Personality Science

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Addressing ongoing disagreements regarding the independence of HEXACO Honesty-Humility from the Big Five taxonomy, Blötner provides comprehensive evidence for the empirical distinction between Big Five Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility. Yet, prior disagreements have mostly focused on potential redundancy between Honesty-Humility and the Politeness aspect of Agreeableness, rather than the broad Agreeableness domain. In a reanalysis of the data from Blötner, we found that Honesty-Humility and Politeness were strongly correlated, not clearly structurally distinguishable, and showed negligible divergences in their nomological networks. This same pattern of results was produced between three common measures of Big Five Agreeableness, suggesting Honesty-Humility and Politeness might also represent different operationalisations of the same trait.

In this paper, we introduce the PESI project for investigating the interpersonal dynamics of Personality and Emotions in Social Interactions. The final sample in this preregistered study consisted of 436 participants (218 dyads) who were on average 31.2 years old (SD = 14.0, Range: 16–75). The study consisted of three parts and used a multimethod assessment: In Part 1, participants filled out online self-reports of personality. In Part 2, participants interacted in dyads at zero acquaintance in the laboratory and filled out self- and partner-reports of various states. During the interactions, video and audio tracks were recorded simultaneously, allowing later video analyses of every participant. In Part 3, participants provided self-reports via a follow-up online questionnaire. Our aim is to encourage researchers to use the present ideas, open materials, and data to be inspired to conduct future research.

This article presents the PESI project for investigating the interpersonal dynamics of Personality and Emotions in Social Interactions and the PESI study including multimethod assessment, open science material, and a call to collaborate.

The interpersonal dynamics of Personality and Emotions in Social Interactions

Personality traits are often measured using person-descriptive terms, but data are limited regarding the frequency of usage for these terms in everyday language. This project reports on the relative frequency of usage for a large pool of American English terms (N = 18,241) using count estimates from search engine results and in books cataloged by Google. These estimates are based on the ngrams formed when each descriptor is combined with a common person-related noun (person, woman, man, girl, boy). Results are reported for each noun form and a frequency index in an online database that can be sorted, searched, and downloaded. We report on associations among the different noun forms and data types and propose recommendations for the use of these data in conjunction with other resources. In particular, we encourage collaborative approaches among research teams using large language models in psycholexical research related to personality structure.

To understand what was driving individual differences in voting intentions in a large German sample, we investigated the predictability of voting intentions from the Big Five personality domains, facets, and nuances, thereby tackling shortcomings of previous studies. Using random forest analyses in a dataset of N = 4,286 individuals (46.01% men), separate models were trained to predict intentions to 1) not vote versus to vote, 2) vote for a specific party, and 3) vote for a left- versus right-from-the-center party from either the Big Five personality domains, facets, or nuances (represented by individual items). Except for intentions to not vote versus to vote, balanced accuracies to predict voting intentions marginally exceeded those achieved by a baseline learner always predicting the majority class. Using nuances over facets and domains slightly increased balanced accuracies. Results indicate that additional variables should be considered to accurately predict voting intentions, at least in German samples.

Predictability of voting intentions from personality was investigated.

The present work aimed to overcome limitations of previous research by 1) implementing a prediction design and 2) investigating Big Five personality facets and nuances besides domains to compare predictive accuracy of models across levels of the trait hierarchy.

This article presents an overview of the current state of knowledge in personality judgment research. We discuss accuracy and bias in personality judgments, including types of inter-rater agreement and elements of criteria used to determine levels of agreement and accuracy. We then address 1) the words and phrases that people use to describe one another and themselves, 2) research investigating judgments of targets by perceivers per trait, and 3) research investigating judgments of targets by perceivers on profiles or sets of traits. We also provide 4) an outlook regarding important research questions that remain unanswered in this field.

This article serves as an overview of the current state of knowledge in personality judgment research. Core findings that are agreed on by the authors - who are from diverse labs and perspectives and use diverse methods - are clearly identified. Several unanswered questions are also described.

Summarizes the most robust empirical evidence in personality judgment research.

Reputation plays an essential role in promoting altruistic behavior in human societies. Although individual differences in reputational concern are associated with altruistic behavior, it is unclear whether this relationship differs by age. This cross-sectional study examined the relationship between two aspects of reputational concern (praise seeking and rejection avoidance) and altruistic behavior toward various targets (family, friends, and strangers) in adolescence and adulthood. We collected data from 875 participants between the ages of 15 and 59 (420 males, 455 females). Results indicated that praise seeking and altruistic behavior toward family were positively related only during 15–24.45 years of age. In addition, praise seeking and altruistic behavior toward friends were positively related only during 15–43.37 years of age. In contrast, the positive relationship between praise seeking and altruistic behavior toward strangers did not differ with age. The relationship between rejection avoidance and altruistic behavior toward any recipient did not differ with age. These findings highlight the need to incorporate a developmental perspective when examining the relationship between reputational concerns, particularly praise seeking, and altruistic behavior.

