Cult of Personality
Tsachi Ein-Dor, Mario Mikulincer & Phillip Shaver
Social Psychological and Personality Science, September 2011, Pages 467-473
Abstract:
People who score high on attachment anxiety or avoidance display poorer adjustment than secure individuals in various social, emotional, and behavioral domains. Yet it may be advantageous for groups to include insecure as well as secure members. The authors tested predictions from social defense theory concerning advantages to groups of including members with different attachment patterns. A total of 46 groups were unobtrusively observed in a threatening laboratory situation: The room gradually filled with smoke, apparently because of a malfunctioning computer. Attachment anxiety was associated with quicker detection of the danger and therefore with greater group effectiveness. Attachment-related avoidance was associated with speedier escape responses to the danger once it was detected and therefore with greater group safety. The results remained significant even when extraversion and neuroticism, two possible confounds, were statistically controlled. Implications of the findings for theory and research concerning group processes, threat detection, and individual differences in attachment are discussed.
----------------------
Daniel Bartels & David Pizarro
Cognition, October 2011, Pages 154-161
Abstract:
Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments and a set of dilemmas that pit utilitarian and non-utilitarian options against each other. Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness. These results question the widely-used methods by which lay moral judgments are evaluated, as these approaches lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral.
----------------------
Cleared for Takeoff? CEO Personal Risk-Taking and Corporate Policies
Matthew Cain & Stephen McKeon
University of Notre Dame Working Paper, May 2011
Abstract:
This study analyzes the relation between CEO personal risk-taking, corporate policies, and overall firm risk. Using Federal Aviation Administration data, we identify a subset of CEOs who possess small aircraft pilot licenses. The desire to fly is indicative of a genetic personality trait known as sensation seeking, which is associated with risk-taking behavior. Our evidence suggests that a genetic predisposition towards personal risk-taking extends to the executive suite and impacts corporate decision making. Risk-taking CEOs are associated with higher firm leverage, more frequent acquisitions, and greater stock return volatility. In contrast to overconfident CEOs, risk-taking CEOs who manage high book-to-market firms are associated with value increasing acquisitions. We find no significant differences in compensation structure that might incentivize risk-taking, suggesting that risk-taking CEOs imprint their biological characteristics on firms absent the influence of risk-inducing compensation schemes.
----------------------
Naomi Marmorstein & Daniel Hart
Journal of Research on Adolescence, September 2011, Pages 619-630
Abstract:
Response to stress is determined in part by genetically influenced regulation of the monoamine system (MAOA). We examined the interaction of a stressor (receipt of public assistance) and a gene regulating MAOA in the prediction of change in adolescent depressive symptoms and body mass index (BMI). Participants were drawn from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health (Add Health) genetically informative subsample. We focused on males due to the fact that males only have one MAOA allele. Growth curve analyses were conducted to assess the associations between public assistance, MAOA allele, and their interaction and the intercept and slope of depressive symptoms and BMI. The results indicated that among males, MAOA allele type interacted with receipt of public assistance in the prediction of rate of change in both depressive symptoms and BMI from early adolescence through early adulthood. Males with the short MAOA allele whose families received public assistance tended to experience increased growth in depressive symptoms and BMI. Implications of the findings for understanding the relations among stress, physiology, and development are discussed.
----------------------
Tsachi Ein-Dor et al.
Journal of Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Attachment-related avoidance and anxiety have repeatedly been associated with poorer adjustment in various social, emotional, and behavioral domains. We examined two domains in which avoidant individuals might be better equipped than their less avoidant peers to succeed and be satisfied - professional singles tennis and computer science. These fields may reward self-reliance, independence, and the ability to work without proximal social support from loved ones. In Study 1, we followed 58 professional singles tennis players for 16 months and found that scores on attachment-related avoidance predicted a higher ranking, above and beyond the contributions of training and coping resources. In Study 2, we sampled 100 students and found that those who scored higher on avoidance were happier with their choice of computer science as a career than those who scored lower on avoidance. Results are discussed in relation to the possible adaptive functions of certain personality characteristics often viewed as undesirable.
----------------------
Higher Extraversion and Lower Conscientiousness in Humans Infected with Toxoplasma
Jitka Lindová, Lenka Příplatová & Jaroslav Flegr
European Journal of Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Toxoplasmosis is associated with specific differences in the personality of infected subjects relative to non-infected subjects. These differences are usually considered to be a side effect of the manipulative activity of the parasite aimed to increase the probability of its transmission from the intermediate host to the definitive host by predation. The personality of infected subjects was studied mostly using the Cattell's questionnaire. However, this questionnaire is now considered outdated and has been mostly substituted with the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) questionnaire in clinical practice. Here, we searched for the association between toxoplasmosis and the personality by screening a population of students with the NEO-PI-R questionnaire. We found that Toxoplasma-infected male and female students had significantly higher extraversion and lower conscientiousness. The conscientiousness negatively correlated with the length of infection in men, which suggested that the toxoplasmosis associated differences were more probably the result of slow cumulative changes induced by latent toxoplasmosis, rather than transient side effect of acute Toxoplasma infection. The existence of this correlation also supported (but of course not proved) the hypothesis that Toxoplasma infection influenced the personality, rather than the hypothesis that the personality influenced the probability of the infection.
