Journal of Personality

OBJECTIVE: Self-focused language use has been frequently assumed to reflect narcissism; however, research indicates that the association between first-person singular pronouns (i.e., "I-talk") and grandiose narcissism is negligible. METHOD: To extend this literature, we progressively identify vulnerable narcissism and rumination as positive correlates of I-talk in five studies (valid Ns = 211, 475, 1253, 289, 1113). RESULTS: The first study revealed positive correlates of I-talk suggestive of vulnerable narcissism...

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated personal values underlying career-related preferences among young adults deliberating on their career choice. As a fundamental component of one's identity, personal values can offer valuable insights into how individuals prioritize their career-related preferences. METHOD: We employed two complementary approaches: variable-centered and person-centered, using a sample of 636 young adults (69.5% women; Mage  = 21...

OBJECTIVE: Does whole trait theory work for character strengths? This study examines the daily within- and between-person variability of the manifestations of positively valued lower-order personality characteristics, namely character strengths, their convergence with trait character strengths, and their relationships to daily measures of affect. BACKGROUND: Manifestations of personality traits vary both between- and within people. So far, research has focused on between-person differences in character strengths, while within-person differences have been neglected...

OBJECTIVES: The present pre-registered study examined the reciprocal day-to-day associations between global self-esteem and self-concept clarity and their incremental validity with respect to daily life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. METHODS: We used intensive longitudinal data from 153 adult workers (45.1% women), over a period of 31 days. Data were analyzed using dynamic structural equation modeling. RESULTS: Results attested higher global self-esteem and self-concept clarity mean levels for older vs...

OBJECTIVE: This study explores how middle-aged Black Americans talk about race, without prompting, while telling their life stories. METHOD: Drawing upon a dataset of lengthy Life Story Interviews (N = 70), we first employed a keyword search to identify race-relevant interview scenes for each participant. Next, we conducted a thematic analysis of these scenes to identify salient racial narrative themes. Finally, we coded race-relevant scenes to examine the psychological correlates of racial narrative themes...

OBJECTIVE: Relationship science has developed several theories to explain how and why people enter and maintain satisfying relationships. Less is known about why some people remain single, despite increasing rates of singlehood throughout the world. Using one of the most widely studied and robust theories-attachment theory-we aim to identify distinct sub-groups of singles and examine whether these sub-groups differ in their experience of singlehood and psychosocial outcomes. METHOD: Across two studies of single adults (Ns = 482 and 400), we used latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify distinct sub-groups of singles...

OBJECTIVE: Previous research on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on romantic relationships has mainly concentrated on short-term effects and average trends of change. This study aimed to explore different trajectories of relationship and sexual satisfaction from April 2020 to March 2022. METHOD: Including a cross-national sample of 2859 individuals, a latent class approach was applied to identify subgroups of sexual and relationship satisfaction trajectories...

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated whether forms of extraversion-introversion produced different depression-related outcomes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: One-way MANCOVAs were conducted to investigate the relationship between extraversion-introversion and depressive symptoms. These data were sourced from the NLSY97, consisting of 4846 individuals born between 1980 and 1984. RESULTS: During pre-pandemic periods, high introversion increased the risk of depressive symptoms...

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the relationships between HIV stigma dimensions, self-related mechanisms, and depressive symptoms among persons living with HIV. BACKGROUND: HIV stigma hinders the well-being of individuals living with HIV, which is linked to depressive symptoms and increased risk of poor clinical outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying stigma's impact on depression are poorly understood. Psychosocial theories propose that experiencing HIV stigma leads to internalized stigma, impacting self-concept and mental health...

OBJECTIVE: Investigate short-term personality development during the post-graduation transition. BACKGROUND: Prior research indicates that long-term personality development matters for employment outcomes. However, this evidence is primarily limited to multi-year longitudinal studies. This research switches the focus to personality changes during a shorter, impactful life transition. METHOD: We examined how short-term personality development during the 14-month post-graduation transition relates to early career outcomes among two diverse samples of graduates from universities (N = 816) and community colleges (N = 567)...

