Most people's life satisfaction matches their personality traits: True correlations in multitrait, multirater, multisample data.

Despite numerous meta-analyses, the true extent to which life satisfaction reflects personality traits has remained unclear due to overreliance on a single method to assess both and insufficient attention to construct overlaps. Using data from three samples tested in different languages (Estonian, N = 20,886; Russian, N = 768; English, N = 600), we combined self- and informant-reports to estimate personality domains' and nuances' true correlations (rtrue) with general life satisfaction (LS) and satisfactions with eight life domains (DSs), while controlling for single-method and occasion-specific biases and random error, and avoiding direct construct overlaps. The associations replicated well across samples. The Big Five domains and nuances allowed predicting LS with accuracies up to rtrue ≈ .80-.90 in independent (sub)samples. Emotional stability, extraversion, and conscientiousness correlated rtrue ≈ .30-.50 with LS, while its correlations with openness and agreeableness were small. At the nuances level, low LS was most strongly associated with feeling misunderstood, unexcited, indecisive, envious, bored, used, unable, and unrewarded (rtrue ≈ .40-.70). Supporting LS's construct validity, DSs had similar personality correlates among themselves and with LS, and an aggregated DS correlated rtrue ≈ .90 with LS. LS's approximately 10-year stability was rtrue = .70 and its longitudinal associations with personality traits mirrored cross-sectional ones. We conclude that without common measurement limitations, most people's life satisfaction is highly consistent with their personality traits, even across many years. So, satisfaction is usually shaped by these same relatively stable factors that shape personality traits more broadly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Conceptual and methodological issues in the study of the personality-and-culture relationship.

Culture-and-personality studies were central to social science in the early 20th century and have recently been revived (as personality-and-culture studies) by trait and cross-cultural psychologists. In this article we comment on conceptual issues, including the nature of traits and the nature of the personality-and-culture relationship, and we describe methodological challenges in understanding associations between features of culture and aspects of personality. We give an overview of research hypothesizing the shaping of personality traits by culture, reviewing studies of indigenous traits, acculturation and sojourner effects, birth cohorts, social role changes, and ideological interventions. We also consider the possibility that aggregate traits affect culture, through psychological means and gene flow. In all these cases we highlight alternative explanations and the need for designs and analyses that strengthen the interpretation of observations. We offer a set of testable hypotheses based on the premises that personality is adequately described by Five-Factor Theory, and that observed differences in aggregate personality traits across cultures are veridical. It is clear that culture has dramatic effects on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from which we infer traits, but it is not yet clear whether, how, and in what degree culture shapes traits themselves.

Seeking a Philosophical Basis for Trait Psychology.

I summarize an early effort to provide a conceptual basis for psychology. Natural science studies material objects, and its methods and assumptions may not be appropriate for the study of persons. Persons exist within the natural attitude and are characterized by such properties as temporality, responsibility, normality, and identity. Contemporary theories of mind focus on people's understanding of how minds make decisions and shape behavior, but say little about the nature of the entity that possesses a mind; ethnopsychologies are concerned with cultural variations in beliefs about accidental rather than essential aspects of human psychology. The lay philosophical view of the person sketched here is intended to be broader and deeper. It is particularly relevant to trait psychology, appears to have been implicit in much trait research, and is generally consistent with empirical findings on personality traits.

Music Lessons for the Study of Affect.

Some accounts of the evolution of music suggest that it emerged from emotionally expressive vocalizations and serves as a necessary counterweight to the cognitive elaboration of language. Thus, emotional expression appears to be intrinsic to the creation and perception of music, and music ought to serve as a model for affect itself. Because music exists as patterns of changes in sound over time, affect should also be seen in patterns of changing feelings. Psychologists have given relatively little attention to these patterns. Results from statistical approaches to the analysis of affect dynamics have so far been modest. Two of the most significant treatments of temporal patterns in affect-sentics and vitality affects have remained outside mainstream emotion research. Analysis of musical structure suggests three phenomena relevant to the temporal form of emotion: affect contours, volitional affects, and affect transitions. I discuss some implications for research on affect and for exploring the evolutionary origins of music and emotions.

Get a second opinion: Comment on Bleidorn et al. (2019).