This study aims to develop a new measure, the Schadenfreude-by-Concern Inventory (SCI), to assess Schadenfreude as a personality trait and to evaluate its reliability and validity. Existing scales developed to measure trait Schadenfreude have not focused on the triggers that lead to the emergence of Schadenfreude. Therefore, in this study, a new scale was developed to measure trait Schadenfreude by focusing on the typical axes of concern (justice-type, rivalry-type, and aggression-type) observed before Schadenfreude arises. A total of 250 Japanese participants from a wide age range responded to the SCI, along with a set of questionnaires assessing belief in a just world, self-esteem, trait envy, group identification tendencies, and an existing trait Schadenfreude scale. Factor analysis revealed that the SCI has a two-factor structure: self-oriented-type Schadenfreude and justice-type Schadenfreude. The correlations between these factors and external variables showed that justice-type Schadenfreude was positively correlated with belief in a just world, while self-oriented-type Schadenfreude was positively correlated with malicious envy and negatively correlated with self-esteem. These results highlight the distinct nature of the two subtypes of Schadenfreude. The measurement of Schadenfreude using SCI may provide insights for future research into how the tendency to experience these two types of Schadenfreude relates to any decision-making and behavior.

People can intentionally change specific personality traits, but whether such interventions effectively change moral character traits is less clear. The present study (total N = 179), using two active intervention groups, examined whether a 5-week goal-setting intervention could lead to trait change for either a moral trait, compassion (n = 87), or the Big 5 trait of conscientiousness (n = 92). Participants self-selected into one condition after receiving trait-standing feedback and completing a brief reflection task. They set implementation intentions and reflected on their progress every 3 days throughout the intervention. State assessments (N_assessments = 1014) were collected every 3 days in addition to trait assessments at pre- and post-test, with follow-up assessments 2 weeks post-program. Results indicated that participants in both intervention groups reported changes in their chosen trait in the short term. In the absence of a randomized blinded control condition, we cannot be certain whether observed changes reflect genuine intervention effects versus demand characteristics, expectancy effects, or regression to the mean. Nonetheless, findings provide preliminary evidence that implementation intention-based interventions may facilitate self-reported short-term increases in moral traits.

Acknowledging and explaining variation in behavior is vital to explaining the origins of personality. We provide a historical overview of dynamic personality approaches, summarize key theories, and outline some suggestions for future research.

Personality psychology has historically focused on the stability of people's dispositions.

Extraversion is a fundamental personality trait that explains individual differences in behavior, cognition, and attitudes. Changes in extraversion suggest shifts in various related constructs, including self-esteem, and the number of friendships. While previous studies have reported an increasing trend in extraversion in countries such as the United States and China, temporal changes in extraversion in Japan remain unexplored. Therefore, this study examines temporal changes in extraversion in Japan using a cross-temporal meta-analysis. We collected a total of 75 data points (48 studies, n = 48,905) conducted between 2010 and 2021 that reported average extraversion scores using the Japanese version of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI-J). To assess the influence of survey year on extraversion, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted, controlling for the average age and gender composition. Findings revealed a significant decline in extraversion scores over time and a significant decline in both men and women. These findings enhance our understanding of personality shifts in Japan.

This target article is part of a theme bundle including open peer commentaries (https://doi.org/10.5964/ps.9227) and a rejoinder by the authors (https://doi.org/10.5964/ps.7961). We point out ten steps that we think will go a long way in improving personality science. The first five steps focus on fostering consensus regarding (1) research goals, (2) terminology, (3) measurement practices, (4) data handling, and (5) the current state of theory and evidence. The other five steps focus on improving the credibility of empirical research, through (6) formal modelling, (7) mandatory pre-registration for confirmatory claims, (8) replication as a routine practice, (9) planning for informative studies (e.g., in terms of statistical power), and (10) making data, analysis scripts, and materials openly available. The current, quantity-based incentive structure in academia clearly stands in the way of implementing many of these practices, resulting in a research literature with sometimes questionable utility and/or integrity. As a solution, we propose a more quality-based reward scheme that explicitly weights published research by its Good Science merits. Scientists need to be increasingly rewarded for doing good work, not just lots of work.

