Questions and Answers About the Policy Relevance of Personality

Author(s):  
Brent Roberts ◽  
Patrick Hill

Personality traits are increasingly being considered as useful tools in applied settings, including education, health, industrial psychology, and economics. The initial use of personality traits in applied settings has been predicated on their ability to predict valued outcomes. Most of these initial efforts have focused on using traits under the assumption that traits are functionally unchanging. The assumption that traits are unchanging is both untrue and a limiting factor on using personality traits more widely in applied settings where the emphasis is on both selection and development. To address the misconceptions concerning personality trait change, we address seven related questions surrounding the stability and change of personality traits and their relevance to interventions. In so doing, we present a case that traits can serve both as predictors of success in applied settings, as well as potential intervention targets across different domains. Though trait change will likely prove a more difficult target outcome than typical targets in applied interventions, it also may be a more fruitful one given the variety of life domains affected by personality traits.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wiebke Bleidorn ◽  
Patrick Hill ◽  
Mitja Back ◽  
Jaap J. A. Denissen ◽  
Marie Hennecke ◽  
...  

Personality traits are powerful predictors of outcomes in the domains of education, work, relationships, health, and well-being. The recognized importance of personality traits has raised questions about their policy relevance – that is, their potential to inform policy actions designed to improve human welfare. Traditionally, the use of personality traits in applied settings has been predicated on their ability to predict valued outcomes, typically under the assumption that traits are functionally unchanging. This assumption, however, is both untrue and a limiting factor on using personality traits more widely in applied settings. In this paper, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions. Though trait change will likely prove a more difficult target than typical targets in applied interventions, it also may be a more fruitful one given the variety of life domains affected by personality traits.


Author(s):  
M LOSKIN

Problems of providing the population and agricultural production by qualitative potable and process water in the Central Yakutia are covered. This territory belongs to the region with acute shortage of water resources which is always a limiting factor of development of agricultural production. For the solution of this burning issue in the 80th years of the last century along the small rivers the systems of hydraulic engineering constructions providing requirements with process water practically of all settlements of the Central Yakutia were constructed. At a construction of all hydraulic engineering buildings the method of construction with preservation of soils of the basis of constructions in a frozen state was applied. When warming the climate which is observed in recent years hydraulic engineering constructions built in regions of a wide spread occurance of breeds of an ice complex and with the considerable volume of water weight, were especially vulnerable. On character and a design they experience continuous threat of damage and demand very attentive relation from the operating organizations. Taking this into account, safe operation of hydraulic engineering constructions in a zone of distribution of permafrost breeds demands new approaches. The article examines features of hydraulic engineering constructions’ operation of agricultural water supply objects in the Central Yakutia. Distinctiveness of hydraulic engineering constructions’ operation is that stability of constructions is intimately bound to temperature impact of a reservoir on ground dams’ body and the basis of constructions. The possibility of inclusion of ways for an intensification of a freezing of constructions in the structure of operational actions is studied. The new method on safe operation of hydraulic engineering constructions as prewinter abatement of the water level in a reservoir accounting volumes and norms of water consumption of the settlement is offered.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Casey C. Bennett

This paper discusses the creation of an agent-based simulation model for interactive robotic faces, built based on data from physical human–robot interaction experiments, to explore hypotheses around how we might create emergent robotic personality traits, rather than pre-scripted ones based on programmatic rules. If an agent/robot can visually attend and behaviorally respond to social cues in its environment, and that environment varies, then idiosyncratic behavior that forms the basis of what we call a “personality” should theoretically be emergent. Here, we evaluate the stability of behavioral learning convergence in such social environments to test this idea. We conduct over 2000 separate simulations of an agent-based model in scaled-down, abstracted forms of the environment, each one representing an “experiment”, to see how different parameters interact to affect this process. Our findings suggest that there may be systematic dynamics in the learning patterns of an agent/robot in social environments, as well as significant interaction effects between the environmental setup and agent perceptual model. Furthermore, learning from deltas (Markovian approach) was more effective than only considering the current state space. We discuss the implications for HRI research, the design of interactive robotic faces, and the development of more robust theoretical frameworks of social interaction.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasiya Zavyalova ◽  
Jonathan Bundy ◽  
Stephen E. Humphrey

An ongoing discussion in organizational studies has focused on the path-dependent nature of organizational reputation. To date, however, there has been little explanation about when and why some constituents’ reputation judgments remain stable, whereas others are more prone to change. We contribute to this research by developing a relational theory of reputational stability and change. Our fundamental argument is that differences in constituent-organization relationships, as well as in the reputational communities that surround these relationships, affect the stability and change of reputation judgments. First, we highlight three relationship characteristics—favorability, history, and directness—and theorize that the reputation judgments of constituents with more unfavorable, longer, and more direct relationships with an organization are more stable, whereas the reputation judgments of constituents with more favorable, shorter, and more indirect relationships with the organization are less stable. We then develop the concept of reputational communities as a key source of indirect information about organizations. We highlight that the immediacy, size, and level of agreement within reputational communities affect how influential they are in changing individual constituents’ reputation judgments. Specifically, we propose that more immediate and larger reputational communities with a higher level of agreement are most likely to change individual constituents’ reputation judgments, whereas more distant and smaller reputational communities with a lower level of agreement are least likely to do so. Overall, we position constituents’ relationships with an organization and the communities that surround these relationships as central elements for understanding reputational stability and change.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernd Fitzenberger ◽  
Gary Mena ◽  
Jan Nimczik ◽  
Uwe Sunde

Abstract Economists increasingly recognise the importance of personality traits for socio-economic outcomes, but little is known about the stability of these traits over the life cycle. Existing empirical contributions typically focus on age patterns and disregard cohort and period influences. This paper contributes novel evidence for the separability of age, period, and cohort effects for a broad range of personality traits based on systematic specification tests for disentangling age, period and cohort influences. Our estimates document that for different cohorts, the evolution of personality traits across the life cycle follows a stable, though non-constant, age profile, while there are sizeable differences across time periods.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rihana Shaik ◽  
Ranjeet Nambudiri ◽  
Manoj Kumar Yadav

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a process model on how mindfully performed organisational routines can simultaneously enable organisational stability and organisational change. Design/methodology/approach Via conceptual analysis, the authors develop several propositions and a process model integrating the theory of mindfulness and performative aspects of organisational routines with organisational stability and change. To do so, the authors review the literature on organisational routines, mindfulness, stability, inertia and change. Findings First, the authors demonstrate that, based on levels of mindfulness employed, performative aspects of organisational routines can be categorised as mindless, mindful and collectively mindful (meta-routines). Second, in the process model, the authors position the mindless performance of routines as enabling organisational stability, mediated through inertial pressure and disabling change, mediated through constrained change capacities. Finally, the authors state that engaging routines with mindfulness at an individual (mindful routines) or collective (meta-routines) level reduces inertia and facilitates change. Such simultaneous engagement leads to either sustaining stability when required or implementing continuous organisational change. Research limitations/implications The framework uses continuous, versus episodic, change; future research can consider the model’s workability with episodic change. Future research can also seek to empirically validate the model. The authors hope that this model informs research in organisational change and provides guidance on addressing organisational inertia. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to categorise the performative aspects of organisational routine based on the extent of mindfulness employed and propose that mindfulness-based practice of routines stimulates either inertia-induced or inertia-free stability and continuous change.


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