Personality Traits as Potential Susceptibility Markers: Differential Susceptibility to Support Among Parents

In this study, we examined whether parents are differentially susceptible to support from their spouse and adolescent child depending on their personality traits, and whether differences in susceptibility to support among parents, in turn, are linked to the quality of support parents give to their children. Participants in this three‐wave longitudinal study were 288 two‐parent Dutch families with an adolescent child. Fathers were on average 43.9 years old (SD = 3.7 years), mothers were 41.7 years old (SD = 3.3 years), and adolescents (50% girls) were 14.5 years old (SD = 0.8 years). We found that the association between support from children toward their parents and subsequent support from parents toward their children was more pronounced for parents high on Openness, for better and for worse. Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability did not emerge as markers of differences in susceptibility. Also, parents did not differ in their susceptibility to support from their spouse, nor were differences in susceptibility found a year later when using data from a third wave. We found very modest support for differential susceptibility, only for Openness, and depending on the source of perceived support and on the timing of measurement.     

Just Another Face in the Crowd? Distinctiveness Seeking in Sweden and Britain

Previous literature on the impact of culture on distinctiveness seeking shows diverging predictions and inconclusive results. We propose that this may be partly due to the fact that distinctiveness can be sought on various levels of awareness. We theorize that cultural values will influence explicit, intentional forms of distinctiveness seeking, but will not necessarily moderate the underlying strength of the identity motive for distinctiveness. Participants in the UK and Sweden completed a measure of cultural values and explicit and implicit measures of distinctiveness seeking. National differences were found in two explicit measures of distinctiveness seeking, and these were partially mediated by individual differences in value priorities. However, no difference was found in our implicit measure of the distinctiveness motive. These findings highlight the importance of attending to the multi-faceted and culturally flexible nature of identity motives.     

Is longing only for Germans? A cross-cultural comparison of Sehnsucht in Germany and the United States

Sehnsucht, the longing or yearning for ideal yet seemingly unreachable states of life, is a salient topic in German culture and has proven useful for understanding self-regulation across adulthood in a German sample (e.g., Scheibe, Freund, & Baltes, 2007). The current study tested whether findings for German samples could be generalized to the more individualistic and agentic U.S. American culture. Four samples of U.S. American and German participants (total N = 1,276) age 18 to 81 years reported and rated their 2 most important life longings and completed measures of subjective well-being and health. Measurement equivalence was established at the level of factor loadings for central life longing characteristics. German and U.S. American participants did not differ in self-reported ease of identifying personal life longings or their intensity. In comparison to Germans, however, U.S. Americans associated life longings less with utopian, unattainable states and reported less salience of the concept in everyday life. Associations with measures of adaptation suggest that life longings can be both functional and dysfunctional for development in both cultures.     

How decisions evolve: The temporal dynamics of action selection

To study the process of decision-making under conflict, researchers typically analyze response latency and accuracy. However, these tools provide little evidence regarding how the resolution of conflict unfolds over time. Here, we analyzed the trajectories of mouse movements while participants performed a continuous version of a spatial conflict task (the Simon task). We applied a novel combination of multiple regression analysis and distribution analysis to determine how conflict on the present trial and carry-over from the previous trial affect responding. Response on the previous trial and the degree of conflict on the previous and the current trial all influenced performance, but they did so differently: The previous response influenced the early part of the mouse trajectory, but the degree of previous and current conflict influenced later parts. This suggests that in this task experiencing conflict may not proactively ready the system to handle conflict on the next trial; rather, when conflict is experienced on the subsequent trial the previous compensatory processing may be re-activated more efficiently.     

The Mediational Role of Parenting on the Longitudinal Relation Between Child Personality and Externalizing Behavior

ABSTRACT Building on prior cross‐sectional work, this longitudinal study evaluated the proposition that maternal and paternal overreactive and authoritative parenting mediates the effect of child personality characteristics on externalizing behavior. Data from the Flemish Study on Parenting, Personality, and Problem Behavior were used in a moderated mediation analysis (N=434). Teachers rated children's Big Five characteristics, fathers and mothers rated their parenting, and 3 years later, children rated their externalizing behavior. Mediational analysis revealed both direct and indirect effects. Higher levels of Extraversion and lower levels of Benevolence were related directly to higher levels of child externalizing behavior. Higher levels of paternal authoritative parenting and lower levels of maternal overreactivity were related to lower scores on externalizing behavior. In addition, the relation between Benevolence, Emotional Stability, and externalizing behavior was partially mediated by parental overreactivity. Conscientiousness had an indirect effect on externalizing behavior through paternal authoritative parenting. Relations were not moderated by child gender. This study is of theoretical interest because the results demonstrate that parenting is a mediating mechanism that accounts for associations between personality and externalizing behavior.     

Aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior in adolescence

This study examined whether a distinction between aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behavior can be empirically verified in a large (254 girls and 254 boys) nonclinical (community) sample of Dutch adolescents between 12 and 18 years old. The results of confirmatory factor analysis for both boys and girls shows that aggressive and nonaggressive antisocial behaviors do not represent a single underlying dimension, but two separate constructs with moderate independence among them. These findings suggest that the conceptualization of adolescent antisocial behavior as a one-dimensional phenomenon is of questionable utility and supports growing evidence that aggressive antisocial behavior is distinct from other forms of antisocial behavior.