For many young adults in Switzerland, basic military training is a significant life event with implications for daily routines and life. Theory and some previous studies suggest that this experience also relates to people’s personality development. In the present study, we investigated the role of an 18-week basic training in the change of Big Five traits and self-esteem using a weighted control group design with n = 1,191 Swiss soldiers and n = 441 civilians at baseline ( N total = 1,632–288 across assessments). The study spanned 54 weeks and four assessments (T1–T4). We examined baseline group differences (selection effects), group differences in change (socialization effects), and moderators of change (social investment and goals to change traits) using latent change models. At the start of their training, soldiers reported higher levels of conscientiousness and lower levels of open-mindedness than civilians. Basic training (T1–T2) was associated with greater mean-level increases in extraversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and self-esteem. After training (T2–T4), we found no group differences in change. In sum, our findings support the plasticity principle of personality and partly replicate previous research on military training and personality change. However, we found no evidence of social investment or change goals as moderators of change.
In recent years, there has been increased research attention on understanding how consequential life outcomes are predicted by personality traits and motivational variables, including vocational interests and life goals. Although personality traits, interests, and life goals have demonstrated predictive importance on their own, little is known about their relative importance for jointly predicting career and educational outcomes—especially over long time periods. The current study examined the relative importance of personality traits, vocational interests, and life goals measured in late adolescence for predicting three objective outcomes measured 12 years later: educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income. Overall, findings revealed that adolescent vocational interests were the strongest predictors of educational attainment and income in young adulthood. Adolescent personality traits were the strongest predictors of occupational prestige in young adulthood, although limiting generalizability, the specific traits that best predicted occupational prestige differed somewhat across samples. We also tested for potential interactions between 14 pairs of personality traits and interests/life goals in predicting career outcomes, but the results did not support any consistent interaction effects. Altogether, results highlight the importance of assessing personality, interests, and life goals in tandem to better understand and support young people’s future career success.
Trust decisions often rely on a partner's reputation, yet little is known about interindividual differences in how people use such information when deciding whom to trust. Across four pre-registered studies (total N = 1,171), we examined whether associations between trust-related personality traits and trust vary as a function of a trustee's reputation. We focused on three traits that should differentially interact with reputation information: General Trust-the tendency to believe in the benevolence of others; Victim Sensitivity-the anxious expectation of being exploited by others; and Honesty-Humility-an individual's dispositional prosociality. In Studies 1-3, participants acted as trustors in peer-to-peer car-sharing scenarios and rated either the trustworthiness of potential renters or their intention to rent out their car. In Study 4, participants made real, incentivized trust decisions in economic trust games with reputation cues based on actual behavior. Across studies, higher reputation consistently increased trust, and General Trust showed a broad positive association with trust. By contrast, Victim Sensitivity and Honesty-Humility showed reputation-contingent associations with trust; however, the specific interaction patterns varied across studies. Overall, trustor personality and trustee reputation jointly shape trust, yet the nature of this interplay differs across personality traits and the motivational tendencies they capture.
Extensive knowledge about creative achievements and their association with personality traits, motivation, and cognitive ability has been derived from univariate studies in adult samples. In contrast, research on children’s talent development often focuses narrowly on academic performance, overlooking creative achievements as developmental milestones. To better understand the nomological net of childhood creativity, this study took a comprehensive, multimodal approach to explore predictors of creative activities and (scientific and artistic) creative achievements in N = 431 gifted secondary school students. Using self- and parent-reports, performance tests, and a machine learning approach, over 40 theoretically derived predictors from personality, motivation, and cognitive domains were analyzed. Our results broadly aligned with the pattern of associations from adult samples and revealed domain-specific differences. Important predictors identified by machine learning included openness, creative self-efficacy, artistic and investigative vocational interests, and divergent thinking. Structural equation modeling showed that intellectual curiosity and investigative interests were the strongest predictors of scientific creative achievement, whereas aesthetic sensitivity was the strongest predictor of artistic creative achievement. Creative activities partly mediated the associations. Our findings underscore the multidimensional nature of creativity in gifted adolescents during an important stage of talent development and highlight key factors by distinguishing robust predictors from simple correlates.
