Development of a Culture-Common Formal Characteristics of Behavior - Temperament Markers Inventory (FCB-TMI-CC).

The goal was to create a brief temperament inventory grounded in the Regulative Theory of Temperament (FCB-TMI-CC), with a user-friendly, online applicability for studies in different cultures. As the regulative role of temperament is strongly revealed under meaningful stress, the study was planned within the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure high diversity in terms of culture, economic and environmental conditions, data from nine countries (Poland, United States of America, Italy, Japan, Argentina, South Korea, Ireland, United Kingdom and Kazakhstan) were utilized (min. N = 200 per country). Validation data were gathered on the level of COVID-19 stressors, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, and Big Five personality traits. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis served as the basis for the inventory's construction. The final culture-common version includes 37 items (5-6 in each of the 7 scales) and covers the core aspects of temperament dimensions. Temperament structure was confirmed to be equivalent across measured cultures. The measurement is invariant at the level of factor loadings and the reliability (internal consistency) and theoretical validity of the scales were at least acceptable. Therefore, the FCB-TMI-CC may serve as a valuable tool for studying temperament across diverse cultures and facilitate cross-cultural comparisons.

Personality coherence as a personality dynamics-related concept.

Extant theoretical models of personality coherence/incoherence do not sufficiently address the challenge of explaining personality coherence dynamics and the role of psychological mechanisms, including temperament and attention. To overcome these limitations, the Complex-System Approach to Personality (C-SAP) postulates that personality coherence is a within-person structure that arises from the functional consistency/inconsistency between personality traits/types, underlain by specific attentional and temperament mechanisms that have integrative and regulatory potential. The dominant (reactive, regulative) function of stimulation processing in temperament types is the foundation for assessing personality coherence. This paper presents a revised, fine-grained model of personality coherence-originally arising from the C-SAP-that is enriched by a focus on personality coherence dynamics in relation to behavioral consistency. The methodological principles necessary for studying personality coherence dynamics are outlined in detail. This paper also addresses: (a) research methods for relating personality coherence/incoherence to behavioral consistency/inconsistency, and (b) situational contexts that are important to these personality dynamics. In addition, personality coherence dynamics in relation to the self and character and the impact of the C-SAP assumption that behaviors are more stable than traits/types on the relation between personality coherence and behavioral consistency are discussed.

Personality dynamics: Regulatory mechanisms and processes.

Personality dynamics have recently revived interest as a subject of systematic investigation in personality science. Personality dynamics theories and research refer to nonstatic phenomena related to personality, such as the regulatory mechanisms and processes involved in the control of behavior and experience related to personality and their interactions with situations. Such research is not only important to understand personality but also important to explain the large amount of variability in behavior and experience in an individual that can hardly be explained by a few personality traits. This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Personality outlines the contributions of 11 articles tackling four emerging trends in the field: (1) personality dynamics and levels of regulation; (2) personality dynamics and the motivational dimension of regulation; (3) dynamics and regulatory potentials of structural personality components; and (4) personality dynamics and timescales. Moreover, we add recommendations for future exploration. Together, we believe that our special issue advances personality science in conceptualizing and examining personality dynamics as well as drawing attention to unanswered issues.

Personality Traits: Hierarchically Organized Systems.

Personality science has always been and is still ready for new theorizing on traits. Accordingly, this article presents the recently proposed traits as hierarchical systems (THS) model, where personality traits are not only the emergent properties of the three-level hierarchy of the personality system, but are also hierarchical per se. As hierarchical systems, they are organized into three levels: mechanisms and processes, structures, and behavioral markers. In this approach, trait denotes the underlying, recurrent mechanisms that pattern its structure and account for the stability/variability of individual characteristics. Here, traits might be described as processes with a slow rate of change that can be substituted for structure. The main function of personality traits, within the personality system, is stimulation processing. Three dominant functions of stimulation processing in traits are proposed: reactive, regulative, and self-regulative. Some important questions regarding the concept of trait remain, such as those concerning trait stability, determinacy, measurement, their relation to overt behaviors, personality type or state, and differentiation between temperament traits and other-than-temperament personality traits. All of these topics are discussed in this article, as well as the compatible and distinctive features of this approach in relation to selected modern trait theories.

Status of the Trait Concept in Contemporary Personality Psychology: Are the Old Questions Still the Burning Questions?

