Filip De Fruyt

Recommendations for increasing replicability in psychology

Replicability of findings is at the heart of any empirical science. The aim of this article is to move the current replicability debate in psychology towards concrete recommendations for improvement. We focus on research practices but also offer guidelines for reviewers, editors, journal management, teachers, granting institutions, and university promotion committees, highlighting some of the emerging and existing practical solutions that can facilitate implementation of these recommendations. The challenges for improving replicability in psychological science are systemic. Improvement can occur only if changes are made at many levels of practice, evaluation, and reward. Copyright

Personality trait development from age 12 to age 18: longitudinal, cross-sectional, and cross-cultural analyses.

Three studies were conducted to assess mean level changes in personality traits during adolescence. Versions of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992a) were used to assess the 5 major personality factors. A 4-year longitudinal study of intellectually gifted students (N = 230) was supplemented by cross-sectional studies of nonselected American (N = 1,959) and Flemish (N = 789) adolescents. Personality factors were reasonably invariant across ages, although rank-order stability of individual differences was low. Neuroticism appeared to increase in girls, and Openness to Experience increased in both boys and girls; mean levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were stable. Results extend knowledge of the developmental curve of personality traits backward from adulthood and help bridge the gap with child temperament studies.

Medical students' personality characteristics and academic performance: a five-factor model perspective

Objectives  This study investigates: (1) which personality traits are typical of medical students as compared to other students, and (2) which personality traits predict medical student performance in pre‐clinical years.

Five types of personality continuity in childhood and adolescence.

This study examines 5 types of personality continuity--structural, mean-level, individual-level, differential, and ipsative--in a representative population (N=498) and a twin and sibling sample (N=548) of children and adolescents. Parents described their children on 2 successive occasions with a 36-month interval using the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children (I. Mervielde & F. De Fruyt, 1999). There was evidence for structural continuity in the 2 samples, and personality was shown to be largely differentially stable. A large percentage had a stable trait profile indicative of ipsative stability, and mean-level personality changes were generally small in magnitude. Continuity findings were explained mainly by genetic and nonshared environmental factors.

A meta-analytic study of general mental ability validity for different occupations in the European Community

A comprehensive meta-analysis of the validity of general mental ability (GMA) measures across 12 occupational categories in the European Community (EC) is presented. GMA measures showed that there is validity generalization and large operational validities for job performance and training success in 11 occupational groups. Results also showed that job complexity moderated the magnitude of the operational validity of GMA tests across three levels of job complexity: low, medium, and high. In general, results were similar to those found in the United States, although the European findings showed a slightly larger magnitude of operational validity in some cases. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for personnel selection are discussed. ((c) 2003 APA, all rights reserved)

Personality and interests as predictors of educational streaming and achievement

In this study Hollands RIASEC Model of vocational personalities and the Five‐Factor Model of personality are used (i) to assess individual differences among study majors and (ii) to predict educational achievement. A sample of 934 last‐year students who enrolled in different academic majors filled out Dutch/Flemish adaptations of the NEO‐PI‐R (Costa and McCrae, 1992) and the Self‐Directed Search (Holland, 1977; 1979). The results show that both models are useful to describe differences among different majors. Conscientiousness proves to be a general predictor of grades and study career. For the other Big Five dimensions, except for Agreeableness, major and/or gender specific relationships with educational outcomes are observed. Hollands interest dimensions are not related to educational achievement, except for some moderate gender or major specific correlations with the Investigative and the Artistic scales. Suggestions for future research regarding educational streaming and counselling are discussed.

The Structure of Maladaptive Personality Traits in Childhood: A Step Toward an Integrative Developmental Perspective for DSM-V

The present study describes the construction of a taxonomy of trait-related symptoms in childhood, the Dimensional Personality Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI), and examines the replicability of the taxonomys higher order structure across maternal ratings of referred (N = 205) and nonreferred (N = 242) children and self-ratings of adolescents (N = 453). The DIPSIs 4 higher order factors--that is, Emotional Instability, Disagreeableness, Introversion, and Compulsivity--showed clear correspondence with the dimensions of personality pathology found in adulthood (Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire; W. J. Livesley, 1990; Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality; L. A. Clark, 1993). These 4 factors can be further organized into 2 superfactors, representing Internalizing and Externalizing Traits, demonstrating empirical and conceptual relationships with psychopathology models in childhood and adulthood. The implications for the assessment and conceptualization of early trait pathology are discussed in the context of an integrative developmental perspective on the construction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition.

Perceptions of Aging across 26 Cultures and their Culture-Level Associates

College students (N=3,435) in 26 cultures reported their perceptions of age-related changes in physical, cognitive, and socioemotional areas of functioning and rated societal views of aging within their culture. There was widespread cross-cultural consensus regarding the expected direction of aging trajectories with (a) perceived declines in societal views of aging, physical attractiveness, the ability to perform everyday tasks, and new learning; (b) perceived increases in wisdom, knowledge, and received respect; and (c) perceived stability in family authority and life satisfaction. Cross-cultural variations in aging perceptions were associated with culture-level indicators of population aging, education levels, values, and national character stereotypes. These associations were stronger for societal views on aging and perceptions of socioemotional changes than for perceptions of physical and cognitive changes. A consideration of culture-level variables also suggested that previously reported differences in aging perceptions between Asian and Western countries may be related to differences in population structure.

Work values and personality traits as predictors of enterprising and social vocational interests

The present study investigated the incremental validity of work values to predict enterprising and social vocational interests over and above personality traits in a sample of 178 undergraduate commercial engineering or commercial sciences seniors. Twelve work values, defined as broad tendencies to prefer general job characteristics, were operationalized as the extent to which people assign importance to a range of job characteristics when thinking about an ideal work situation. Personality traits were assessed with the Dutch authorized adaptation of the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Hoekstra et al., 1996). Enterprising and Social vocational interests were assessed with three-item scales representing job titles. Although, the majority of the work values were related to the Five Factor Model-traits, correlations were modest to moderate, not exceeding 0.44. The results of the stepwise hierarchical multiple regression analyses show that work values have incremental validity over and above the FFM-traits to predict enterprising and social vocational interests. Enterprising interests are predicted by Extraversion, whereas Social interests are predicted by Openness. The work values Influence and Team respectively further add positively and negatively to the prediction of Enterprising vocational preferences, while interest in Social occupations is additionally characterized by putting less weight on Earnings. The discussion focuses on the validity of work values and personality traits for vocational and career streaming.

THE VALIDITY OF THE BIG-FIVE AS A MODEL FOR TEACHERS' RATINGS OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AMONG CHILDREN AGED 4-12 YEARS

Abstract A sample of 224 teachers rated 10 randomly selected children, aged 4–12, on a set of 25 bipolar scales, making the five factors: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability and Intellect/Openness. Principal component analysis of ratings of kindergarten children (aged 4–6) reveals four of the five factors. The complete five-factor structure emerges from the ratings of primary school children. Conscientiousness accounts for a greater part of the variance than is usually observed in self-ratings of adults. Extraction and Varimax rotation of six factors splits the fifth factor into Intellect and Openness scales. Factor scores for Conscientiousness, Intellect, Openness and Extraversion significantly predict grade point average across three primary school age levels. Multiple regression of grade point average on factor scores indicates that the predictive validity increases from 0.67 to 0.79 from grades 1–6.