scholarly journals Leisure Activities as a Driver of Personality Development? A Random-Intercept Cross-lagged Panel Model Across 13 Years in Adulthood

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Sander ◽  
Paul Schumann ◽  
David Richter ◽  
Jule Specht

Repeated experiences and activities drive personality development. Leisure activities are among the daily routines that may elicit personality change. Yet despite the important role they play in daily life, little is known about their prospective effects on personality traits and vice versa. The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which within-person changes in leisure activities lead to prospective changes in personality traits, and whether changes in personality elicit prospective changes in leisure activities. We applied random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) to four waves of 13-year longitudinal data (2005−2017) from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the sample as a whole (N = 55,790) and for three specific age groups (young, middle-aged, and older adults). We examined between-person associations and within-person auto-regressive effects, correlated change and cross-lagged effects for Big Five personality traits (i.e., openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) with self-reported frequency of leisure activities (i.e., physical activities, socializing, volunteering, political activity, artistic and musical activity, going out) and overall participation in leisure activities. At the between-person level, leisure activities and overall participation were most strongly associated with openness to experience. At the within-person level, we found reciprocal effects of extraversion only with overall participation in leisure activities and socializing. We found unidirectional within-person cross-lagged effects between leisure activities and personality traits and vice versa. Some effects were age-group-specific only. These findings suggest that leisure activities that are associated with certain traits at the between-person level are not necessarily those that trigger change in the respective personality trait. We discuss our findings based on the TESSERA framework for personality development. We conclude that the specificity of an experience or behavior and its corresponding trait is essential for personality development and should be subjected to further research.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Rakhshani ◽  
Richard E. Lucas ◽  
Brent Donnellan ◽  
Ina Fassbender ◽  
Maike Luhmann

Research about the associations between major life events and personality trait development is mixed. Work that evaluates perceptions of life events and how those perceptions are themselves associated with personality traits may help clarify the existing literature. We used a large student sample (N = 1509) to conduct exploratory analyses examining the associations among big five personality traits, different types of life events, a dimensional taxonomy of event characteristics, and beliefs about event-related personality change. Results suggested that (1) associations between personality and event perceptions are often nuanced; and (2) event perceptions were more predictive of beliefs about event-related personality change than were the big five. These findings indicate that event perceptions are not merely proxies for personality traits. This study highlights the importance of subjective event perceptions in the study of major life events and personality development.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Hopwood ◽  
Ted Schwaba ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn

Personal concerns about climate change and the environment are a powerful motivator of sustainable behavior. People’s level of concern varies as a function of a variety of social and individual factors. Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009-2017 in the German population. However, individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, Big Five personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism and openness to experience. Indeed, changes in openness explained roughly 50% of the variance in changes in environmental concerns. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior at the individual level.


Author(s):  
Danny Osborne ◽  
Nicole Satherley ◽  
Chris G. Sibley

Research since the 1990s reveals that openness to experience—a personality trait that captures interest in novelty, creativity, unconventionalism, and open-mindedness—correlates negatively with political conservatism. This chapter summarizes this vast literature by meta-analyzing 232 unique samples (N = 575,691) that examine the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and conservatism. The results reveal that the negative relationship between openness to experience and conservatism (r = −.145) is nearly twice as big as the next strongest correlation between personality and ideology (namely, conscientiousness and conservatism; r = .076). The associations between personality traits and conservatism were, however, substantively larger in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries than in non-WEIRD countries. The chapter concludes by reviewing recent longitudinal work demonstrating that openness to experience and conservatism are non-causally related. Collectively, the chapter shows that openness to experience is by far the strongest (negative) correlate of conservatism but that there is little evidence that this association is causal.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Jach ◽  
Luke Smillie

The present study investigated whether ambiguity tolerance relates to personality traits that are theoretically grounded in fear (neuroticism) or attraction (openness to experience; extraversion) for the unknown. Our hypotheses were supported for self-report measures (and openness to experience predicted ambiguity tolerance controlling for intelligence), but behavioral choice measures of ambiguity tolerance demonstrated poor reliability and were unrelated to self-reported ambiguity tolerance and basic personality traits. An exploratory network analysis revealed that ambiguity tolerance was more strongly related to the intellectual curiosity (vs. aesthetic appreciation) facet of openness to experience, and the assertiveness (vs. energy or sociability) facet of extraversion. Our findings reinforce the fragmented literature in this area, and support predictions derived from psychological entropy theories of personality.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cong Doanh Duong

PurposeThis study examines the roles of Big Five personality traits, including conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience, in shaping green consumption behavior, as well as bridging the attitude-intention-behavior gap in environmentally friendly consumption and testing the gender differences between these associations.Design/methodology/approachA dataset of 611 consumers was collected by means of mall-intercept surveys in major Vietnamese cities. Structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS 24.0 was employed to test the proposed conceptual framework and hypotheses, while the PROCESS approach was utilized to estimate mediation standardized regression coefficients.FindingsThe study revealed that in addition to extraversion, other personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and neuroticism) were strongly associated with green consumption. Moreover, attitude towards green products and intention to buy environmentally friendly products were determined to have key roles in explaining consumers' pro-environmental behavior. There was also a notable difference in the impact of personality traits on men's and women's green consumption.Practical implicationsThis study provides useful recommendations for administrational practices seeking to understand consumer behavior, build appropriate marketing and communication campaigns and attract customers to buy environmentally friendly products.Originality/valueThis study makes efforts to resolve the attitude-intention-behavior gap, a recurring theme in the green consumption literature, as well as illustrates the significance of Big Five personality traits in explaining attitude, intention and behavior when purchasing green products. This research also demonstrates that Big Five personality traits have significantly different effects on green consumption attitudes and intention to carry out pro-behavioral consumption.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 1069-1087
Author(s):  
Arpana Rai ◽  
Upasna A. Agarwal

