Julia M. Rohrer

• Dr. rer. nat.
• PhD Student at International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course

Scientific theories reflect some of humanity's greatest epistemic achievements. The best theories motivate us to search for discoveries, guide us towards successful interventions, and help us to explain and organize knowledge. Such theories require a high degree of specificity, which in turn requires formal modeling. Yet, in psychological science,...

Making causal inferences regarding human behaviour is difficult given the complex interplay between countless contributors to behaviour, including factors in the external world and our internal states. We provide a non-technical conceptual overview of challenges and opportunities for causal inference on human behaviour. The challenges include our a...

People care about different domains of life (e.g., their health, social life, work) to varying degrees. It thus seems plausible that how satisfied they are with those domains matters for their general life satisfaction to varying degrees. This idea has been investigated in the importance-weighting literature with at best mixed results, but variatio...

The replication crisis and subsequent credibility revolution in psychology have highlighted many suboptimal research practices such as p ‐hacking, overgeneralizing, and a lack of transparency. These practices may have been employed reflexively but upon reflection, they are hard to defend. We suggest that current practices for reporting and discussi...

Recent developments in the causal-inference literature have renewed psychologists’ interest in how to improve causal conclusions based on observational data. A lot of the recent writing has focused on concerns of causal identification (under which conditions is it, in principle, possible to recover causal effects?); in this primer, we turn to causa...

Knowledge about causal effects is essential for building useful theories and designing effective interventions. The preferred design for learning about causal effects is randomized experiments (i.e., studies in which the researchers randomly assign units to treatment and control conditions). However, randomized experiments are often unethical or un...

People care about different domains of life (e.g., their health, social life, work) to varying degrees. It thus seems plausible that how satisfied they are with those domains matters for their general life satisfaction to varying degrees. This idea has been investigated in the importance-weighting literature with at best mixed results, but variatio...

Recent developments in the causal-inference literature have renewed psychologists’ interest in how to improve causal conclusions based on observational data. A lot of the recent writing has focused on concerns of causal identification (under which conditions is it, in principle, possible to recover causal effects?); in this primer, we turn to causa...

How does personality change when people get older? Numerous studies have investigated this question, overall supporting the idea of so-called personality maturation. However, heterogeneous findings have left open questions, such as whether maturation continues in old age and how large the effects are. We suggest that the heterogeneity is partly roo...

How does personality change when people get older? Numerous studies have investigated this question, overall supporting the idea of so-called personality maturation. However, heterogeneous findings have left open questions, such as whether maturation continues in old age and how large the effects are. We suggest that the heterogeneity is partly roo...

Limitations are an inherent part of the research process. Looking these limitations in the eye is no easy task, but it is important if the field of psychology wishes to be considered a credible science. Current practices for reporting limitations in psychology leave much room for improvement. Concrete guidance for discussing specific limitations is...

The personality trait neuroticism is tightly linked to mental health, and neurotic people experience stronger negative emotions in everyday life. But, do their negative emotions also show greater fluctuation? This commonsensical notion was recently questioned by [Kalokerinos et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112, 15838-15843 (2020)], who suggested that...

The personality trait neuroticism is tightly linked to mental health, and neurotic people experience stronger negative emotions in everyday life. But, do their negative emotions also show greater fluctuation? This commonsensical notion was recently questioned by Kalokerinos et al. [(2020) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:15838–15843], who suggested that...

In psychological science, researchers often pay particular attention to the distinction between within- and between-persons relationships in longitudinal data analysis. Here, we aim to clarify the relationship between the within- and between-persons distinction and causal inference and show that the distinction is informative but does not play a de...

Causal inference is a central goal of science. Experiments are the preferred design for learning about causal effects, but experiments are often unethical or unfeasible. On the other hand, observational studies are usually feasible but lack the random assignment that renders experiments causally informative. Natural experiments can sometimes offer...

Behavioral researchers increasingly recognize the need for more diverse samples that capture the breadth of human experience. Current attempts to establish generalizability across populations focus on threats to validity, constraints on generalization, and the accumulation of large, cross-cultural data sets. But for continued progress, we also requ...