Bleidorn et al. (2019) argued that personality traits, as important determinants of life outcomes, should be the object of treatment interventions. They suggested that self-reports on standard personality questionnaires provide necessary and sufficient evidence of trait change. However, the self-concept-on which self-reports are based-may change without any alteration in the underlying trait. Additional evidence, such as that provided by independent informant ratings, is needed, and multimethod assessments should be a feature of all studies of trait change. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality Across the Life Span.

Trait stability and maturation are fundamental principles of contemporary personality psychology and have been shown to hold across many cultures. However, it has proven difficult to move beyond these general findings to a detailed account of trait development. There are pervasive and unexplained inconsistencies across studies that may be due to ( a) insufficient attention to measurement error, ( b) subtle but age-sensitive differences in alternative measures of the same trait, or ( c) different perspectives reflected in self-reports and observer ratings. Multiscale, multimethod-and ideally multinational-studies are needed. Several hypotheses have been proposed to account for trait stability and change, but supporting evidence is currently weak or indirect; trait development is a fertile if sometimes frustrating field for theory and research. Beyond traits, there are approaches to personality development that are of interest to students of adult development, and these may be fruitfully addressed from a trait perspective.

Source method biases as implicit personality theory at the domain and facet levels.

OBJECTIVE: We tested predictions about the structure and magnitude of method biases in single-source personality trait assessments. We expected a large number of distinct biases that would parallel the observed structure of traits, at both facet and item levels. METHOD: We analyzed multimethod ratings on the Estonian NEO Personality Inventory-3 in a sample of 3,214 adults. By subtracting informant ratings from self-reports, we eliminated true score variance and analyzed the size and structure of the residual method biases. We replicated analyses using data (N = 709) from the Czech Revised NEO Personality Inventory. RESULTS: The magnitude of method biases was consistent with predictions by McCrae (2018, Psychological Assessment). Factor analyses at the facet level showed a clear replication of the normative Five-Factor Model structure in both samples. Item factor analyses within domains showed that facet-level method biases mimicked the facet structure of the instrument. CONCLUSIONS: Method biases apparently reflect implicit personality theory (IPT)-beliefs about how traits and trait indicators covary. We discuss the (collective) accuracy and possible origins of IPT. Because method biases limit the accuracy of single-source assessments, we recommend assessments that combine information from two or more informants.

A Five-Factor Theory Perspective on Causal Analysis.

Five-Factor Theory (FFT) provides a broad but largely blank template for causal personality research. Within FFT, there are three major categories of questions: (1) How do biological structures and functions lead to trait levels? (2) how do traits and the environment give rise to acquired psychological institutions? and (3) how do personality characteristics interact with specific situations to determine behaviors and reactions? Both practical and ethical issues complicate the search for the causes of trait change. Causal explanations of the development of characteristic adaptations are likely to be incomplete, because there are many different ways in which the same adaptation may be acquired. Studies of the determinants of behavior are usually left to social, educational, or clinical psychologists-although personality psychologists may make distinctive contributions by emphasizing the role of the individual in selecting and creating situations. A causal understanding of the functioning of the personality system is possible through the integration of many lines of evidence, but it is likely to take a very long time. In the meanwhile, personality psychologists may fruitfully pursue the identification of practical causes by which individuals with a given set of traits can optimize their adaptation. If we require truth in any strict sense, we must confine ourselves to one entire state of the world. This will be the cause, and the next entire state will be the effect. There is much truth in this conclusion, but it remains indefensible.F. H. Bradley, 1893/1966, p. 48.

Method biases in single-source personality assessments.

The magnitude of components of variance in trait scales-true score, method variance, and error-can be estimated from information on the mono-method correlations among personality traits within a domain and on cross-observer agreement on domains and facets. Estimates of these components in NEO Inventory facet scales were compared with prior estimates that were based on a consideration of internal consistency and retest reliability (McCrae, 2015). Together, results suggested that (a) about 40% of the variance in self-reports and single informant ratings is due to method variance; (b) as with substantive traits, method biases exist on several different levels, some broad, some narrow; and (c) consequently, a large number of distinct biases affect personality scale scores. Method biases beyond acquiescence and evaluation were also found in a clinical instrument, the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. Because many biases appear to be idiosyncratic, it is unlikely that validity scales could be created to assess or control all of them. These findings underscore the value of utilizing multiple informants in research and individual assessment. To the extent that they can be distinguished from valid variance, method biases are themselves of clinical interest as potentially important elements of the self-concept. (PsycINFO Database Record

Personality traits below facets: The consensual validity, longitudinal stability, heritability, and utility of personality nuances.