Morality has been described as a psychological system comprising sets of values, practices, institutions, and psychological mechanisms that work together to support moral/socially positive behavior. Nonetheless, there have been relatively few efforts to integrate these diverse constructs. We address this limitation using data from two samples who completed measures of moral foundations (Moral Foundations Theory), values (Schwartz Value Theory), and character strengths (VIA Framework). First, we used principal components analysis to summarize the complex patterns of association among these variables. We then tested whether the extracted components overlapped with normal and maladaptive personality trait domains (HEXACO and DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders). Finally, we tested incremental validity of the three frameworks. In both samples, variance among variables was explained by four components that were suggestive of different “psychological systems” (networks of associated constructs) that may be linked to individual differences in moral action: Universal caring, preservation, self-control, and self-expansion. Further analyses suggested these emergent components are not reducible to single personality domains, each sharing variance with multiple domains. Finally, incremental validity analyses suggested that moral foundations, basic values, and VIA character strengths are complementary rather than redundant constructs, each explaining unique variance in criterion variables (empathy and moral identity).
Personality traits have been found to be robust predictors of important life outcomes. However, evidence on longitudinal personality-outcome associations stems almost exclusively from Western countries. It is not yet known if, how, and to what extent personality traits are linked to life outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from the Africa Long Life Study, which sampled young adults from Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa ( N = 2,770), we examined the Big Two personality traits, agency and communion, as predictors of seven life outcomes (self-reported health, life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, employment status, relationship status, financial situation) 2 to 3 years later. Furthermore, we used specification curve analysis to examine the robustness of personality-outcome associations. Higher levels of agency and communion robustly predicted higher levels of self-rated health and lower levels of anxiety and depression over 2 to 3 years. Furthermore, higher levels of communion predicted being employed 2 to 3 years later. However, personality-outcome associations were smaller than previously observed in Western countries (.02 ≤ | r | ≤ .11) and depended on analytic decisions such as country and the time lag between assessments. Our findings provide novel insights into the cross-cultural replicability of personality-outcome associations.
Establishing the generalizability of empirical findings is essential for a cumulative science. Kiendl, Wenzel et al. (2025) recently examined sources of variability in goal dimensions, as well as three different ways of calculating variability and the specific personality traits (conscientiousness, neuroticism, and trait self-control) that predict them. We replicate their analyses on two independent datasets with different populations (Canadian university students, N = 401; working adults, N = 343), timeframes (biweekly vs. monthly assessments), number of goals (2-3), and goal dimensions. Across all studies, person-level variance was consistently lowest-goal dimensions vary more across goals and time than across individuals. Results were more similar than different when comparing similar dimensions across studies on variability indices, with notable exceptions. Results for personality predictors (conscientiousness, neuroticism, and trait self-control) of variability somewhat diverged; whereas Kiendl et al. found all examined traits to be predictive of two variability indices each, we found less robust relationships (trait self-control predicted dispersion and instability in study 1; neuroticism predicted dispersion in study 2). These discrepancies may reflect methodological differences including assessment frequency and the specific dimensions measured. Our findings corroborate past research in pointing to the importance of considering person, goal, and time levels in goal research.
What determines whether a romantic relationship survives? We used machine learning (random forest and elastic net models) to predict relationship dissolution in two longitudinal samples. In Study 1 ( N = 1,281), drawn from individuals in dating relationships in the United States and Canada, both models achieved 64% balanced accuracy, suggesting that dissolution is largely explained by linear combinations of relational predictors. Top predictors included commitment, relational uncertainty, and concerns about the consequences of ending the relationship. Commitment-focused variables outperformed trait-focused ones in predicting breakup (64% vs. 55% balanced accuracy). In Study 2 ( N = 6,947), a nationally representative German sample of young to middle-aged adults tracked over 10 years, the random forest model achieved higher (71%) balanced accuracy among a broader set of contextual predictors. Top predictors included socioeconomic background, division of household labor, and conflict communication. Several nonlinear interactions emerged, highlighting the complexity of predicting dissolution. The findings highlight the joint role of relational, demographic, and contextual factors in predicting relationship stability. (163 words).
