M. Brent Donnellan

The Mini-IPIP Scales: Tiny-Yet-Effective Measures of the Big Five Factors of Personality.

The Mini-IPIP, a 20-item short form of the 50-item International Personality Item Pool-Five-Factor Model measure (Goldberg, 1999), was developed and validated across five studies. The Mini-IPIP scales, with four items per Big Five trait, had consistent and acceptable internal consistencies across five studies (= at or well above .60), similar coverage of facets as other broad Big Five measures (Study 2), and test-retest correlations that were quite similar to the parent measure across intervals of a few weeks (Study 4) and several months (Study 5). Moreover, the Mini-IPIP scales showed a comparable pattern of convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity (Studies 2-5) with other Big Five measures. Collectively, these results indicate that the Mini-IPIP is a psychometrically acceptable and practically useful short measure of the Big Five factors of personality.

Personality development across the life span: longitudinal analyses with a national sample from Germany.

Longitudinal data from a national sample of Germans (N = 20,434) were used to evaluate stability and change in the Big Five personality traits. Participants completed a brief measure of personality twice, 4 years apart. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to establish measurement invariance over time and across age groups. Substantive questions about differential (or rank-order) and mean-level stability and change were then evaluated. Results showed that differential stability was relatively strong among all age groups but that it increased among young adults, peaked in later life, and then declined among the oldest old. Patterns of mean-level change showed that Extraversion and Openness declined over the life span, whereas Agreeableness increased. Mean levels of Conscientiousness increased among young adults and then decreased among older adults. Trajectories for Neuroticism were relatively flat, with slight increases during middle age and a slight decline in late life.

Low self-esteem during adolescence predicts poor health, criminal behavior, and limited economic prospects during adulthood.

Using prospective data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study birth cohort, the authors found that adolescents with low self-esteem had poorer mental and physical health, worse economic prospects, and higher levels of criminal behavior during adulthood, compared with adolescents with high self-esteem. The long-term consequences of self-esteem could not be explained by adolescent depression, gender, or socioeconomic status. Moreover, the findings held when the outcome variables were assessed using objective measures and informant reports; therefore, the findings cannot be explained by shared method variance in self-report data. The findings suggest that low self-esteem during adolescence predicts negative real-world consequences during adulthood.

Stability of self-esteem across the life span.

Two studies examined the rank-order stability of self-esteem from age 6 to 83: Study 1 was a meta-analysis of 50 published articles (N = 29,839) and Study 2 analyzed data from 4 large national studies (N = 74,381). Self-esteem showed substantial continuity over time (disattenuated correlations ranged from the .50s to .70s), comparable to the stability found for personality traits. Both studies provided evidence for a robust developmental trend: Self-esteem stability was low during childhood, increased throughout adolescence and young adulthood, and declined during midlife and old age. This trend could not be explained by age differences in the reliability of self-esteem measures, and generally replicated across gender, ethnicity, self-esteem scale, nationality (U.S. vs. non-U.S.), and year of publication.

What Does the Narcissistic Personality Inventory Really Measure

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is a widely used measure of narcissism. However, debates persist about its exact factor structure with researchers proposing solutions ranging from two to seven factors. The present research aimed to clarify the factor structure of the NPI and further illuminate its nomological network. Four studies provided support for a three-factor model consisting of the dimensions of Leadership/Authority, Grandiose Exhibitionism, and Entitlement/Exploitativeness. The Leadership/Authority dimension was generally linked to adaptive outcomes whereas the other two dimensions, particularly Entitlement/Exploitativeness, were generally linked to maladaptive outcomes. These results suggest that researchers interested in the psychological and behavioral outcomes associated with the NPI should examine correlates at the facet level. In light of the findings, we propose a hierarchical model for the structure of the NPI and provide researchers with a scoring scheme for this commonly used instrument.

How Should the Internal Structure of Personality Inventories Be Evaluated

Personality trait inventories often perform poorly when their structure is evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The authors demonstrate poor CFA fit for several widely used personality measures with documented evidence of criterion-related validity but also show that some measures perform well from an exploratory factor analytic perspective. In light of these results, the authors suggest that the failure of these measures to fit CFA models is because of the inherent complexity of personality, issues related to its measurement, and issues related to the application and interpretation of CFA models. This leads to three recommendations for researchers interested in the structure and assessment of personality traits: (a) utilize and report on a range of factor analytic methods, (b) avoid global evaluations regarding the internal validity of multiscale personality measures based on model fit according to conventional CFA cutoffs, and (c) consider the substantive and practical implications of model modifications designed to improve fit.