It has been argued that facets do not represent the bottom of the personality hierarchy-even more specific personality characteristics, nuances, could be useful for describing and understanding individuals and their differences. Combining 2 samples of German twins, we assessed the consensual validity (correlations across different observers), rank-order stability, and heritability of nuances. Personality nuances were operationalized as the 240 items of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Their attributes were examined by analyzing item residuals, controlling for the variance of the facet the item had been assigned to and all other facets. Most nuances demonstrated significant (p < .0002) cross-method agreement and rank-order stability. A substantial proportion of them (48% in self-reports, 20% in informant ratings, and 50% in combined ratings) demonstrated a significant (p < .0002) component of additive genetic variance, whereas evidence for environmental influences shared by twins was modest. Applying a procedure to estimate stability and heritability of true scores of item residuals yielded estimates comparable with those of higher-order personality traits, with median estimates of rank-order stability and heritability being .77 and .52, respectively. Few nuances demonstrated robust associations with age and gender, but many showed incremental, conceptually meaningful, and replicable (across methods and/or samples) predictive validity for a range of interest domains and body mass index. We argue that these narrow personality characteristics constitute a valid level of the personality hierarchy. They may be especially useful for providing a deep and contextualized description of the individual, but also for the prediction of specific outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record

The emergence of sex differences in personality traits in early adolescence: A cross-sectional, cross-cultural study.

Although large international studies have found consistent patterns of sex differences in personality traits among adults (i.e., women scoring higher on most facets), less is known about cross-cultural sex differences in adolescent personality and the role of culture and age in shaping them. The present study examines the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (McCrae, Costa, & Martin, 2005) informant ratings of adolescents from 23 cultures (N = 4,850), and investigates culture and age as sources of variability in sex differences of adolescents' personality. The effect for Neuroticism (with females scoring higher than males) begins to take on its adult form around age 14. Girls score higher on Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness at all ages between 12 and 17 years. A more complex pattern emerges for Extraversion and Agreeableness, although by age 17, sex differences for these traits are highly similar to those observed in adulthood. Cross-sectional data suggest that (a) with advancing age, sex differences found in adolescents increasingly converge toward adult patterns with respect to both direction and magnitude; (b) girls display sex-typed personality traits at an earlier age than boys; and (c) the emergence of sex differences was similar across cultures. Practical implications of the present findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

A more nuanced view of reliability: specificity in the trait hierarchy.

Retest reliability is a better predictor of validity than is internal consistency. One explanation for this is item-specific variance, which distinguishes different nuances of a facet and contributes to retest reliability but not internal consistency. Specific variance at the facet level is temporally stable, consensually validated, and heritable; a consideration of the role of specific variance in personality measures leads to a distinction between traits as the intersection (∩) versus the union (∪) of their constituents. I discuss specific variance at the item level and its implications for scale development and argue that retest reliability outpredicts internal consistency because item-specific variance has been shown to be observable, and is probably heritable and stable. I consider some implications of these ideas for the use of single-item scales, the causal interpretation of traits, and the notion of scalar equivalence. Finally, I note that the sources of random error in scales are still poorly understood.

The Inaccuracy of National Character Stereotypes.

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy; and (b) report new data on national character in 26 cultures from descriptions (N=3,323) of the typical male or female adolescent, adult, or old person in each. The average ratings were internally consistent and converged with independent stereotypes of the typical culture member, but were weakly related to objective assessments of personality. We argue that this conclusion is consistent with the broader literature on the inaccuracy of national character stereotypes.

Exploring trait assessment of samples, persons, and cultures.

I present a very broad overview of what I have learned about personality trait assessment at different levels and offer some views on future directions for research and clinical practice. I review some basic principles of scale development and argue that internal consistency has been overemphasized; more attention to retest reliability is needed. Because protocol validity is crucial for individual assessment and because validity scales have limited utility, I urge combining assessments from multiple informants, and I present some statistical tools for that purpose. As culture-level traits, I discuss ethos, national character stereotypes, and aggregated personality traits, and summarize evidence for the validity of the latter. Our understanding of trait profiles of cultures is limited, but it can guide future exploration.

Do Men Vary More than Women in Personality? A Study in 51 Cultures.

