Assessing Maladaptive Personality in the Forensic Context: Development and Validation of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Forensic Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FFBF).

The current study proposes an adaptation of the PID-5 to assesses maladaptive personal traits in forensic settings. Specifically, we adapted the item set of the PID-5 Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FBF) to the forensic context and validated the resulting PID-5 Forensic Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FFBF) using self- and informant-reports of 199 male prisoners. Exploratory factor analyses suggested a four-factor solution comprising Antagonism, Detachment, Disinhibited Aggression, and Insecurity. Antagonism and Detachment were very similar to the domains with the same name from the five-factor solution of the PID-5. Insecurity conceptually resembled Negative Affectivity. Disinhibited Aggression represented a forensically highly relevant composition of Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Negative Affectivity. We report results for this four- and the canonical five-factor solution throughout the manuscript. The PID-5-FFBF domains showed convergent associations with the corresponding Big Five personality traits. Furthermore, the PID-5-FFBF domains were differentially correlated with indicators of psychological adjustment and forensically relevant outcomes such as institutional misbehavior and risk for reoffending. In particular, Insecurity was associated with lower levels of psychological adjustment, while Antagonism and Disinhibited Aggression were associated with higher levels of institutional misbehavior and risk for reoffending. These findings provide initial evidence for the validity and utility of the PID-5-FFBF in forensic settings.

Blind at First Sight: The Role of Distinctively Accurate and Positive First Impressions in Romantic Interest.

Viewing other people with distinctive accuracy-the degree to which personality impressions correspond with targets' unique characteristics-often predicts positive interpersonal experiences, including liking and relationship satisfaction. Does this hold in the context of first dates, or might distinctive accuracy have negative links with romantic interest in such evaluative settings? We examined this question using two speed-dating samples (Sample 1: N = 172, N = 2,407 dyads; Sample 2: N = 397, N = 1,849 dyads). Not surprisingly, positive impressions of potential dating partners were strongly associated with greater romantic interest. In contrast, distinctively accurate impressions were associated with significantly less romantic interest. This association was even stronger for potential partners whose personalities were less romantically appealing, specifically, those lower in extraversion. In sum, on a first date, distinctive accuracy tends to be paired with lower romantic interest. The potential implications of distinctive accuracy for romantic interest and of romantic interest for distinctive accuracy are discussed.

Construct validity of multiple mini interviews - Investigating the role of stations, skills, and raters using Bayesian G-theory.

Background: One popular procedure in the medical student selection process are multiple mini-interviews (MMIs), which are designed to assess social skills (e.g., empathy) by means of brief interview and role-play stations. However, it remains unclear whether MMIs reliably measure desired social skills or rather general performance differences that do not depend on specific social skills. Here, we provide a detailed investigation into the construct validity of MMIs, including the identification and quantification of performance facets (social skill-specific performance, station-specific performance, general performance) and their relations with other selection measures.Methods: We used data from three MMI samples (N = 376 applicants, 144 raters) that included six interview and role-play stations and multiple assessed social skills.Results: Bayesian generalizability analyses show that, the largest amount of reliable MMI variance was accounted for by station-specific and general performance differences between applicants. Furthermore, there were low or no correlations with other selection measures.Discussion: Our findings suggest that MMI ratings are less social skill-specific than originally conceptualized and are due more to general performance differences (across and within-stations). Future research should focus on the development of skill-specific MMI stations and on behavioral analyses on the extents to which performance differences are based on desirable skills versus undesired aspects.

Accuracy of Self-Esteem Judgments at Zero Acquaintance.