Age differences in the Big Five across the life span: evidence from two national samples.

Cross-sectional age differences in the Big Five personality traits were investigated using 2 large datasets from Great Britain and Germany: the British Household Panel Study (BHPS; N > or = 14,039) and the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSEOP; N > or = 20,852). Participants, who ranged in age from 16 to the mid-80s, completed a 15-item version of the Big Five Inventory (e.g., John & Srivastava, 1999) in either 2005 or 2006. The observed age trends were generally consistent across both datasets. Extraversion and Openness were negatively associated with age, whereas Agreeableness was positively associated with age. Average levels of Conscientiousness were highest for participants in middle age. The only exception was Neuroticism, which was slightly negatively associated with age in the BHPS and slightly positively associated with age in the GSEOP. Neither gender nor education level were consistent moderators of age differences in the Big Five.

The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being: Psychometric properties, demographic comparisons, and evidence of validity

The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being (QEWB) was developed to measure well-being in a manner consistent with how it is conceptualized in eudaimonist philosophy. Aspects of eudaimonic well-being assessed by the QEWB include self-discovery, perceived development of ones best potentials, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, intense involvement in activities, investment of significant effort, and enjoyment of activities as personally expressive. The QEWB was administered to two large, ethnically diverse samples of college students drawn from multiple sites across the United States. A three-part evaluation of the instrument was conducted: (1) evaluating psychometric properties, (2) comparing QEWB scores across gender, age, ethnicity, family income, and family structure, and (3) assessing the convergent, discriminant, construct, and incremental validity of the QEWB. Six hypotheses relating QEWB scores to identity formation, personality traits, and positive and negative psychological functioning were evaluated. The internal consistency of the scale was high and results of independent CFAs indicated that the QEWB items patterned onto a common factor. The distribution of scores approximated a normal curve. Demographic variables were found to predict only small proportions of QEWB score variability. Support for the hypotheses tested provides evidence for the validity of the QEWB as an instrument for assessing eudaimonic well-being. Implications for theory and future research directions are discussed.

Rethinking "Generation Me": A Study of Cohort Effects From 1976-2006.

Social commentators have argued that changes over the last decades have coalesced to create a relatively unique generation of young people. However, using large samples of U.S. high-school seniors from 1976 to 2006 (Total N = 477,380), we found little evidence of meaningful change in egotism, self-enhancement, individualism, self-esteem, locus of control, hopelessness, happiness, life satisfaction, loneliness, antisocial behavior, time spent working or watching television, political activity, the importance of religion, and the importance of social status over the last 30 years. Todays youth are less fearful of social problems than previous generations and they are also more cynical and less trusting. In addition, todays youth have higher educational expectations than previous generations. However, an inspection of effect sizes provided little evidence for strong or widespread cohort-linked changes.

On the relationship between anxiety and error monitoring: a meta-analysis and conceptual framework

Research involving event-related brain potentials has revealed that anxiety is associated with enhanced error monitoring, as reflected in increased amplitude of the error-related negativity (ERN). The nature of the relationship between anxiety and error monitoring is unclear, however. Through meta-analysis and a critical review of the literature, we argue that anxious apprehension/worry is the dimension of anxiety most closely associated with error monitoring. Although, overall, anxiety demonstrated a robust, “small-to-medium” relationship with enhanced ERN (r = −0.25), studies employing measures of anxious apprehension show a threefold greater effect size estimate (r = −0.35) than those utilizing other measures of anxiety (r = −0.09). Our conceptual framework helps explain this more specific relationship between anxiety and enhanced ERN and delineates the unique roles of worry, conflict processing, and modes of cognitive control. Collectively, our analysis suggests that enhanced ERN in anxiety results from the interplay of a decrease in processes supporting active goal maintenance and a compensatory increase in processes dedicated to transient reactivation of task goals on an as-needed basis when salient events (i.e., errors) occur.