The present research examines whether and how well-documented historical changes in resource availability, social embedding, technology, and social norms also manifest in control beliefs—a key psychological marker of individual health and well-being. Drawing on longitudinal data from five waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel ( N = 42,158) spanning over 20 years, we analyzed control belief trajectories of individuals aged 16 to 98 years, born between 1914 and 1989. Our results reveal that compared to middle-aged and older adults born earlier in historical time, those born later reported higher levels of control beliefs and maintained these into higher ages. We also found that gender and income disparities in control beliefs have narrowed among more recent cohorts. In contrast, socialization disparities between individuals from the former Eastern vs. Western part of Germany have widened over the 30 years since reunification. We also found that the experience of unemployment or disability is associated with larger event-related decrements in control beliefs today than in the past. In contrast, the associations between education (moderate positive) and religiosity (modest negative) with control beliefs have not changed. We discuss potential drivers of the observed changes and their broader conceptual and societal implications.
The current research examined if dispositional optimism buffers against negative consequences of daily stressor exposure. The work also provides a direct test of positive affect as a mediator, in line with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Study 1 utilised data from a US older-adult sample ( N = 958, M age = 62.57, 45% male) to examine optimism’s buffering role on affective (negative affect) and cognitive (rumination) outcomes. Study 2 extended these findings with a Singapore young adult sample ( N = 995, M age = 21.93, 27% male), incorporating behavioural outcomes (procrastination and impulsivity), introducing additional affective indicators (depressive and anxious mood), and broadening the cognitive domain to include cognitive failure in addition to rumination. Using multilevel regression and multivariate modelling, we found that optimism acted as a buffer against all indicators across both studies, except for anxious mood and procrastination. Trait positive affect mediated the associations between optimism and negative affect (in Study 1), rumination (in Study 1 but not in Study 2), and depressive mood, impulsivity and cognitive failure (in Study 2). These findings shed light on the boundary conditions of the buffering effect of dispositional optimism and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.
The 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) is a personality measure widely used in numerous contexts, including large cohort studies. We report that its openness subscale (two items) is flawed due to a linguistically ambiguous item: 'I see myself as someone who has few artistic interests'. The word 'few' is often misinterpreted as 'some' instead of its intended meaning of 'almost none', leading to inconsistent responses. Across nine datasets (N = 6,640), this item shows weak or no inter-item correlations with the other openness item, contrasting sharply with those observed within the other four personality dimensions. To confirm that the issue stems from wording rather than semantics, we tested a revised item ('& mldr;has hardly any artistic interests'), which improves inter-item correlations, test-retest reliability, criterion validity, and statistical power. Simulation analyses show that the original item substantially reduces statistical power to detect true changes in openness. The problematic item also appears in the 44-item BFI, suggesting possible misinterpretations in the aesthetics facet. To address existing datasets, we evaluated adjustment methods through additional simulations, showing that regression-based adjustment approaches can partially but meaningfully reduce bias. We recommend re-evaluating prior findings, applying the correction strategies to existing datasets, and updating future data collection.
Occupational groups differ systematically in their personality profiles, but broad personality traits may not fully capture the contextualized characteristics that differentiate individuals within specialized professions such as teaching. We examined how broad personality traits relate to a taxonomy of teaching-related Social-Emotional characteristics and Instructional competencies (SEI), organized into five domains: Bonding, Regulating, Expressing, Managing, and Innovating (BoREMI). Using data from 8,960 Brazilian teachers, we investigated whether teachers replicate the characteristic Big Five profile reported in prior research, how SEI organize within the broader personality framework, and the extent to which broad traits and their facets account for variance in these teaching-related characteristics. Teachers scored high on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and low on Negative Emotionality, replicating the occupational personality profile observed in previous work. Joint factor analyses supported a six-factor solution comprising the Big Five plus an additional teaching-specific factor capturing shared variance across SEI. Personality facets explained 27% of the variance in SEI, indicating that these characteristics reflect substantial variance beyond broad dispositional traits. These findings suggest that teaching-related characteristics are systematically related to personality, yet not reducible to broad trait dimensions, and that occupationally contextualized assessments capture construct-relevant variance that generic personality taxonomies leave unaccounted for.