OBJECTIVE: Perceptions of strangers' self-esteem can have wide-ranging interpersonal consequences. Aiming to reconcile inconsistent results from previous research that had predominantly suggested that self-esteem is a trait that can hardly be accurately judged at zero acquaintance, we examined unaquainted others' accuracy in inferring individuals' actual self-esteem. METHOD: Ninety-nine target participants (77 female; Mage = 23.5 years) were videotaped in a self-introductory situation, and self-esteem self-reports and reports by well-known informants were obtained as separate accuracy criteria. Forty unacquainted observers judged targets' self-esteem on the basis of these short video sequences (M = 23s, SD = 7.7). RESULTS: Results showed that both self-reported (r = .31, p = .002) and informant-reported self-esteem (r = .21, p = .040) of targets could be inferred by strangers. The degree of accuracy in self-esteem judgments could be explained with lens model analyses: Self- and informant-reported self-esteem predicted nonverbal and vocal friendliness, both of which predicted self-esteem judgments by observers. In addition, observers' accuracy in inferring informant-reported self-esteem was mediated by the utilization of targets' physical attractiveness. Besides using valid behavioral information to infer strangers' self-esteem, observers inappropriately relied on invalid behavioral information reflecting nonverbal, vocal, and verbal self-assuredness. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that strangers can quite accurately detect individuals' self-reported and informant-reported self-esteem when targets are observed in a public self-presentational situation.

How Do Different Ways of Measuring Individual Differences in Zero-Acquaintance Personality Judgment Accuracy Correlate With Each Other?

OBJECTIVE: This research compares two different approaches that are commonly used to measure accuracy of personality judgment: the trait accuracy approach wherein participants discriminate among targets on a given trait, thus making intertarget comparisons, and the profile accuracy approach wherein participants discriminate between traits for a given target, thus making intratarget comparisons. We examined correlations between these methods as well as correlations among accuracies for judging specific traits. METHOD: The present article documents relations among these approaches based on meta-analysis of five studies of zero-acquaintance impressions of the Big Five traits. RESULTS: Trait accuracies correlated only weakly with overall and normative profile accuracy. Substantial convergence between the trait and profile accuracy methods was only found when an aggregate of all five trait accuracies was correlated with distinctive profile accuracy. Importantly, however, correlations between the trait and profile accuracy approaches were reduced to negligibility when statistical overlap was corrected by removing the respective trait from the profile correlations. Moreover, correlations of the separate trait accuracies with each other were very weak. CONCLUSIONS: Different ways of measuring individual differences in personality judgment accuracy are not conceptually and empirically the same, but rather represent distinct abilities that rely on different judgment processes.

[Power to the children? ­ Machiavellianism in children and adolescents]. / Kinder an die Macht? ­ Machiavellismus im Kindes- und Jugendalter.

The desire for power and social dominance plays a significant role in the development of social aggression. Although the construct of Machiavellianism reflects these aspects well, it has hardly been recognized in Germany. In this review article the construct of Machiavellianism will be presented. Previous research on the relationship between Machiavellianism and particularly aggressive behavior in children and adolescents are critically discussed and implications for future studies are derived.

Accurate judgments of neuroticism at zero acquaintance: a question of relevance.

Prior studies have consistently found a surprising inaccuracy of people's neuroticism judgments at zero acquaintance. Based on the Realistic Accuracy Model (Funder, 1995), we hypothesize that this is due to a lack of relevance of the situation in which targets are typically observed. Fifty participants were videotaped in a highly trait-relevant (i.e., socially stressful) situation as well as three less relevant situations. An aggregate of self-reports and informant reports was used as the accuracy criterion. Four independent groups of unacquainted observers judged participants' neuroticism based on these short video sequences. Results showed that neuroticism judgments were significantly more accurate for the most trait-relevant situation compared with the other three situations. This finding can be explained using lens model analyses: Only in the most relevant situation did neuroticism predict both visual nervousness and vocal nervousness, both of which in turn predicted neuroticism judgments by lay observers. Our findings show that strangers are sensitive to interindividual differences in neuroticism as long as targets are observed in a trait-relevant situation.

Differential Behavioral Pathways Linking Personality to Leadership Emergence and Effectiveness in Groups.