Do men vary more than women in personality? Evolutionary, genetic, and cultural arguments suggest that hypothesis. In this study we tested it using 12,156 college student raters from 51 cultures who described a person they knew well on the 3rd-person version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. In most cultures, male targets varied more than female targets, and ratings by female informants varied more than ratings by male informants, which may explain why higher variances for men are not found in self-reports. Variances were higher in more developed, and effects of target sex were stronger in more individualistic societies. It seems that individualistic cultures enable a less restricted expression of personality, resulting in larger variances and particularly so among men.

Basic traits predict the prevalence of personality disorder across the life span: the example of psychopathy.

Personality disorders (PDs) may be better understood in terms of dimensions of general personality functioning rather than as discrete categorical conditions. Personality-trait descriptions of PDs are robust across methods and settings, and PD assessments based on trait measures show good construct validity. The study reported here extends research showing that basic traits (e.g., impulsiveness, warmth, straightforwardness, modesty, and deliberation) can re-create the epidemiological characteristics associated with PDs. Specifically, we used normative changes in absolute trait levels to simulate age-related differences in the prevalence of psychopathy in a forensic setting. Results demonstrated that trait information predicts the rate of decline for psychopathy over the life span; discriminates the decline of psychopathy from that of a similar disorder, antisocial PD; and accurately predicts the differential decline of subfactors of psychopathy. These findings suggest that basic traits provide a parsimonious account of PD prevalence across the life span.

Stereotypes of age differences in personality traits: universal and accurate?

Age trajectories for personality traits are known to be similar across cultures. To address whether stereotypes of age groups reflect these age-related changes in personality, we asked participants in 26 countries (N = 3,323) to rate typical adolescents, adults, and old persons in their own country. Raters across nations tended to share similar beliefs about different age groups; adolescents were seen as impulsive, rebellious, undisciplined, preferring excitement and novelty, whereas old people were consistently considered lower on impulsivity, activity, antagonism, and Openness. These consensual age group stereotypes correlated strongly with published age differences on the five major dimensions of personality and most of 30 specific traits, using as criteria of accuracy both self-reports and observer ratings, different survey methodologies, and data from up to 50 nations. However, personal stereotypes were considerably less accurate, and consensual stereotypes tended to exaggerate differences across age groups.

Internal consistency, retest reliability, and their implications for personality scale validity.

The authors examined data (N = 34,108) on the differential reliability and validity of facet scales from the NEO Inventories. They evaluated the extent to which (a) psychometric properties of facet scales are generalizable across ages, cultures, and methods of measurement, and, (b) validity criteria are associated with different forms of reliability. Composite estimates of facet scale stability, heritability, and cross-observer validity were broadly generalizable. Two estimates of retest reliability were independent predictors of the three validity criteria; none of three estimates of internal consistency was. Available evidence suggests the same pattern of results for other personality inventories. Internal consistency of scales can be useful as a check on data quality but appears to be of limited utility for evaluating the potential validity of developed scales, and it should not be used as a substitute for retest reliability. Further research on the nature and determinants of retest reliability is needed.

Rater Wealth Predicts Perceptions of Outgroup Competence.

National income has a pervasive influence on the perception of ingroup stereotypes, with high status and wealthy targets perceived as more competent. In two studies we investigated the degree to which economic wealth of raters related to perceptions of outgroup competence. Raters' economic wealth predicted trait ratings when 1) raters in 48 other cultures rated Americans' competence and 2) Mexican Americans rated Anglo Americans' competence. Rater wealth also predicted ratings of interpersonal warmth on the culture level. In conclusion, raters' economic wealth, either nationally or individually, is significantly associated with perception of outgroup members, supporting the notion that ingroup conditions or stereotypes function as frames of reference in evaluating outgroup traits.

An alternative to the search for single polymorphisms: toward molecular personality scales for the five-factor model.

There is growing evidence that personality traits are affected by many genes, all of which have very small effects. As an alternative to the largely unsuccessful search for individual polymorphisms associated with personality traits, the authors identified large sets of potentially related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and summed them to form molecular personality scales (MPSs) with from 4 to 2,497 SNPs. Scales were derived from two thirds of a large (N = 3,972) sample of individuals from Sardinia who completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and were assessed in a genomewide association scan. When MPSs were correlated with the phenotype in the remaining one third of the sample, very small but significant associations were found for 4 of the 5e personality factors when the longest scales were examined. These data suggest that MPSs for Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (but not Extraversion) contain genetic information that can be refined in future studies, and the procedures described here should be applicable to other quantitative traits.