Scientific theories reflect some of humanity's greatest epistemic achievements. The best theories motivate us to search for discoveries, guide us towards successful interventions, and help us to explain and organize knowledge. Such theories require a high degree of specificity, and specifying them requires modeling skills. Unfortunately, in psychol...

Path models to test claims about mediation and moderation are a staple of psychology. But applied researchers may sometimes not understand the underlying causal inference problems and thus endorse conclusions that rest on unrealistic assumptions. In this article, we aim to provide a clear explanation for the limited conditions under which standard...

Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter,...

In the original publication, the text (line 10) under the heading “3 Re‑examining the Numerical Estimates of the Effect of Genes and Circumstances” with sub heading “3.1 How Much Variance in Chronic Happiness Levels can be Explained by Genetic Factors?” has been published incorrectly.

Replication—an important, uncommon, and misunderstood practice—is gaining appreciation in psychology. Achieving replicability is important for making research progress. If findings are not replicable, then prediction and theory development are stifled. If findings are replicable, then interrogation of their meaning and validity can advance knowledg...

Behavioral researchers increasingly recognize the need for more diverse samples that capture the breadth of human experience. Current attempts to establish generalizability across populations focus on threats to validity, constraints on generalization and the accumulation of large cross-cultural datasets. But for continued progress, we also require...

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing “credibility revolution” in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our field’s practices and norms have now become models fo...

Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter,...

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing “credibility revolution” in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our field’s practices and norms have now become models fo...

In psychology, causal inference—both the transport from lab estimates to the real world and estimation on the basis of observational data—is often pursued in a casual manner. Underlying assumptions remain unarticulated; potential pitfalls are compiled in post-hoc lists of flaws. The field should move on to coherent frameworks of causal inference an...

Psychological theories often invoke interactions but remain vague regarding the details. As a consequence, researchers may not know how to properly test them and may potentially run analyses that reliably return the wrong answer to their research question. We discuss three major issues regarding the prediction and interpretation of interactions. Fi...

Science is often perceived to be a self-correcting enterprise. In principle, the assessment of scientific claims is supposed to proceed in a cumulative fashion, with the reigning theories of the day progressively approximating truth more accurately over time. In practice, however, cumulative self-correction tends to proceed less efficiently than on...

Replication, an important, uncommon, and misunderstood practice, is making a comeback in psychology. Achieving replicability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making research progress. If findings are not replicable, then prediction and theory development are stifled. If findings are replicable, then interrogation of their meaning and...

Few studies have examined birth order effects on personality in countries that are not Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD). However, theories have generally suggested that interculturally universal family dynamics are the mechanism behind birth order effects, and prominent theories such as resource dilution would predict...

An underlying principle behind much of the research in positive psychology is that individuals have considerable leeway to increase their levels of happiness. In an influential article that is frequently cited in support of such claims, Lyubomirsky et al. (Rev Gen Psychol 9:111–131, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111) put forward a mod...

Causal inference is a central goal of research. However, most psychologists refrain from explicitly addressing causal research questions and avoid drawing causal inference on the basis of nonexperimental evidence. We argue that this taboo against causal inference in nonexperimental psychology impairs study design and data analysis, holds back cumul...

Causal inference is a central goal of research. However, most psychologists refrain from explicitly addressing causal research questions and avoid drawing causal inference on the basis of nonexperimental evidence. We argue that this taboo against causal inference in nonexperimental psychology impairs study design and data analysis, holds back cumul...

The Community of Open Scholarship Grassroots Networks (COSGN), includes 120 grassroots networks, representing virtually every region of the world and every research discipline. These networks communicate and coordinate on topics of common interest. We propose, using an NSF 19-501 Full-Scale implementation grant, to formalize governance and coordina...

Secondary data analysis, or the analysis of preexisting data, provides a powerful tool for the resourceful psychological scientist. Never has this been more true than now, when technological advances enable both sharing data across labs and continents and mining large sources of preexisting data. However, secondary data analysis is easily overlooke...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212944.].

Connections between interindividual differences and people’s behavior has been widely researched in various contexts, often by using top-down group comparisons to explain interindividual differences. In contrast, in this study, we apply a bottom-up approach in which we identify meaningful clusters in people’s concerns about various areas of life (e...