This study integrates leadership process models with process models of personality and behavioral personality science to examine the behavioral-perceptual pathways that explain interpersonal personality traits' divergent relation to group leadership evaluations. We applied data from an online group interaction study (N = 364) alternately assigning participants as leaders conducting brief tasks. We used four variable types to build the pathways in multiple mediator models: (a) Self-reported personality traits, (b) video recordings of expressed interpersonal behaviors coded by 6 trained raters, (c) interpersonal impressions, and (d) mutual evaluations of leadership emergence/effectiveness. We find interpersonal big five traits to differently relate to the two leadership outcomes via the behavioral-perceptual pathways: Extraversion was more important to leadership emergence due to impressions of assertiveness evoked by task-focused behavior being strongly valued. Agreeableness/emotional stability were more important to leadership effectiveness due to impressions of trustworthiness/calmness evoked by member-focused/calm behavior being stronger valued.

A meta-analytic review of the associations of personality, intelligence, and physical size with social status.

Theories have proposed diverse reasons for why individual differences such as personality traits lead to social status attainment in face-to-face groups. We integrated these different theoretical standpoints into a model with four paths from individual differences to status: a dominance, a competence, a virtue, and a micropolitics path. To investigate these paths, we meta-analyzed over 100 years of research on bivariate associations of personality traits, cognitive abilities, and physical size with the attainment of status-related outcomes in face-to-face groups (1,064 effects from 276 samples including 56,153 participants). The status-related outcome variables were admiring respect, social influence, popularity (i.e., being liked by others), leadership emergence, and a mixture of outcome variables. The meta-analytic correlations we found were largely in line with the micropolitics path, tentatively in line with the competence and virtue paths, and only partly in line with the dominance path. These findings suggest that status attainment depends not only on the competence and virtue of an individual but also on how individuals can enhance their apparent competence or virtue by behaving assertively, by being extraverted, or through self-monitoring. We also investigated how the relations between individual differences and status-related outcomes were moderated by kind of status-related outcome, nature of the group task, culture (collectivism/individualism), and length of acquaintance. The moderation analysis yielded mixed and inconclusive results. The review ends with directions for research, such as the need to separately assess and study the different status-related outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Narcissists' affective well-being: Associations of grandiose narcissism with state affect level and variability.

Whereas grandiose narcissism has generally been found to be related to adaptive affective experiences (i.e., positive affective states), many theoretical conceptualizations have emphasized its associations with characteristics of low affective well-being (i.e., unstable, highly variable affective states). Empirical research on the association of grandiose narcissism with the mean level of and variability in affective states has been inconclusive, as studies have differed considerably in their conceptualizations and measurement of narcissism and affect dynamics and have suffered from methodological limitations. Here, we offer conceptual explanations for previously inconsistent findings, derive diverging hypotheses about different aspects of narcissism and affective well-being, and investigate these hypotheses in two daily diary and three experience-sampling data sets (overall N = 2,125; total measurements = 116,336). As hypothesized, we found diverging associations between agentic and antagonistic aspects of narcissism with affect levels: Whereas narcissistic admiration was related to more pleasant affective states, narcissistic rivalry was related to less pleasant ones. We also obtained some support for diverging effects of admiration and rivalry on affect variability. However, these associations were largely reduced when we corrected for (squared) mean levels of affective valence and arousal. In combination, these findings suggest that only the agentic aspect of grandiose narcissism is conducive to affective well-being, whereas its antagonistic aspect negatively influences affective well-being. Moreover, the assumed associations of grandiose narcissism with volatile affectivity seem to rely heavily on mean-level effects and primarily manifest in experiences of more diverse affective states rather than stronger or more frequent affective fluctuations in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Variation in social media sensitivity across people and contexts.