This special issue of Journal of Personality addresses one of the cardinal concerns of personality psychology, namely, the status of traits in contemporary personality science. Trait theory is a major scientific model for personality explanation and research. Although there have been critiques of traits, typically formulated from the point of view of the social-cognitive perspective, the trait approach can be viewed as a continuously developing paradigm. However, personality psychology persists in tackling burning questions concerning the status of traits that need to be answered. Modern trait approaches confront problems such as constructing an objective personality traits assessment, connecting the descriptive traits with explanatory processes, applying traits for understanding the individual person, clarifying the relation of traits to behavior, and using traits for solving cardinal concerns of personality psychology (e.g., personality organization). This special issue presents examples of contemporary trait theories that attempt to provide possible solutions to these issues and/or delineate other main issues to be resolved by future research and theorizing. We have asked contributors to portray their approach and describe in what way their trait theory continues a historic tradition and in what respect it breaks with the past and moves trait models to more mature scientific levels.

Anxiety and depression: toward overlapping and distinctive features.

This Special Issue of Cognition and Emotion addresses one of the cardinal concerns of affective science, which is overlapping and distinctive features of anxiety and depression. A central finding in the study of anxiety and depression is that they are moderately highly correlated with each other. This leads us to the question: What is behind this co-occurrence? Possible explanations relate to poor discriminant validity of measures; both emotional states are associated with negative affect; stressful life events; impaired cognitive processes; they share a common biological/genetic diathesis. However, despite a set of common (nonspecific) features, anxiety and depression are clearly not identical emotional states. Differences between them might be best viewed, for example, through their heterogeneous and multi-layered nature, adaptive functions and relations with regulatory processes, positive affect, and motivation or complex cognitive processes. In this introduction we consider several approaches (e.g. functional approach; tripartite model and content-specificity hypothesis) to which most research in this Special Issue is relevant. In addition, we have asked contributors to this Special Issue to indicate how their own studies on comparisons between anxiety and depression and models on anxiety and depression move this area of research to more mature science with applicability.

Attentional processing of emotional material in types of anxiety and depression.

The present study was designed to address the hypothesis that differences and similarities in patterns of attentional processing in recently proposed types of anxiety and depression are connected with the dominant (reactive, regulative) function they play in stimulation processing and their structural components. Participants (N = 1247) filled out the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire, which assesses types of anxiety and depression, and completed the Emotional Faces Attentional Test one week later. The obtained results confirmed our prediction and suggested that the proposed typology of anxiety and depression is valid in the adaptive meanings of both phenomena.

Psychological well-being in Europe after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has had devastating effects on the Ukrainian population and the global economy, environment, and political order. However, little is known about the psychological states surrounding the outbreak of war, particularly the mental well-being of individuals outside Ukraine. Here, we present a longitudinal experience-sampling study of a convenience sample from 17 European countries (total participants = 1,341, total assessments = 44,894, countries with >100 participants = 5) that allows us to track well-being levels across countries during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war. Our data show a significant decline in well-being on the day of the Russian invasion. Recovery over the following weeks was associated with an individual's personality but was not statistically significantly associated with their age, gender, subjective social status, and political orientation. In general, well-being was lower on days when the war was more salient on social media. Our results demonstrate the need to consider the psychological implications of the Russo-Ukrainian war next to its humanitarian, economic, and ecological consequences.

High School Students' Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior by Motivational Profiles Toward Physical Activity.

Purpose: Based on a Self-Determination Theory with a person-centered approach, the purposes were: (1) to identify motivational profiles toward physical activity (PA) among high school students, and (2) to compare students' accelerometer-measured PA and sedentary behavior (SB) levels between the motivational profiles toward PA. Methods: The present study followed a cross-sectional design. A total of 394 high school students (173 females; final sample = 360 and 198 for the purposes 1 and 2, respectively) aged 12-16 years completed the study. Participants' PA and SB levels were objectively measured by ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometers (right hip) during seven consecutive days. Later, motivation toward PA was measured by the Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire. Results: Based on a two-stage cluster analysis approach, the results identified three clusters: (1) "Self-determined motivational profile toward PA" (65.3%); (2) "Non-self-determined motivational profile toward PA" (23.9%), and (3) "Controlled motivational profile toward PA" (10.8%). The results of the chi-square test showed that a statistically significantly higher percentage of males were represented in cluster 1 (p < .001). The results of the one-way analysis of variance showed that students from cluster 1 had statistically significantly lower levels of SB, and higher levels of light PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA and total PA than those from cluster 2 (p < .05; |d| = 0.40-0.61). Conclusions: In line with the Self-Determination Theory, the students within the self-determined motivational profile had lower SB and higher PA. This preliminary evidence could inform and guide future policy regarding students' PA promotion.

Chronotype, social jetlag and sleep loss in relation to sex steroids.

