Ryne A. Sherman

The independent effects of personality and situations on real-time expressions of behavior and emotion.

The joint influence of persons and situations on behavior has long been posited by personality and social psychological theory (Funder, 2006; Lewin, 1951). However, a lack of tools for real-time behavioral and situation assessment has left direct investigations of this sort immobilized. This study combines recent advances in situation assessment and experience sampling methodology to examine the simultaneous effects of personality traits and situation characteristics on real-time expressions of behavior and emotion in N = 210 participants. The results support an additive model such that both personality traits and situation characteristics independently predict real-time expressions of behavior and emotion. These results have implications for several prominent theoretical perspectives in personality, including both trait and cognitive theories.

Principles of Situation Research: Towards a Better Understanding of Psychological Situations

There is currently no consensus on how to study psychological situations, and situation research is still riddled with problems of conceptualization (what is a situation and what is it not?) and measurement (how can situational information be assessed?). This target article formulates three core principles (with corollaries) to provide a foundation for psychological situation research: the Processing, Reality and Circularity Principles. These principles build upon each other, ranging from basic to more complex issues (e.g. how to study situations in both objective and subjective terms). They are intended to guide and spur more coherent research programs that produce cumulative knowledge on psychological situations. We conclude with a plea for real–life, multi–method, multi–situation, multi–time, multi–group designs that can illuminate the interwoven dynamics between persons (with their personalities and behaviour) and situations. Copyright

On the Contextual Independence of Personality: Teachers' Assessments Predict Directly Observed Behavior After Four Decades

The continuity of personality’s association with directly observed behavior is demonstrated across two contexts spanning four decades. During the 1960s, elementary school teachers rated personalities of members of the ethnically diverse Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort. The same individuals were interviewed in a medical clinic more than 40 years later. Trained coders viewed video recordings of a subset of these interviews (N = 144; 68 female, 76 male) and assessed the behavior they observed using the Riverside Behavioral Q-sort Version 3. Children rated by their teachers as “verbally fluent” (defined as unrestrained talkativeness) showed dominant and socially adept behavior as middle-aged adults. Early “adaptability” was associated with cheerful and intellectually curious behavior, early “impulsivity” was associated with later talkativeness and loud speech, and early-rated tendencies to “self-minimize” were related to adult expressions of insecurity and humility.

More Polarized but More Independent Political Party Identification and Ideological Self-Categorization Among U.S. Adults, College Students, and Late Adolescents, 1970-2015

In three nationally representative surveys of U.S. residents (N = 10 million) from 1970 to 2015, more Americans in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) identified as Independent, including when age effects were controlled. More in the early 2010s (vs. previous decades) expressed polarized political views, including stronger political party affiliation or more extreme ideological self-categorization (liberal vs. conservative) with fewer identifying as moderate. The correlation between party affiliation and ideological views grew stronger over time. The overall trend since the 1970s was toward more Americans identifying as Republican or conservative. Older adults were more likely to identify as conservative and Republican. More Millennials (born 1980-1994) identify as conservative than either GenXers or Boomers did at the same age, and fewer are Democrats compared with Boomers. These trends are discussed in the context of social identification processes and their implications for the political dynamics in the United States.

How Are Curious People Viewed and How Do They Behave in Social Situations? From the Perspectives of Self, Friends, Parents, and Unacquainted Observers

OBJECTIVE People who are open and curious orient their lives around an appreciation of novelty and a strong urge to explore, discover, and grow. Researchers have recently shown that being an open, curious person is linked to healthy social outcomes. METHOD To better understand the benefits (and liabilities) of being a curious person, we used a multimethod design of social behavior to assess the perspectives of multiple informants (including self, friends, and parents) and behavior coded from direct observations in unstructured social interactions. RESULTS We found an impressive degree of convergence among self, friend, and parent reports of curiosity, and observer-rated behavioral correlates of curiosity. A curious personality was linked to a wide range of adaptive behaviors, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotional expressiveness, initiation of humor and playfulness, unconventional thinking, and a nondefensive, noncritical attitude. CONCLUSIONS This characterization of curious people provides insights into mechanisms underlying associated healthy social outcomes.