Social media impacts people's wellbeing in different ways, but relatively little is known about why this is the case. Here we introduce the construct of "social media sensitivity" to understand how social media and wellbeing associations differ across people and the contexts in which these platforms are used. In a month-long large-scale intensive longitudinal study (total n = 1632; total number of observations = 120,599), we examined for whom and under which circumstances social media was associated with positive and negative changes in social and affective wellbeing. Applying a combination of frequentist and Bayesian multilevel models, we found a small negative average association between social media use AND subsequent wellbeing, but the associations were heterogenous across people. People with psychologically vulnerable dispositions (e.g., those who were depressed, lonely, not satisfied with life) tended to experience heightened negative social media sensitivity in comparison to people who were not psychologically vulnerable. People also experienced heightened negative social media sensitivity when in certain types of places (e.g., in social places, in nature) and while around certain types of people (e.g., around family members, close ties), as compared to using social media in other contexts. Our results suggest that an understanding of the effects of social media on wellbeing should account for the psychological dispositions of social media users, and the physical and social contexts surrounding their use. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of social media sensitivity for scholars, policymakers, and those in the technology industry.

The two pathways to being an (un-)popular narcissist.

OBJECTIVE: Narcissism affects social relationships from the very first interactions. The overall positivity of social impressions narcissists evoke is, however, unclear-with previous research reporting positive, negative, or null effects on popularity at short-term acquaintance. Here we postulate a dual-pathway model, which explains the effects of narcissism on (un-)popularity as the result of two opposing behavioral pathways: assertiveness and aggressiveness. METHOD: In two studies, unacquainted German college students (N = 100; N = 68) met in groups of four to six persons and engaged in group discussions. Afterward, they provided ratings of each other's assertiveness, aggressiveness, and likeability. In Study 2, we additionally videotaped the sessions and assessed participants' actual behavior. RESULTS: Results of both studies confirm our dual-pathway hypothesis: There was a "positive" and a "negative" path from targets' narcissism to being liked or not-dependent upon being seen as assertive or aggressive. Behavioral observations showed that expressive and dominant behaviors mediated the positive path, whereas arrogant and combative behaviors mediated the negative path. CONCLUSIONS: Initial (un-)popularity of narcissists at early stages of interpersonal interactions depends on the behavioral pathway that is triggered in the given situational context.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on reading performance of second grade children in Germany.

In education, among the most anticipated consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are that student performance will stagnate or decline and that existing inequities will increase. Although some studies suggest a decline in student performance and widening learning gaps, the picture is less clear than expected. In this study, we add to the existing literature on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement. Specifically, we provide an analysis of the short- and mid-term effects of the pandemic on second grade reading performance in Germany using longitudinal assessments from over 19,500 students with eight measurement points in each school year. Interestingly, the effects of the pandemic established over time. Students in the first pandemic cohort even outperformed students from the pre-pandemic cohorts and showed a tendency towards decreased variances during the first lockdown. The second pandemic cohort showed no systematic mean differences, but generally had larger interindividual differences as compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts. While the gender achievement gap seemed unaffected by the pandemic, the gap between students with and without a migration background widened over time-though even before the pandemic. These results underline the importance of considering effects of the pandemic across cohorts, large samples, and fine-grained assessments. We discuss our findings considering the context-specific educational challenges and in terms of practical implications for teachers' professional development.

Applying multimodal social relations analyses in personality pathology research.

In this article, we introduce multimodal social relations analysis as a powerful tool for studying personality pathology that tackles several important limitations of existing research. By implementing a design in which groups of participants provide repeated ratings as they interact, researchers can gather data on individuals' mutual perceptions, affective experiences, and interpersonal behaviors in naturalistic social contexts. We demonstrate how the social relations model can be used to analyze and make conceptual sense of these complex, dyadic data and showcase how this may be used to address not only the experiences and behaviors of individuals diagnosed with a personality disorder but also the reactions these individuals evoke in others. We provide recommendations as to what settings and measures might be best suited when designing a study that applies multimodal social relations analysis, and we discuss practical and theoretical implications as well as possible extensions to this method. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Validation of the German Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory and Construction of a Brief Form Using Ant Colony Optimization.

