This blog post summarizes and illustrates a recent paper examining how people's perceptions of major life events align with how others evaluate those perceptions. You can read the full article here .
What are major life events and how can they be studied?
People experience various major life events, like ending a romantic relationship or starting a new job.
Note. This figure illustrates typical major life events that people may encounter: starting a new relationship (1st and 4th event on the timeline), graduating (2nd event), ending a relationship (3rd event), or losing a loved one (5th event).
These events can be related to changes in a person's well-being or personality (e.g., Bühler et al., 2023; Luhmann et al., 2012). For a long time, researchers focused on simply asking people if they had experienced certain major life events. However, these checklists ignore the fact that the same event can be experienced very differently by different people (Dohrenwend, 2006; Luhmann et al., 2021).
Note. Lucy (person on the left) and Lucas (person on the right) have separated. While Lucy experienced the event as liberating and positive, Lucas perceived their separation as uncontrollable and distressing.
Additionally, different events may feel similar to some individuals. For instance, a person might view their resignation as just as relieving as their breakup. To better understand these differences, Luhmann and colleagues (2021) created a questionnaire where participants rate various aspects of their experiences (like how predictable or difficult the event was for them). However, asking people to describe their own experiences (self-reports) might not give a complete picture.
How does a person's perception of a major life event relate to how others see it?
We wanted to understand how much insight others have into a person’s perception of a major life event. We also aimed to find out if the relationship between a person’s perception of an event and how others evaluate that perception, comes from a general idea of how people experience such events. Ultimately, we wanted to look at the factors related to higher alignment between a person’s perception of an event and how another person views it.
To do so, we conducted a study where participants chose (a) a major life event they had experienced and (b) a study partner to participate with. This study partner could be anyone familiar with the participant, such as a colleague, close friend, or family member, who was aware that the participant had experienced the event. First, both study partners rated their perceptions of their own selected life event (self-reports). Next, both study partners were presented with the major life event chosen by their partner and rated how they believed their partner experienced that event (informant-reports). In total, participants rated 562 events using both self- and informant-reports.
Note. This figure illustrates the study design, which includes self-reports (white thought bubbles) and informant-reports (light-grey thought bubbles) of event perceptions provided by 281 pairs of participants. Lucy (on the left) rated her own experience of beginning a new relationship and how she thought Patrick perceived his graduation. Similarly, Patrick (on the right) rated his own experience of graduating and how he thought Lucy perceived the start of her new relationship.
What did we learn about major life events?
As we expected, the perception of the person who experienced the event was closely linked to how their study partner thought they perceived this event. Importantly, this relationship was stronger than one would expect by chance and stronger than the relationship between self- and informant-reported personality (Connolly et al., 2007) or well-being (Schneider & Schimmack, 2009).
Note. The points on the graph show real data collected from the study about a randomly chosen event (graduation). The green line represents how the person who experienced the event rated it, while the orange line shows how their study partner thought that person perceived the event. The grey dashed line represents the average perception of major life events across all events and participants.
However, it's possible that the relationship between how a person perceives their major life event and how their study partner sees it comes from a general belief about these events (for example, that major life events are perceived as emotional and challenging). Even when we accounted for this general belief, the perceptions of the persons who experienced the event and their study partners were still related. This means that the fact that the participant and their study partner have a similar view on how the participant experienced their event is not just based on a common idea of major life events. Instead, people also have their own individual perceptions about their major life events, and these are related to how others believe that individuals experienced those events.
Lastly, we looked at possible reasons why the relation between self- and informant-reported event perception differs. We found that people’s perceptions were more similar when they talked more with their study partner about the event. Interestingly, the mere presence of the other person at the event was not related to a more similar perception. So, it's best to ask your friend how they felt about their graduation, even if you were both there.
Note. Talking more about a major life event was related to greater
alignment between self- and informant-reports.
What’s Next?
In future studies, we want to find out if we can learn more about the relationship between study partners by looking at how similar their views of event perceptions are. For example, do romantic partners who agree more on how one partner perceived an event have a better relationship?
Please contact Karla Fliedner, the corresponding author of the article, if you have questions about this blogpost or the article. The full article can be downloaded here. The illustrations were created by Karla Fliedner.
References
Bühler, J. L., Orth, U., Bleidorn, W., Weber, E., Kretzschmar, A., Scheling, L., & Hopwood, C. J. (2023). Life events and personality change: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Personality, 38(3), 544–568. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070231190219
Connolly, J. J., Kavanagh, E. J., & Viswesvaran, C. (2007). The convergent validity between self and observer ratings of personality: A meta-analytic review. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 15(1), 110–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2007.00371.x
Dohrenwend, B. P. (2006). Inventorying stressful life events as risk factors for psychopathology: Toward resolution of the problem of intracategory variability. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 477–495. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.477
Luhmann, M., Fassbender, I., Alcock, M., & Haehner, P. (2021). A dimensional taxonomy of perceived characteristics of major life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121(3), 633–668. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000291
Luhmann, M., Hofmann, W., Eid, M., & Lucas, R. E. (2012). Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 592–615. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025948
Schneider, L., & Schimmack, U. (2009). Self-informant agreement in well-being ratings: A meta-analysis. Social Indicators Research, 94(3), 363–376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9440-y