----------------------
Narcissism, Well-Being, and Observer-Rated Personality Across the Lifespan
Patrick Hill & Brent Roberts
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous studies have noted that narcissists do, in some cases, experience benefits. The current study adds to this discussion by examining whether age might moderate the links between narcissism and a self-reported benefit (life satisfaction) and an observer-reported benefit (observer ratings of personality). In a sample of college students and their family members (N = 807), the authors demonstrate that narcissism positively correlates with life satisfaction for adolescents and emerging adults, but not for adult participants. In addition, the relationship between narcissism and observer-reported neuroticism was weakly negative for undergraduate students, but significant and positive for their mothers. Taken together, these results suggest that narcissism is more beneficial for adolescents and emerging adults than for adults. Both sets of analyses also pointed to the importance of studying narcissism as a multifaceted construct. Findings are discussed with respect to personality development theories that emphasize adult role adoption.
----------------------
Collegiate heavy drinking prospectively predicts change in sensation seeking and impulsivity
Patrick Quinn, Cynthia Stappenbeck & Kim Fromme
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, August 2011, Pages 543-556
Abstract:
Recent models of alcohol use in youth and young adulthood have incorporated personality change and maturation as causal factors underlying variability in developmental changes in heavy drinking. Whereas these models assume that personality affects alcohol use, the current prospective study tested the converse relation. That is, we tested whether, after accounting for the effect of traits on drinking, collegiate heavy drinking in turn predicted individual differences in change in alcohol-related aspects of personality. We also examined whether affiliation with heavy-drinking peers better accounted for this relation. Following a cohort of recent high school graduates (N = 1,434) through the college years, we found evidence for transactional relations between heavy drinking and changes in impulsivity and sensation seeking. Both traits predicted increases in heavy drinking, but more important, heavy drinking predicted increases in sensation seeking and impulsivity. In final models, social influences did not underlie the effect of heavy drinking on increases in sensation seeking and impulsivity. The results of this investigation suggest that collegiate heavy drinking may negatively and pervasively impact a wide range of behaviors because of its effect on personality change.
----------------------
Shigehiro Oishi et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Frequent residential moves in childhood may be stressful. Because introverts find making new friends in a new town more difficult than extraverts, the authors predicted that residential moves would be more negatively associated with well-being among introverts than among extraverts. To test this hypothesis, the authors collected salivary cortisol samples from morning to evening for two consecutive days, in addition to self-reports of well-being. In general, the authors found support for this prediction among European American participants but not for African Americans or Asian Americans. Extraversion seems to buffer the stress of residential moves among European Americans, whereas it does not seem to play as important a role to this end among African and Asian Americans.
----------------------
Serena Bezdjian, Laura Baker & Catherine Tuvblad
Clinical Psychology Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
A meta-analysis of twin, family and adoption studies was conducted to estimate the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on impulsivity. The best fitting model for 41 key studies (58 independent samples from 14 month old infants to adults; N = 27,147) included equal proportions of variance due to genetic (0.50) and non-shared environmental (0.50) influences, with genetic effects being both additive (0.38) and non-additive (0.12). Shared environmental effects were unimportant in explaining individual differences in impulsivity. Age, sex, and study design (twin vs. adoption) were all significant moderators of the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on impulsivity. The relative contribution of genetic effects (broad sense heritability) and unique environmental effects were also found to be important throughout development from childhood to adulthood. Total genetic effects were found to be important for all ages, but appeared to be strongest in children. Analyses also demonstrated that genetic effects appeared to be stronger in males than in females. Method of assessment (laboratory tasks vs. questionnaires), however, was not a significant moderator of the genetic and environmental influences on impulsivity. These results provide a structured synthesis of existing behavior genetic studies on impulsivity by providing a clearer understanding of the relative genetic and environmental contributions in impulsive traits through various stages of development.
----------------------
John Loehlin
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
General factors of personality (based on the California Psychological Inventory) and cognitive skill (The National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test selection score) were correlated .284 in a sample of 490 monozygotic and 317 dizygotic twin pairs. The correlation was partitioned into genetic, and shared and unshared environmental sources: approximately 39%, 50% and 11%, respectively. The results offered some support to a theory that such a correlation may reflect evolutionary trends, although questions remained about the role of nonadditive genetic variance and the nature of the selection involved.