidimensional-associationistic conceptualization (Berkowitz, 1994) that includes antecedents, behavior, cognitions, and experiential response dimensions. High and low anger-prone individuals responded to six audiotaped situations validated in previous work to be anger provoking. Participants evaluated their own audiotaped responses, as did peer judges. Participants also completed the Social Problem Solving Inventory (SPSI) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and they reported on the effect of anger experiences in their lives. Neither self nor peer ratings of the audiotaped responses differentiated the behavior of anger groups. High and low anger-prone individuals, however, differed in the way that they viewed the consequences of their behavior and how anger affected them in general. Furthermore, high anger-prone individuals had elevated levels of pathology on eight of the nine scales of the BSI and scored significantly lower on the SPSI. Results are discussed in terms of assessment of anger proneness, its relationship to psychopathology and implications for future work.