Chronotype describes preferences for functioning at different times of the day. At the onset of puberty, a sharp shift towards eveningness starts, reaching its peak at the end of adolescence, followed by a steady shift towards morningness as the ageing process occurs. Puberty is also the time when sex differences appear, with men being more inclined to eveningness than women, which diminishes around menopause; the described pattern of changes in chronotype leads to the hypothesis that reproductive hormones may be the driving factor behind this conversion. In the present study, we aimed to verify this hypothesis by analysing participants' testosterone, progesterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels in the three months, as indicated by assays in 3-cm hair strands from the scalp. Participants (n = 239) of both sexes also completed the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire. The results showed that in men higher testosterone levels were related to eveningness and less sleep loss, whereas greater sleep loss was associated with lower levels of DHEA. In women, no associations between chronotype and levels of the analysed hormones were found. The results support the hypothesis that testosterone levels play a role in shaping eveningness. We further hypothesised that a possible cause of the higher secretion level of testosterone in men with the evening chronotype is a mechanism to offset the negative consequences of sleep loss.

Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in Anxiety and Depression Understood as Types of Personality.

The identification of distinctive and overlapping features of anxiety and depression remains an important scientific problem. Currently, the literature does not allow to determine stable similarities and differences in the use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) in anxiety and depression, especially concerning the adaptive strategies. Consequently, the aim of this study was to identify the overlapping and distinctive patterns of CERS use in the recently proposed types of anxiety and depression in a general population. In this dimensional approach, types of anxiety and depression are considered as personality types and distinguished based on their specific structural composition and functional role (reactive or regulative) in stimulation processing. 1,632 participants from a representative sample completed the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire (measuring the Arousal and Apprehension Types of anxiety and the Valence and Anhedonic Types of depression) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Regression analyses were conducted with the affective types as predictors. The co-occurrence of the types was accounted for in order to examine their independent relationships with the CERS. We found that reactive arousal anxiety was not related to any strategies, while regulative apprehension anxiety primarily predicted the use of rumination, which is presumably related to the type's cognitive structural components. The strategy specific to reactive valence depression was other-blame (as predicted by the high negative affect in its structure), and the regulative, most structurally complex anhedonic depression predicted the use of the largest number of strategies, including the adaptive ones. The relationships between the types of depression and self-blame and refocus on planning were moderated by sex but the effects were small. These findings fit into the current trend of exploring the shared and specific features of anxiety and depression, which might facilitate their differentiation by identifying CERS that are characteristic for the specific types. This information can be used for supporting diagnosis and targeting selected strategies in therapy both in clinical and non-clinical populations.

Types of Anxiety and Depression: Theoretical Assumptions and Development of the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire.

The present paper is addressed to (1) the validation of a recently proposed typology of anxiety and depression, and (2) the presentation of a new tool-the Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire (ADQ)-based on this typology. Empirical data collected across two stages-construction and validation-allowed us to offer the final form of the ADQ, designed to measure arousal anxiety, apprehension anxiety, valence depression, anhedonic depression, and mixed types of anxiety and depression. The results support the proposed typology of anxiety and depression and provide evidence that the ADQ is a reliable and valid self-rating measure of affective types, and accordingly its use in scientific research is recommended.

Two Sides of the Same Coin: ERP and Wavelet Analyses of Visual Potentials Evoked and Induced by Task-Relevant Faces.

New analysis techniques of the electroencephalogram (EEG) such as wavelet analysis open the possibility to address questions that may largely improve our understanding of the EEG and clarify its relation with related potentials (ER Ps). Three issues were addressed. 1) To what extent can early ERERP components be described as transient evoked oscillations in specific frequency bands? 2) Total EEG power (TP) after a stimulus consists of pre-stimulus baseline power (BP), evoked power (EP), and induced power (IP), but what are their respective contributions? 3) The Phase Reset model proposes that BP predicts EP, while the evoked model holds that BP is unrelated to EP; which model is the most valid one? EEG results on NoGo trials for 123 individuals that took part in an experiment with emotional facial expressions were examined by computing ERPs and by performing wavelet analyses on the raw EEG and on ER Ps. After performing several multiple regression analyses, we obtained the following answers. First, the P1, N1, and P2 components can by and large be described as transient oscillations in the α and θ bands. Secondly, it appears possible to estimate the separate contributions of EP, BP, and IP to TP, and importantly, the contribution of IP is mostly larger than that of EP. Finally, no strong support was obtained for either the Phase Reset or the Evoked model. Recent models are discussed that may better explain the relation between raw EEG and ERPs.