OBJECTIVE: Increasing evidence indicates discrimination is an emerging risk factor for reducing psychological well-being. Negative affectivity is a personality trait that has been associated with discrimination. Yet, few studies to date have examined the longitudinal relationship between discrimination and personality. The current study addresses this gap by examining how general discrimination and negative affectivity influence each other longitudinally. METHOD: The Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) dataset was used for the current study...

OBJECTIVE: Theories about within-person (WP) variation are often tested using between-person (BP) research, despite the well-established fact that results may not generalize across levels of analysis. One possible explanation is vague theories that do not specify which level of analysis is of interest. We illustrate such a case using the construct of self-compassion. The factor structure at the BP level has been highly debated, although the theory is actually concerned with relationships at the WP level...

People vary in how they perceive, think about, and respond to moral issues. Clearly, we cannot fully understand the psychology of morality without accounting for individual differences in moral functioning. But decades of neglect of and explicit skepticism toward such individual differences has resulted in a lack of integration between moral psychology and personality psychology-the study of psychological differences between people. In recent years, these barriers to progress have started to break down. This special issue aims to celebrate and further increase the visibility of the personality psychology of morality...

OBJECTIVE: We tested the hypothesis that complex behaviors are commonly supported by self-regulation strategies, even when those behaviors are supported by strong instigation habits. BACKGROUND: Goal-directed and habit-mediated processes arise from separable systems that have been suggested to seldomly interact. RESULTS: Self-regulation strategy use was lower for habitually instigated simple behaviors compared to nonhabitually instigated simple behaviors...

INTRODUCTION: Negative urgency is a personality pathway toward impulsive behavior that increases risk for transdiagnostic psychopathology. Limited research supports the core tenant of urgency theory, that is, that individuals with high trait negative urgency act more impulsive when experiencing increased negative emotion. We hypothesized that it may not be negative emotion intensity, but difficulty in differentiating among negative emotions, that prompts impulsive behavior among individuals with elevated negative urgency...

OBJECTIVE: This study reconceptualized trait resilience, defining it as a network of systems; utilizing direct resilience assessments-engineering, ecological, adaptive capacity, social cohesion-and proxy resilience assessments-personality, cognitive, emotional, eudaimonia, and health. BACKGROUND: The background of the study addresses the fragmented conceptualization of trait resilience by proposing a unifying network model based on ecological systems theory, illustrating the dynamic interplay of resilience factors across varying levels of disturbance...

OBJECTIVE: Spiteful behaviors are those aimed at inflicting harm on another person while also incurring a cost to the self. Although spite sometimes reflects destructive and socially undesirable behaviors including aggression, the current work sought to examine a potentially socially beneficial aspect of spite: engagement in costly punishment for selfish behavior. METHOD: Four studies used a costly third-party punishment task and measured individual differences in spite, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and motivations for engaging in punishment...

OBJECTIVE: Political attitudes are predicted by the key ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as some of the Big Five personality traits. Past research indicates that personality and ideological traits are correlated for genetic reasons. A question that has yet to be tested concerns whether the genetic variation underlying the ideological traits of RWA and SDO has distinct contributions to political attitudes, or if genetic variation in political attitudes is subsumed under the genetic variation underlying standard Big Five personality traits...

OBJECTIVE: There is a lack of clarity regarding the developmental mechanisms underlying moral disengagement (a typical moral personality) at the within-person level. To address this issue, we explore the serial cascade effect of cybervictimization and hostile rumination. METHOD: The longitudinal relationships between cybervictimization, hostile rumination, and moral disengagement were explored among 1146 undergraduates, assessed four times (T1-T4) across 2 years...

OBJECTIVE: Examining the personality and well-being correlates of positive event diversity. BACKGROUND: Past research has highlighted that personality traits are linked to the frequency of daily positive events. This study is the first to examine positive event diversity, the extent to which positive events are spread across multiple types of positive life domains, as well as its personality and well-being correlates. METHOD: We conducted parallel analyses of three daily diary datasets (Ns = 1919, 744, and 1392) that included evening assessment of daily positive events and affective well-being...