Workplace bullying is a common and constantly occurring phenomenon in organizations. Various factors render a workplace conducive to the occurrence of bullying-like features of the work environment and personality traits of the employees. While work environment features are well-established antecedents of workplace bullying, much of the research on personality traits as antecedents of bullying remains inconclusive. Drawing on the victim precipitation theory and the Big Five personality taxonomy, the present study aims to examine the relationship between four personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience) and exposure to workplace bullying. We have excluded neuroticism, as it is a well-established antecedent of workplace bullying, whereas literature suggests mixed findings on the relationships between the remaining four personality traits and workplace bullying. A total of 835 full-time Indian managers working across different Indian organizations served as the sample for our study. The results suggest that conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience negatively correlate with workplace bullying. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed in this article.


2020 ◽  
pp. 089020702096901
Author(s):  
Madeline R Lenhausen ◽  
Manon A van Scheppingen ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn

A large body of evidence indicates that personality traits show high rank-order stability and substantial mean-level changes across the lifespan. However, the majority of longitudinal research on personality development has relied on repeated assessments of self-reports, providing a narrow empirical base from which to draw conclusions and develop theory. Here, we (1) tested whether self- and informant-reports provided by couples show similar patterns of rank-order stability and mean-level change and (2) assessed self–other agreement in personality development. We charted the Big Five personality trajectories of 255 couples ( N = 510; M age = 27.01 years) who provided both self- and partner-reports at four assessments across 1.5 years. Results indicated similar rank-order stabilities in self- and partner-report data. Latent growth curve models indicated no significant differences between self- and partner-reported personality trajectories, with exceptions to extraversion and agreeableness. We further found strong cross-sectional agreement across all Big Five traits and assessment waves as well as moderate self–other agreement in personality change in emotional stability and agreeableness. These findings highlight the relevance of multi-method assessments in personality development, while providing information about personality stability and change. Discussion focuses on the theoretical implications and future directions for multi-method assessments in longitudinal personality research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S729-S730
Author(s):  
Anna E Kornadt ◽  
Anna E Kornadt

Abstract Despite considerable stability of the Big Five personality traits, there is evidence for personality plasticity and change across the lifespan. In younger years, the investment in social roles, such as entering worklife or starting a family has been shown to drive personality change. With regard to personality in later life, the investigation of social roles has so far been neglected. A questionnaire was developed to assess a large number of social roles that can be assumed in the second half of life. N = 306 participants aged 50 to 86 years reported on their social roles and rated their personality traits. Results show that assuming and investing in certain social roles (e.g. friend, retiree, volunteer) mediated the effects of age on the Big Five, especially for the oldest participants and in the domains openness and extraversion. The findings support the importance of social roles for personality also in later life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-97
Author(s):  
Yannick Stephan ◽  
Angelina R Sutin ◽  
Martina Luchetti ◽  
Antonio Terracciano

Abstract Objectives Personality traits have been related to concurrent memory performance. Most studies, however, have focused on personality as a predictor of memory; comparatively less is known about whether memory is related to personality development across adulthood. Using 4 samples, the present study tests whether memory level and change are related to personality change in adulthood. Method Participants were drawn from 2 waves of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study Graduates (WLSG; N = 3,232, mean age = 64.28, SD = 0.65) and Wisconsin Longitudinal Study Siblings (WLSS; N = 1,570, mean age = 63.52, SD = 6.69) samples, the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS; N = 1,901, mean age = 55.43, SD = 10.98), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; N = 6,038, mean age = 65.47, SD = 8.28). Immediate and delayed recall and the 5 major personality traits were assessed at baseline and follow-up. Results There was heterogeneity in the associations across samples. A meta-analysis of latent change in the four samples indicated that lower baseline memory performance was related to an increase in neuroticism (B = −0.002; 95% CI = −0.004, −0.0008) and a decrease in agreeableness (B = 0.004; 95% CI = 0.002, 0.007) and conscientiousness (B = 0.005; 95% CI = 0.0008, 0.010). In addition, declines in memory were related to steeper declines in extraversion (B = 0.06; 95% CI = 0.003, 0.11), openness (B = 0.04; 95% CI = 0.007, 0.069), and conscientiousness (B = 0.05; 95% CI = 0.019, 0.09). Discussion The present study indicates that poor memory and declines in memory over time are related to maladaptive personality change. These associations, however, were small and inconsistent across samples.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Baranski ◽  
Patrick J. Morse ◽  
Jacob S. Gray ◽  
William Lewis Dunlop

Using an idiographic-nomothetic methodology, we assessed individuals’ ability to change their personality traits without therapeutic or experimental involvement. Participants from internet and college populations completed trait measures and reported current personality change desires. Self-reported traits as well as perceptions of trait change were collected after 1-year (Internet) and 6-months (College). In large part, volitional personality change desires did not predict actual change. When desires did predict change, (a) desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases in corresponding traits, (b) participants perceived more change than actually occurred, and (c) decreases in Emotional Stability predicted perceptions of personality change. Results illustrate the difficulty in purposefully changing one’s traits when left to one’s own devices.Keywords: Volitional personality change; Idiographic-nomothetic; Personality development


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