More Happiness for Young People and Less for Mature Adults Time Period Differences in Subjective Well-Being in the United States, 1972–2014

Are Americans happier, or less happy, than they used to be? The answer may depend on life stage. We examined indicators of subjective well-being (SWB) in four nationally representative samples of U.S. adolescents (aged 13–18 years, n = 1.27 million) and adults (aged 18–96 years, n = 54,172). Recent adolescents reported greater happiness and life satisfaction than their predecessors, and adults over age 30 were less happy in recent years. Among adults, the previously established positive correlation between age and happiness has dwindled, disappearing by the early 2010s. Mixed-effects analyses primarily demonstrated time period rather than generational effects. The effect of time period on SWB is about d = |.13| in most age groups, about the size of reported links between SWB and objective health, marital status, being a parent, and volunteering.

Situations in 140 Characters: Assessing Real-World Situations on Twitter

Over 20 million Tweets were used to study the psychological characteristics of real-world situations over the course of two weeks. Models for automatically and accurately scoring individual Tweets on the DIAMONDS dimensions of situations were developed. Stable daily and weekly fluctuations in the situations that people experience were identified. Predicted temporal trends were found, providing validation for this new method of situation assessment. On weekdays, Duty peaks in the midmorning and declines steadily thereafter while Sociality peeks in the evening. Negativity is highest during the workweek and lowest on the weekends. pOsitivity shows the opposite pattern. Additionally, gender and locational differences in the situations shared on Twitter are explored. Females share both more emotionally charged (pOsitive and Negative) situations, while no differences were found in the amount of Duty experienced by males and females. Differences in the situations shared from Rural and Urban areas were not found. Future applications of assessing situations using social media are discussed.

Estimating the Expected Replicability of a Pattern of Correlations and Other Measures of Association

Replication is at the heart of all empirical sciences. However, there are no standard procedures for establishing the replicability of a pattern of correlations found linking a particular variable to an inventory or battery of other measures. This article introduces 2 statistics for quantifying the expected replicability of a pattern of associations (i.e., correlations, slope coefficients) between a variable of interest and a SET of other variables, items, measures, and so on. Using simulations and real data, we illustrate that these statistics are highly accurate estimates of the expected replicability of an observed pattern of correlations. These statistics can readily be used to indicate the replicability of patterns of association indexed by other statistics (e.g., regression slopes or covariances) and can be applied to other contexts, such as estimating the reliability of profile correlations. It is recommended that these statistics are regularly reported in such studies.

Situation Change: Stability and Change of Situation Variables between and within Persons

When, how, and why situations flow into one another is important for understanding dynamic personality processes, but the topic of situation change has traditionally been a thorny issue in personality/social psychology. We explore conceptual and methodological issues in research on situation change: (1) What is situation change, which variables could we measure, and how can situation change be methodologically captured and analyzed (at between- and within-person levels)? (2) Which person-situation transaction mechanisms (situation management strategies) could entail stability and change of situations in daily life? (3) How do single or repeated instances of situation change impact short-, middle-, and long-term outcomes (e.g., intra- and interpersonal adjustment)? Besides laying out a research program for situation change, we present preliminary data from participants who wore mini-video cameras recording their situations so that they could be rated later in the lab. We demonstrate rater consensus on when situations change, mean-level changes of situation characteristics across situations, similarity of situation characteristics across adjacent situations, and inter-individual differences in intra-individual situation change in change networks.

Measuring the evolutionarily important goals of situations: Situational Affordances for Adaptive Problems

According to the Fundamental Motives Framework, basic goals such as protecting oneself, forming coalitions, and avoiding disease have emerged as a result of evolutionary processes to enhance reproductive fitness. This article introduces the Situational Affordances for Adaptive Problems (SAAP), a measure of situation characteristics that promotes or prevents the achievement of these evolutionarily important goals. In Study 1, participants rated a recent situation they encountered using a preliminary version of the SAAP. Using factor analysis, the measure was reduced to 28 items. In Study 2, the factor structure was confirmed. Studies 3 and 4 evaluated the psychometric properties of the measure including its predictive validity. Future studies can use the SAAP to investigate differences in the everyday experience of these fundamental motives.