Narcissism is a multifaceted construct commonly conceptualized as comprising grandiose and vulnerable aspects in a two-factor model. While the manifold correlates of these aspects imposed a challenge for research on the structure of narcissism, recent models converge in a three-factor structure of agentic-extraverted, antagonistic, and neurotic aspects, capturing variance in different conceptualizations and correlates of narcissism. We construct and validate a German adaptation of the Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI), a measure assessing these aspects based on the Five-Factor Model. In eight samples (N = 2,921), we found the German FFNI to align with both, two- and three-factor models. The factors display good criterion validity with other narcissism measures, (non-)clinical personality dimensions, interpersonal styles, and (mal-)adaptive adjustment. Neurotic and antagonistic narcissism discriminated between individuals with/without mental disorder diagnoses, and displayed a characteristic profile in incarcerated offenders. Since the FFNI is comprehensive but long, we constructed a 30-item brief form (FFNI-BF) optimizing the internal structure and external validity using ant colony optimization. The FFNI-BF displayed good psychometric characteristics and similar, in certain aspects even advantageous criterion validity. We conclude that the German FFNI validly measures key aspects of narcissism, and the FFNI-BF captures these in a concise manner.

Well-being in social interactions: Examining personality-situation dynamics in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication.

Decades of research show that people's social lives are linked to their well-being. Yet, research on the relationship between social interactions and well-being has been largely inconclusive with regard to the effects of person-situation interactions, such as the interplay between contextual factors (e.g., interactions occurring in physical vs. digital contexts, different interaction partners) and dispositional tendencies (e.g., Big Five personality traits). Here, we report on exploratory and confirmatory findings from three large studies of college students (Study 1: N = 1,360; Study 2: N = 851; Study 3: N = 864) who completed a total of 139,363 experience sampling surveys (reporting on 87,976 social interactions). We focus on the effects of different modes of communication (face-to-face [FtF] interactions, computer-mediated communication [CMC], and mixed episodes [FtF + CMC]), and types of interaction partners (close peers, family members, and weak ties). Using multilevel structural equation modeling, we found that FtF interactions and mixed episodes were associated with highest well-being on the within-person level, and that these effects were particularly pronounced for individuals with high levels of neuroticism. CMC was related to lower well-being than FtF interactions, but higher well-being than not socializing at all. Regarding the type of interaction partner, individuals reported higher well-being after interactions with close peers than after interactions with family members and weak ties, and the difference between close peers and weak ties was larger for FtF interactions than for CMC. We discuss these findings with regard to theories of person-situation interactions and research on well-being and social interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

How we compare: A new approach to assess aspects of the comparison process for appearance-based standards and their associations with individual differences in wellbeing and personality measures.

We introduce a novel approach to assess habitual comparison processes, while distinguishing between different types of comparison standards. Several comparison theories (e.g., social) suggest that self-evaluations use different standards to inform self-perception and are associated with wellbeing and personality. We developed the Comparison Standards Scale for Appearance (CSS-A) to examine self-reported engagement with social, temporal, criteria-based, dimensional, and counterfactual comparisons for upward and downward standards in relation to appearance. The scale was completed by three hundred participants online alongside measures of appearance schemas, social comparison evaluations, depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, physical self-concept, narcissism, and perfectionism. The CSS-A was found to reliably assess individual differences in upward and downward comparison frequency and affective impact for multiple comparison standards. In line with theory, CSS-A upward comparisons were more frequent than downward comparisons and coincided with negative (versus positive) affective impact. Comparison intensity (i.e., comparison frequency × discrepancy) predicted negative and positive affective impact for upward and downward comparisons, respectively. This relationship was partially mediated by appearance concern for upward comparisons (a composite of appearance schemas and physical self-concept), yet moderated by negativity for downward comparisons (a composite of depression, anxiety, stress, and self-esteem). We offer a framework for measuring the comparison process that warrants further research on underlying comparison processes, for which the CSS(-A) and experience sampling methods should serve as useful tools.

