Deriving Information on Play and Playfulness of 3-5-Year-Olds from Short Written Descriptions: Analyzing the Frequency of Usage of Indicators of Playfulness and Their Associations with Maternal Playfulness.

Playfulness is an individual differences variable that enables people to (re-)frame almost any situation into an entertaining, amusing, intellectually stimulating and/or personally interesting situation by interacting playfully with others, by resolving tension, by liking complexity over simplicity and/or by having a preference for unusual topics, persons and/or activities. We asked 208 German-speaking mothers of 3-5-year-olds to describe their child in 5-10 sentences. Using a list of criteria for playfulness (e.g., actively initiating humor, playful exchange with others or widespread interests), we found that mothers used, on average, two playful characteristics to describe their child (17% did not report any). Greater usage of playful descriptors in the written texts was positively related mainly to greater other-directed and intellectual playfulness of the mothers. The findings are encouraging and suggest that the list of playful criteria in descriptions of children could be used in the study of inter-individual differences in playfulness in young children.

Authentic Happiness at Work: Self- and Peer-Rated Orientations to Happiness, Work Satisfaction, and Stress Coping.

The authentic happiness theory covers three basic orientations to happiness; namely, the life of pleasure (via hedonism); engagement (via flow-related experiences); and meaning (via eudaimonia). There is broad evidence for a positive relationship between these three orientations and indicators of positive psychological functioning in a variety of life domains. However, their contribution to well-being at work is understudied. The main aim of this study was testing the relationship between self- and peer-rated orientations to happiness, work related well-being (work satisfaction, work stress), and coping strategies. Further possible mediating effects of the coping strategies on the relationship between orientations to happiness and well-being at work were also examined. The sample consisted of 372 German-speaking Swiss adults (60.3% female), aged between 18 and 65 years (M = 38.9, SD = 10.8) with a minimum of 40% full-time employment. For 100 persons, peer-ratings of the orientations to happiness were available. Our results showed that the life of engagement and, to a lesser extent, the life of meaning are related to work satisfaction. The life of pleasure was associated with lower levels of reported work stress. Further, positive associations between self- and peer-rated orientations to happiness (particularly pleasure) and adaptive coping strategies with stress were also found. Mediation analyses showed that the effects of engagement in general and content-related work satisfaction were mediated mainly by control and negative coping, while the association between meaning and resigned work satisfaction was mediated by positive coping. Negative coping fully mediated the association between the pleasurable life and work stress. Overall, our results indicate that employees' orientations to happiness are of importance for experiencing well-being at work.

Effects of Personality Disorders on Self-Other Agreement and Favorableness in Personality Descriptions.

The authors studied effects of self-reported personality disorder (PD) symptoms on interpersonal perception, particularly self-other agreement and favorableness. Using a round-robin design, 52 groups of four well-acquainted students described themselves and each other on a measure of the Five-Factor model of personality and were administered a self-report screening instrument for DSM-IV (Axis 2). Using the Social Accuracy Model, the peer reports were predicted, across items, from either (a) the target person's self-reports plus the self-report item means, or (b) the items' social desirability. This resulted in separate coefficients for each peer-target dyad, indicating either self-other agreement or favorableness. These coefficients were then predicted from the PD scores of the target and the peer, using multilevel modeling. Main findings were that persons scoring high on PD measures agreed less with their peers on their unique personality characteristics, and that such persons were described by, and described their peers, less favorably.

Accuracy of Judgments of Personality Based on Textual Information on Major Life Domains.

We studied the accuracy of personality impressions relying on textual information on important life domains. Specifically, how is accuracy moderated by the trait being judged, information being provided, judgeability of target persons, and perceptiveness of judges? A sample of 208 students was recruited in groups of four mutual acquaintances who described themselves and each other on a measure of the Five-Factor Model of personality. Moreover, they wrote essays on their hobbies, friends, family, academic studies, and plans for the future and provided self-reports on possible predictors of expressive accuracy. The essays were delivered to 130 strangers who reported their impressions of the personality of the targets and provided self-reports on possible predictors of perceptive accuracy. Accuracy was measured by correlating these impressions with the descriptions of the targets by their acquaintances. The judges used the available information efficiently. Overall, impressions of Openness to Experience were most accurate, but accuracy depended on the information being provided. Several predictors of expressive and perceptive accuracy were identified using Biesanz's (2010) social accuracy model. The results advance our understanding of factors contributing to and moderating the accuracy of personality impressions based on textual information.