Posttraumatic growth (PTG) refers to desired psychological change following adversity, traditionally assessed across five domains (e.g., Personal Strength and Relating to Others). Research suggests that PTG may be operationalized as per-sonality change. This study examines whether spousal loss is associated with desired changes in Big Five traits as a form of PTG. We included n = 256 spousal loss cases from the publicly available Dutch LISS panel and matched controls. Controls were identified using propensity score matching on relevant covariates and a dependent variable matching procedure to ensure baseline trait similarity. Annual assessments spanning 2 years before to 4 years after the loss were analyzed using linear mixed models. Spousal loss was not associated with desired personality changes. On the contrary, bereaved persons showed a noticeable temporal increase in Neuroticism surrounding the loss and decreasing Conscientiousness after loss. Especially in bereaved men, Neuroticism rose until the year of loss and declined subsequently but remained above control levels. The predominant trait-based operationalization of PTG contradicts retrospective self-reports. Perceived PTG may align with a curvilinear course of Neuroticism, where eventual posttrauma reductions in emotional distress are perceived as growth. Plain Language SummaryLosing a spouse is one of the hardest life experiences. Some people describe this loss as a turning point that made them stronger, more appreciative of life, or better in relationships. Researchers call such positive changes "posttraumatic growth." A key question is whether this growth manifests as positive personality trait change. Psychologists often describe personality using the "Big Five" traits: Extraversion (being outgoing), Openness (being curious and creative), Agreeableness (being cooperative and kind), Conscientiousness (being organized and reliable), and Neuroticism (being prone to worry and stress). If PTG were taking place, we would expect to see people becoming more outgoing, open, agreeable, and conscientious, and lower in Neuroticism. We analyzed data from 256 Dutch adults who lost their spouse and compared their personality development over a period of seven years (from 2 years before the loss until 4 years after loss) with control groups, who were matched on background factors and on their personality levels. Our findings show that spousal loss was not linked to notable personality change in the expected way. There were even some negative trends. Neu-roticism increased until the year of loss, particularly among bereaved men. Although it decreased in the following years, it remained elevated. Further, Conscientiousness decreased after the loss and remained lower compared to before loss. These results suggest that losing a spouse does not typically lead to personality growth as measured in traits. Instead, people may perceive growth when they notice that emotional distress eventually lessens over time. This highlights an important difference between what people feel has changed and what can be observed in their personality.
What characterizes individuals who stand up and take action against violations of fundamental moral principles, even in the face of personal risk and adversity? Due to methodological and ethical challenges, we are limited in our understanding of personality dispositions that predict who acts morally courageously in situations of severe wrongdoings and considerable risk. In Germany and Austria, we recruited recipients of public awards for outstanding moral courage (n = 54) and individuals who nominated themselves to have acted morally courageously (n = 48). We contrasted these morally courageous individuals with a demographically matched reference group of people who reported not to have acted morally courageously before (n = 323), and with normative samples of the German population. Results showed three key patterns: First, among the HEXACO personality factors, heightened extraversion consistently distinguished the morally courageous groups from the reference group. Second, membership in the morally courageous groups was predicted by heightened moral attentiveness and anger proneness, and lowered endorsement of loyalty and authority, indicating exceptional moral functioning of the morally courageous. Third, the morally courageous were characterized by diminished risk avoidance and social anxiety, suggesting that they encounter a lower psychological barrier posed by fear of negative social evaluation.
Despite decades of research on narcissism, its neural basis remains poorly understood. Competing accounts hypothesize either heightened responsiveness to socially rewarding feedback (reflecting motives for status and validation) or neural disengagement (reflecting a self-protection motive). To test these hypotheses, we recorded EEG from 98 participants as they completed Monetary and Social Incentive Delay tasks. We measured an event-related potential, known as the Reward Positivity, to examine whether narcissism was associated with altered neural sensitivity to monetarily and socially rewarding feedback. Results revealed a domain-specific dissociation. In the Monetary Incentive Delay task, narcissism was unrelated to neural responses. However, in the Social Incentive Delay task, rivalry narcissism (and overall narcissism) was associated with reduced Reward Positivity amplitudes, whereas admiration narcissism was not. These findings support the self-protective disengagement account, suggesting that individuals high in rivalry evince blunted immediate neural sensitivity to socially rewarding feedback. This early-stage disengagement may serve to maintain a sense of detachment from the self, while limiting opportunities for social learning and connection.