There have been many calls and concrete suggestions for establishing higher scientific standards in psychology. However, better scientific work does require significantly more time, energy and resources, and these additional investments are not appropriately rewarded under the current incentive structure in academia. This may explain why “Open Science” – although widely accepted in principle – is still very much lacking in terms of implementation. To overcome this problem, we recommend the use of a metric that explicitly rewards the use of good scientific practices such as replication, pre-registration, and model formalization in published research. The goal is to stop rewarding researcher behavior that mainly just maximizes one's research output in terms of quantity, and to start rewarding behavior that is likely to actually contribute something solid to the scientific knowledge base.

Personality psychology needs to improve in terms of scientific rigor

Free and fair elections enable the nation's citizens to elect candidates whom they believe best represent their interests. When deciding who to vote for, individuals may consider a host of factors that ultimately improve their subjective well-being. Using data from the Gallup Sharecare Well-being Index (N = 3,208,924), we examined whether changes in subjective well-being predicted U.S. presidential, Senate, and House of Representatives election outcomes from 2010 to 2020. We tested this effect at county (n = 1,652–3,061), metropolitan statistical area (n = 191–363), state (n = 50), and district (n = 389–427) levels. Pre-registered multilevel models supported the notion that regions with growing discontent tended to have larger increases in non-incumbent vote shares. Establishing a link between subjective well-being and electoral outcomes has the potential to realign policymakers’ priorities with what truly matters to their constituents, thereby facilitating the promotion of population well-being.

Elections shape a country's political landscape. Our pre-registered study with 3.2 million U.S. participants found that declines in subjective well-being predicted a larger non-incumbent vote share in U.S. presidential, Senate, and House elections.

Subjective well-being predicts electoral outcomes.

The Big Five, originating from English lexical studies, is widely used as a framework for personality in Japan. In contrast, the results of Japanese lexical studies are not widely applied as a framework for Japanese personality, despite the fact that such research has been conducted since the 1950s. This study briefly reviews the history of Japanese lexical studies and focuses on two studies conducted in the early 2000s. These studies were contrasting in that one study focused on replicating the Big Five, while the other also examined Japanese unique personality structure. Reflecting on the five-factor and eleven-factor solutions reported in both studies, the factor content is interpreted in light of lexical studies’ findings in other countries. Finally, future issues for lexical research in Japan are discussed.

In this short reflection piece, I outline how I see both philosophy and psychology contributing to the study of character. In addition, I highlight an area where far more collaborative work needs to be done.

Philosophy helps give an account of the virtues and vices.

There is a great deal of recent work at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. I clarify some of the ways that both fields can contribute to better understanding issues of character and virtue, with the ultimate aim of growing in virtue.

Narcissism as a psychological construct has had a contentious past both in its conceptualization and measurement. There is an emerging consensus that narcissism consists of grandiose and vulnerable subtypes, which share a common core. In the present research (N = 1002), we constructed a new measure of unified narcissism that reflects these contemporary understandings using items from the most widely used measures of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.890), and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus et al., 2009, https://doi-org/10.1037/a0016530). We used classical test theory and item response theory approaches to devise a 29-item Unified Narcissism Scale. The scale showed good internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant validity, and showed evidence of measurement invariance between men and women. This research gave strong support for the structure, reliability, and validity of the unified measure, which offers a promising avenue for further enhancing our knowledge of narcissism.

We illustrate the construction of a new measure of narcissism that is concise and precise. The measure reflects the contemporary conceptualizations of narcissism while addressing many of the criticisms of past measures of narcissism.

We constructed a 29-item narcissism measure.

According to the halo effect, person perceptions are globally biased by specific traits or characteristics. Attractive people are attributed positive traits like prosociality, health, and dominance. Due to a strong focus on facial stimuli it remains unclear whether this effect can also be found for bodies. Furthermore, most studies involved observers from individualistic cultures. This preregistered study explored the consistency of halo effects for men’s faces and bodies for individualistic and collectivistic observers. Facial photos and 3D body scans of 165 German men were judged separately for attractiveness, prosociality, health, and physical dominance by 123 German and 100 Japanese observers. Results were mostly consistent between both observer groups and revealed strong attractiveness halo effects for faces and bodies, and a physical dominance halo effect for bodies. This study provides new insights on consistent halo effect biases in person perception for faces and bodies for observers with different cultural backgrounds.

This paper explores self- and informant-reports of social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills and the cross-cultural adaptation of the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI) in Brazil. Study 1 (N = 185) examined self-informant agreement of SEB skills and assessed BESSI’s internal structure (N = 1,049). Study 2 (N = 123) focused on the convergence of BESSI’s domain and facet scores with personality variables and tested their temporal stability. The results showed that (1) informant-reports had higher means than self-reports, (2) agreement was higher for the Social Engagement domain and lower for the Innovation domain, and (3) BESSI demonstrated strong validity and reliability evidence for use in Brazil. In sum, BESSI’s domains and facets were accurately perceived by informants.