Scott Parrigon

CAPTION-ing the situation:: A lexically-derived taxonomy of psychological situation characteristics.

In comparison with personality taxonomic research, there has been much less advancement toward establishing an integrative taxonomy of psychological situation characteristics (similar to personality characteristics for persons). One of the main concerns has been the limited content coverage of the characteristics being used. To address this issue, we present a collection of 4 lexically based studies using the largest-to-date number of situation characteristics to identify the major dimensions of the psychological situation. These studies each implemented a unique sampling and analytic methodology—namely, a qualitative dimensional exploration; the factor analyses of 2, independent samples of large-scale in situ ratings of situations; and the use of lexical-vector representations from neural-network-based models derived from millions of sources of natural-language usage with a total of 146.7 billion words. Across these studies, a clear 7-dimensional structure emerged: Complexity, Adversity, Positive Valence, Typicality, Importance, Humor, and Negative Valence—collectively referred to as the “CAPTION” model, which parsimoniously integrates the diversity of dimensions found in the extant literature. We then introduce both full- and short-form measures of these CAPTION. Data from 2 additional diverse samples of native English speakers suggest that the measures have good psychometric properties, and are able to predict a broad range of important psychological outcomes (e.g., behaviors, affect, motivation, and need satisfaction), even when pitted against extant situation taxonomic frameworks. We conclude by discussing how the CAPTION framework may serve as a useful tool for conceptualizing and measuring a broad range of psychological situations across all areas of psychology.

Graphical Descriptives A Way to Improve Data Transparency and Methodological Rigor in Psychology

Several calls have recently been issued to the social sciences for enhanced transparency of research processes and enhanced rigor in the methodological treatment of data and data analytics. We propose the use of graphical descriptives (GDs) as one mechanism for responding to both of these calls. GDs provide a way to visually examine data. They serve as quick and efficient tools for checking data distributions, variable relations, and the potential appropriateness of different statistical analyses (e.g., do data meet the minimum assumptions for a particular analytic method). Consequently, we believe that GDs can promote increased transparency in the journal review process, encourage best practices for data analysis, and promote a more inductive approach to understanding psychological data. We illustrate the value of potentially including GDs as a step in the peer-review process and provide a user-friendly online resource (www.graphicaldescriptives.org) for researchers interested in including data visualizations in their research. We conclude with suggestions on how GDs can be expanded and developed to enhance transparency.

Putting the “Person” in the Center: Review and Synthesis of Person-Centered Approaches and Methods in Organizational Science

This article provides a review and synthesis of person-centered analytic (i.e., clustering) methods in organizational psychology with the aim of (a) placing them into an organizing framework to facilitate analysis and interpretation and (b) constructing a set of practical recommendations to guide future person-centered research. To do so, we first clarify the terminological and conceptual issues that still cloud person-centered approaches. Next, we organize the diverse kinds of person-centered analyses into two major statistical approaches, algorithmic and latent-variable approaches. We then present a literature review that quantifies how these two approaches have been used within our field, identifying trends over time and typical study characteristics. Out of this review, we construct a unifying taxonomy of the five ways in which clusters are differentiated: (1) construct-based patterns, (2) response-style patterns, (3) predictive relations, (4) growth trajectories, and (5) measurement models. We also provide a set of practical guidelines for researchers and highlight a few remaining questions and/or areas in which future work is needed for further advancing person-centered methodologies.

The Need for Cognition: Key Concepts, Assessment, and Role in Educational Outcomes

Need for cognition is a psychological construct that refers to an individual’s desire for, and enjoyment of, intellectually engaging activities. As such, a substantial amount of research has shed light on how need for cognition is associated with numerous positive outcomes, such as learning and academic success, and also how it is associated to theoretically related constructs found in the literature (e.g., intellectual engagement, epistemic curiosity). The current chapter begins by providing an overview of the historical background and development of need for cognition. The subsequent section provides a review of the empirical work in psychology and education that has since illuminated the differences, similarities, and relationships between this construct and others that share a similar theoretical orientation. We then describe the different methods that need for cognition is assessed and briefly discuss their various psychometric properties. Finally, the chapter closes with a discussion of how need for cognition has been shown to be related to desirable learning and educational outcomes and how this trait may be cultivated in order to promote these beneficial and positive effects. In addition, some insights for future research are provided.

Towards a comprehensive science of situations: On the importance of typicality and the lexical approach.

The two commentaries to the CAPTION derivation paper (Parrigon, Woo, Tay, & Wang, 2017) provided insightful points regarding the consistency of emergent dimensional structures in the extant literature (Rauthmann & Sherman, 2018, p. 482) and potential concerns regarding the use of the lexical approach to identify psychologically important situation dimensions (Reis, 2018, p. 489). In this rejoinder, we seek to further these important discussions by (a) emphasizing the importance of Typicality in understanding a broad range of psychological processes, (b) clarifying the utility of broad, dimensional-based situation taxonomies such as the CAPTION model for providing key theoretical and empirical linkages across discrete situations, as well as for capturing a broad range of psychologically meaningful dimensions of situations, and (c) reaffirming the need for cross-cultural/language and facet-level investigations of the CAPTION dimensions in future research. We hope that these discussions continue to advance the field toward a more comprehensive science of situations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Openness to Experience

Openness to experience is best understood as a multifaceted personality trait that covers a wide range of behavioral inclinations, attitudes, and interests associated with seeking for novelty and variety. Openness and its narrow traits (e.g., intellect, culture) are meaningfully linked to intelligence, academic achievement, creativity, social/political attitudes, religiosity/spirituality, subjective and psychological well-being, and work outcomes, which are discussed in detail.