Edited by Yavor Dragostinov and Lisanne de Moor
This Newsletter edition features summaries from published work from EJP’s September-October issue. Whenever you have time, make sure to check the full manuscripts which are all freely available for a limited time.
The articles published in this issue include predictable correlations between person-descriptive items; the importance of goals that aim to change or maintain personality traits; a meta-analysis on the different general causality orientations in Self-Determination Theory; the impact of inclusion on self-esteem in children; the experiences associated with psychological richness.
September-October
Correlations between person-descriptive items are predictable from the product of their mid-point-centered social desirability values
Daniel Leising, Diana Vogel, Vincent Waller & Johannes Zimmermann
The ways in which we use words to describe people does not only reflect the actual characteristics that we think the described persons possess. They also reflect the more positive or negative attitudes that we have toward those persons (the "targets"): The same person may be called "brilliant" or "knowitall", depending on how much you like them. Leising and colleagues present a formalized model of these matters, building on decades of previous theorizing and evidence. The extent to which the use of a word (“item”) expresses a positive or negative attitude toward a target (its "social desirability value") can be rated by laypersons with good agreement. The model permits predictions as to how strongly any two items should correlate with one another, based solely on their social desirability values. This is relevant because such correlations constitute the empirical backbone of much of the field of psychometrics which investigates the measurement of mental attributes.
Leising and colleagues examined the predictions made by the model regarding correlations between items based on their social desirability values. The results confirmed the predictions lending considerable support to their theoretical model. The results also show that one may easily devise psychometric scales with seemingly good properties ("internal consistency") based on the shared social desirability of the scale's items, even when the specific content of the item (e.g., intelligence vs. personality) is mixed randomly. Constructing or using psychometric measures without considering these implications is likely to lead to erroneous conclusions about the targets, and about the measures themselves.
You can’t always get what you want: The role of change goal importance, goal feasibility and momentary experiences for volitional personality development
Anna J Lücke, Martin Quintus, Boris Egloff & Cornelia Wrzus
Although previous studies have demonstrated that purposely engaging in systematic interventions can foster Big Five trait changes, it remains an open question whether naturally occurring goals to change (“change goals”) can also lead to personality change. Addressing this question is important as it could inform practitioners and the general public whether it is possible to change personality traits in desired directions without professional interventions.
Lücke and colleagues examined associations between naturally occurring goals and changes in self-reported Big Five traits which were assessed four times across the span of two years in a sample of 382 adults. The authors evaluated trait-relevant momentary situations in multiple waves of daily diaries over the first year. Additionally, perceived importance and feasibility of change goals were analysed as potentially moderating factors. Contrary to the authors’ hypotheses, the results showed that neither change goals nor goal importance or feasibility were consistently associated with trait change. Importantly, change goals did not predict trait-relevant behaviour in daily life either.
The study findings suggest that having goals to change certain aspects of one’s personality, regardless of importance or feasibility, is not directly linked to daily behaviour, which might explain the absence of desired trait changes. Instead, professional interventions might be necessary to achieve volitional personality change.
General causality orientations in Self-Determination Theory: Meta-analysis and test of a process model
Martin Hagger & Kyra Hamilton
Self-Determination Theory is a prominent psychological theory on human motivation and behaviour, which focuses on the qualities or content of motivation, rather than quantity, as the key determinant of behaviour. Most of the research applying self-determination theory has focused on the forms of motivation individuals experience when interacting with an environment that gives rise to such forms of motivation. However, less attention has been paid to individual differences in the types of motivation specified in Causality Orientations Theory, a sub-theory of Self-Determination Theory.
The central premise of causality orientations theory is that individuals differ in the extent to which they interpret the cause of their behaviour as either emanating from the self or emanating from others or external events. Three causality orientation dimensions are proposed:
1- Autonomy, an orientation toward events in the environment that supports their autonomous motivation.