Scientific self-correction is often construed as an outcome of the activities of the community as a whole. In contrast, cases in which researchers publicly point out errors in their own studies are rare and deemed unusual. Here, we argue that such individual self-corrections would be beneficial for the scientific community. In an online project, we...

In this essay we make four interrelated points. First, we reiterate previous arguments (Kleinberg et al 2015) that forecasting problems are more common in social science than is often appreciated. From this observation it follows that social scientists should care about predictive accuracy in addition to unbiased or consistent estimation of causal...

Few studies have examined birth order effects on personality in countries that are notWestern, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD), even though prominenttheories such as resource dilution would predict stronger effects in poorer countries andtheories have generally suggested interculturally universal family dynamics as themechani...

Important strides have been made in recent years to promote increasing the reliability and transparency of scientific practice, including the increased availability of open data, and open materials. A major development is the use of preregistered sampling and analysis plans, which enable readers to distinguish between analyses meant to generate ver...

Happiness is considered a highly desirable attribute, but whether or not individuals can actively steer their lives toward greater well-being is an open empirical question. In this study, respondents from a representative German sample reported, in text format, ideas for how they could improve their life satisfaction. We investigated which of these...

In an influential article, Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005) argued that individuals have considerable leeway to increase their levels of chronic happiness. These authors supported their arguments with a model (subsequently popularized under the name of the “happiness pie”) in which approximately 50% of individual differences in happiness ar...

Bottom-up models of life satisfaction are based on the assumption that individuals judge the overall quality of their lives by aggregating information across various life domains, such as health, family, and income. This aggregation supposedly involves a weighting procedure because individuals care about different parts of their lives to varying de...

We investigate how indicators of dissatisfaction—worries about a variety of life domains such as health, the state of the economy, and immigration—change across time and age in Germany based on Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data. As expected, contemporary world events influenced respondents’ worries. For example, worries about peace peaked in 2003, t...

Correlation does not imply causation; but often, observational data are the only option, even though the research question at hand involves causality. This article discusses causal inference based on observational data, introducing readers to graphical causal models that can provide a powerful tool for thinking more clearly about the interrelations...

Time is a finite resource, strictly limited to 24 hours a day. How people spend these resources is in many ways determined by necessities and external constraints, yet research on personality-situation transactions shows that people also choose their environments to resonate with their personality. This finding implies that daily time use and indiv...

The idea that birth-order position has a lasting impact on personality has been discussed for the past 100 years. Recent large-scale studies have indicated that birth-order effects on the Big Five personality traits are negligible. In the current study, we examined a variety of more narrow personality traits in a large representative sample (n = 6,...

Open-ended questions have routinely been included in large-scale survey and panel studies, yet there is some perplexity about how to actually incorporate the answers to such questions into quantitative social science research. Tools developed recently in the domain of natural language processing offer a wide range of options for the automated analy...

Re-expansion word list. (CSV)

German to English translation of words displayed in figures. (CSV)

Visual representation of word-level correlational analyses of the Big Five personality traits. (TIF)

Numerical results of the correlational analyses. (PDF)

List of common abbreviations used in open-ended text answers. (CSV)

Correlation does not imply causation; but often, observational data are the only option, even though the research question at hand involves causality. This article introduces readers to causal inference based on observational data with the help of graphical causal models, a powerful tool to think more clearly about the interrelations between variab...

Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonal...

Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonal...

This report summarizes test-retest reliabilities of a variety of scales included in the Socio-Economic Panel study (SOEP). Numbers are based on retests conducted in 2005, 2006, and 2009. Please get in touch with the SOEP at DIW Berlin (https://www.diw.de/en/diw_02.c.222516.en/data.html) if you are interested in accessing the retest data.

Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonal...

Open-ended questions have routinely been included in large-scale survey and panel studies, yet there is some perplexity about how to actually incorporate the answers to such questions into quantitative social science research. Tools developed recently in the domain of natural language processing offer a wide range of options for the automated analy...

Significance The question of whether a person’s position among siblings has a lasting impact on that person’s life course has fascinated both the scientific community and the general public for >100 years. By combining large datasets from three national panels, we confirmed the effect that firstborns score higher on objectively measured intelligenc...