Narcissistic status pursuit in everyday social life: A within-person process approach to the behavioral and emotional dynamics of narcissism.

Status pursuit has been emphasized as a key motivational factor underlying narcissism, but research has just begun to unravel the processes by which more narcissistic individuals pursue status in their everyday social interactions. In this article, we combine process models of narcissistic status pursuit with three-factor models of narcissism to test whether different aspects of narcissism (i.e., agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism) can be characterized by stronger reactivity to different kinds of status perceptions (i.e., the perceived assignment of status, attack on status, and neglect of status). Using data from two experience sampling studies, one involving college students (Nparticipants = 285; Nobservations = 18,036) and one in the general population (Nparticipants = 1,177; Nobservations = 36,074), we first found that the perceived assignment of status, attack on status, and neglect of status were related to status-relevant behaviors (i.e., expressive, combative, and avoidant behaviors) and emotions (e.g., pride, anger, and shame) within persons on average. Next, we found that both mean levels of perceptual, behavioral, and emotional states and status contingencies (i.e., the within-person relationships of status perceptions with behavioral and emotional states) varied considerably across individuals and that these individual differences were reliable and stable across time. Last, we found some associations between trait levels of agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism and individual differences in mean levels as well as status-emotion contingencies. Our findings emphasize the multifaceted and status-driven nature of narcissism and support the use of theoretically derived contingencies as more dynamic aspects of personality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Prospective associations between grandiose narcissism and perfectionism: A longitudinal study in adolescence.

The current study investigates the longitudinal association between grandiose narcissism and multidimensional perfectionism over 2 years in adolescence. We adopted the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept, which differentiates between two aspects of grandiose narcissism. We also considered multiple dimensions of perfectionism, including Socially Prescribed Perfectionism (SPP) and two forms of Self-Oriented Perfectionism (SOP), namely the tendencies to set high standards of performance (SOP-Striving) and to engage in overly critical self-evaluations (SOP-Critical). The study was conducted in a sample of Italian high school students (n = 331). Concurrent correlations indicated that Admiration was positively related to SOP-Striving and, to a lesser extent, to SOP-Critical and SPP. Rivalry was also positively related to the three perfectionistic dimensions, although correlations were smaller in size than those found for Admiration. Prospective associations between narcissism and perfectionism were analysed using a Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model. Results showed that the predominant direction of effects was from narcissism to perfectionism, particularly from Admiration to SOP-Striving and SPP. Findings were discussed in terms of their implications for the understanding of the narcissism-perfectionism link.

Extraversion, social interactions, and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: Did extraverts really suffer more than introverts?

A large body of research suggests that extraversion is positively related to well-being. However, it is unclear whether this association can be explained by social participation (i.e., more extraverted individuals engage in social interactions more frequently) or social reactivity (i.e., more extraverted individuals profit more from social interactions) processes. Here, we examined the role of social interactions for the extraversion-well-being relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented time of reduced social contact. We analyzed data from an international, longitudinal study (Study 1: 10,523 assessments provided by 4,622 participants) and two experience sampling studies (Study 2: 29,536 assessments provided by 293 participants; Study 3: 61,492 assessments provided by 1,381 participants). Preregistered multilevel structural equation models revealed that extraversion was robustly related to well-being, even when social restrictions were in place. Across data sets, we found some support for the social participation hypothesis (i.e., the relationship between extraversion and well-being is mediated by social interactions), but the social reactivity hypothesis (i.e., extraversion moderates the relationship between social interactions and well-being) was not consistently supported. Strikingly, however, exploratory analyses showed that the social reactivity hypothesis was supported for specific facets of extraversion (i.e., sociability) and well-being (i.e., activated positive affect). Moreover, changes in social interaction patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., decreases in face-to-face interactions and interactions with friends) were unrelated to extraversion, and more extraverted individuals did not suffer more from these changes. Taken together, these findings underline the robustness of the effect of extraversion on well-being during a societal crisis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).