2- Control, an orientation toward being controlled by external events that undermine autonomous motivation.
3- Interpersonal, a tendency to interpret their actions as beyond their intentional control.
Hagger and Hamilton meta-analysed 83 studies on causality orientations, forms of motivation, and behaviour. Their findings were consistent with the effects across personality research: individual differences in causality orientations have pervasive but small effects on the types of motivation adopted by individuals.
In other words – although motivation has a substantial impact on our behaviour, our beliefs about what causes that motivation do not greatly impact the specific motivation one has.
Evaluating sociometer theory in children’s everyday lives: Inclusion, but not exclusion by peers at school is related to within-day change in self-esteem
Andrea Schmidt, Judith Dirk, Andreas B. Neubauer & Florian Schmiedek
Empirical research has shown that self-esteem is positively associated with a variety of well-being outcomes such as happiness or life and job satisfaction, and negatively associated with anxiety, internalizing behaviour, neuroticism, and depression. This apparent importance of self-esteem provokes the question of what might influence it.
According to sociometer theory, self-esteem serves as a permanent monitor of perceived social inclusion and exclusion. Therefore, people experience high self-esteem in situations where they feel socially included and liked, and low self-esteem in situations where they feel excluded or ostracized.
In three intensive longitudinal studies, Schmidt and colleagues examined whether children’s self-esteem was associated with social inclusion and exclusion by peers at school. Children between the ages of 9 and 12 reported state self-esteem twice per day (morning and evening) and social inclusion and exclusion once per day for two (Study 1) or four weeks (Study 2-3). Consistently across the studies, social inclusion positively predicted evening self-esteem on within- and between-person levels. By contrast, social exclusion was not associated with evening self-esteem on the within-person level. Only in Study 1, higher perceived social exclusion was linked to lower evening self-esteem on the between-person level. Moreover, children’s self-esteem changed from mornings (before school) to evenings (after school) depending on their perceived daily social inclusion, but not exclusion.
Further research is needed for a deeper understanding of social feedback, which can either contribute to adjustment and well-being, or maladjustment and psychopathology by shaping trait self-esteem. However, this study provides important first insights into the impact of inclusion in children’s everyday lives.
Experiences associated with psychological richness
Shigehiro Oishi, Hyewon Choi, Ailin Liu & Jaime Kurtz
Psychologists tend to conceptualize a good life either in terms of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. In the current study, Oishi and colleagues explored another form of good life: the psychologically rich life. In other words, the concept of life is characterized by varied, interesting experiences that result in a change in one’s perspective. The present work featured multiple studies. All samples were evaluated for psychological richness as well as satisfaction, positive affect and meaning in life.
A. In Study 1, 203 participants participated in a 14-day daily diary study.
B. For Study 2, the authors compared 97 Chinese participants studying in the United States with 169 Chinese subjects studying in China.
C. For Study 3, the authors conducted a 12-week weekly survey, as they compared 43 American subjects studying abroad and 100 American participants studying in the United States.
D. For Study 4, the authors recruited 84 students who had studied abroad and 76 of their friends (informants) who had not.
Study 1 showed that participants who had a more psychologically rich life were more likely to take a short trip during the 14-day period. In Studies 2-4, those who studied abroad reported higher levels of a psychologically rich life than those who did not. Moreover, experiences such as studying abroad were consistently associated with higher levels of psychological richness, but they were not consistently associated with life satisfaction, positive affect, and meaning in life. Thus, the more unusual social experiences students engaged in, the more the psychological richness of their lives increased.
A psychologically rich life can be seen as a form of good life. However, as the absence of associations with several well-being outcomes shows us, it should not be used as a proxy for a happy life.
Do you have any questions or comments regarding this newsletter or its contents? Please contact:
Lisanne de Moor (Research Communications Editor; e.l.demoor@gmail.com) or Yavor Dragostinov (Research Communications Assistant; y.dragostinov@sms.ed.ac.uk)