Adverse experiences in early life significantly impact an individual's long-term physical and mental health. Socially prescribed perfectionism has also been found to be associated with negative outcomes, including suicide risk. However, less is known about how these variables interact or their mechanisms of action in daily life. The current research explores the main and interactive effects of childhood trauma and socially prescribed perfectionism on measures of perceived stress, mood, defeat and entrapment as well as indirect effects. Three studies (cross-sectional survey and two 7-day intensive longitudinal designs) are reported. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and measures of socially prescribed perfectionism, history of suicide thoughts and behaviours, perceived stress, mood, defeat and entrapment. The results showed that childhood trauma and socially prescribed perfectionism were associated with higher levels of perceived stress, negative mood, defeat, entrapment and less positive mood in adulthood across the three studies. Childhood trauma and socially prescribed perfectionism also indirectly affected daily negative mood through daily perceived stress levels and daily feelings of entrapment through daily levels of defeat. Interventions aimed at mitigating the negative effects of childhood trauma and socially prescribed perfectionism ought to target modifiable risk factors such as perceived stress, mood, defeat and entrapment.
Fluctuations in narcissism are well-known but understudied phenomena. Existing studies evaluated how state agentic and neurotic narcissism interplay. However, they have overlooked antagonistic narcissism. This paper addresses this gap and presents data from an intensive longitudinal study (N = 199; k = 7,991 responses). Using dynamic structural equation modeling, we assessed fluctuations in narcissism and how they are related to fluctuations in momentary affect. We found that increases in antagonistic narcissism predicted subsequent increases in agentic and neurotic narcissism and vice versa, highlighting the central role of antagonism in the fluctuation process. Furthermore, we shed light on how fluctuations in momentary affective states can predict fluctuations in narcissistic states. Greater inertia (i.e., time needed for returning to personal equilibrium) in positive affect preceded inertia of agentic narcissism, while greater inertia in negative affect preceded inertia of neurotic narcissism. Fluctuations from agentic to antagonistic narcissism, as well as the inertia of antagonistic narcissism, were associated with fluctuations from positive to negative affect. Our findings show that these changes in narcissism occur in a specific sequence: from agentic to antagonistic, and finally to neurotic narcissism. The results provide novel insights into the complex interplay between narcissism and affectivity, aligning with theoretical predictions.
Research on people’s tendencies to over-, under-, or accurately estimate their abilities relies on assessments of self-perceived ability. Here, we investigated how the choice of an assessment method influences the conclusions drawn in research on two perspectives on accuracy. First, studies using the rank-order perspective are concerned with the correlation between self-perceived ability and an objective measure of “real” ability across individuals. Second, studies using the level perspective view the discrepancy between a person’s levels of self-perceived and real ability as an indicator of the degree of bias (vs. accuracy) and investigate the average discrepancy across people, individual differences in people’s discrepancies, or the association between the individual discrepancies and some outcome variable. In a cross-sectional survey of 281 participants, we assessed self-perceived intelligence in two domains (vocabulary knowledge, reasoning ability) with three measures each (percentile rank, IQ score, number of correct items). “Real” ability was measured with objective tests and transformed to match the scales of the self-assessments. We found that the measure for self-perceived intelligence impacted the conclusions drawn in analyses within the level but not the rank-order perspective. We discuss implications for the robustness of past findings and for the assessment of self-perceived intelligence in future studies.
Personality is increasingly viewed as a dynamic system arising from the interaction between individuals and their situations. Yet, in naturalistic data, within-person links between personality states and situation perceptions often conflate two distinct mechanisms: situation contact-what people objectively encounter-and situation construal-how they interpret these encounters. To disentangle these components, we combined two longitudinal approaches: a standardized laboratory study (N = 189) in which situation contact was held largely constant, and a naturalistic experience-sampling study (N = 1,596) capturing the diversity of everyday contexts. Multilevel models revealed meaningful within-person covariation between Big Five states and situation perceptions in both designs, with effect sizes that were small to medium in magnitude and theoretically coherent across both settings. However, in the naturalistic study, person-situation associations varied systematically across situation cues-social partner, location, and activity-with some associations shifting in magnitude or reversing direction depending on the context. Together, these findings suggest that construal is a primary driver of person-situation associations, but that situation contact shapes which associations emerge, to what degree, and across which situation perception dimensions. Accounting for situation contact may therefore help to more accurately capture personality as a context-sensitive, dynamic system.
