Marcus Mund

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

The transactional paradigm states that people create, maintain, and change their environments according to their personalities. At the same time, the environment reacts back on personality. As social relationships are part of an individual's environment, this likewise implies that there are reciprocal transactions between personality and relationsh...

Contrary to premises of dynamic transactionism, most studies investigating personality-relationship transaction only found personality effects on relationships but failed to find effects of relationship experiences on personality development. The current study reconsiders this issue in 3 ways. First, alongside the broad Big Five characteristics (Ne...

When examining the associations between personality traits and partner relationships, the majority of studies focused on unidirectional effects showing that traits contribute to the quality and stability of relationships. Recent work, however, demonstrated that relationships likewise retroact on traits and their development. Apart from these recipr...

Individuals experience loneliness when they perceive a deficiency in the quality or quantity of their social relationships. In the present meta-analysis, we compiled data from 75 longitudinal studies conducted in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America (N = 83, 679) to examine the rank-order and mean-level development of loneliness across the li...

Individuals feel lonely when they perceive a discrepancy between their aspired and their actually experienced amount of closeness and intimacy in social relationships. In the present study, we disentangled developmental constancy factors, time-varying factors such as person-environment transactions, and stochastic mechanisms as sources of interindi...

Background For individuals living alone, having a diverse personal network is considered crucial for mitigating the risk of social isolation and enhancing well‐being. Although a reciprocal dynamic between network diversity and well‐being is likely, longitudinal evidence supporting reciprocal effects is limited. This study investigates dynamic trans...

The measurement of loneliness, by now, has gone a long road; on its way, different measurement tools have been developed and many important valuable insights have been gained. However, the current practice of measuring loneliness has severe problems, so severe that we declare the measurement of loneliness dead. As main causes of death, we discuss (...

The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) is a complex regression-based model capturing the simultaneous effects within a dyad. In the present study, we explore several variants of estimating how self-esteem (assessed with Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale) predicts relationship satisfaction (measured with the Relationship Assessment Scale) within...

Objective This article provides an overview of the Cross‐Lagged Panel Model (CLPM), Random‐Intercept Cross‐Lagged Panel Model (RI‐CLPM), and Latent Curve Model with Structured Residuals (LCM‐SR), highlighting the major issues of the CLPM for relationship science, and discusses dyadic extensions of those three models. Background Understanding inter...

People living alone are often depicted as prone to social isolation and poor well-being. Since previous research largely focused on comparisons between the living arrangements of older adults, evidence on differences within middle-aged adults living alone remains sparse. The present study used a person-centered approach to allow for a comprehensive...

The prevalence of loneliness varies widely across Western societies. However, the underlying sources of these cross-national disparities are still the subject of debate. In particular, recent advances in the literature put emphasis on exploring the moderating role of country-level characteristics for a better understanding under which condition ind...

Previous studies have found that loneliness of one person can be judged quite accurately by a close friend or partner. Yet, it is unclear whether there are specific behavioral cues the other-ratings are based on. In the present study, 54 female friendship dyads were videotaped during a guided conversation and behavioral cuesl were coded using the S...

Objectives: Caregivers' care-related thoughts critically effect their well-being. Currently, there is a lack of validated measures to systematically assess caregivers' functional and dysfunctional thoughts. We therefore aimed to develop a measure of caregivers' thoughts that assesses not only their dysfunctional but also their functional thoughts...

Einsamkeit entsteht, wenn Personen quantitative und/oder qualitative Defizite in ihren eigenen sozialen Beziehungen wahrnehmen. Im vorliegenden Beitrag gehen wir der Frage nach, wie statisch oder veränderlich Einsamkeit über die Lebensspanne ist und welche Implikationen sich daraus für die Betrachtung von Einsamkeit im Einzelfall ergeben könnten.

Loneliness affects well-being and has long-term negative impacts on physical and mental health, educational outcomes, and employability. Because of those current and long-term impacts, loneliness is a significant issue for which we need reliable and appropriate measurement scales. In the current paper, psychometric properties of the eight most comm...

There is a longstanding belief in relationship science and popular opinion that women are the barometers in mixed-gender relationships such that their perceptions about the partnership carry more weight than men’s in predicting future relationship satisfaction, but this idea has yet to be rigorously tested. We analyze data from two studies to test...

Objective: Throughout their lives, people experience different relationship events, such as beginning or dissolving a romantic relationship. Personality traits predict the occurrence of such relationship events (i.e., selection effects), and relationship events predict changes in personality traits (i.e., socialization effects), summarized as pers...

Background: The quantity of social relationships and social interactions is positively related to well-being, but the underlying role of personality dispositions in these associations is unclear. The present study investigated whether social motives for affiliation and intimacy moderate associations of personal networks with well-being. Method:...

Several measures that assess loneliness have been developed for adults. Across three studies, we investigated psychometric features of scores of different versions of the Rasch-Type Loneliness Scale, the University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, and three single-item measures. In Study 1 (N = 697 self-ratings, N = 282 informant-ratings...

Judged by the sheer amount of global media coverage, loneliness rates seem to be an increasingly urgent societal concern. From the late 1970s onward, the life experiences of emerging adults have been changing massively due to societal developments such as increased fragmentation of social relationships, greater mobility opportunities, and changes i...

Although long postulated, it has been scarcely researched how personality traits play out differently in distinct situations. We examined if Neuroticism and Extraversion, personality traits known to moderate stress processes, function differently in highly stressful situations requiring reduced social contact, that is, the COVID-19 pandemic. Based...

For several decades, cross-lagged panel models (CLPM) have been the dominant statistical model in relationship research for investigating reciprocal associations between two (or more) constructs over time. However, recent methodological research has questioned the frequent usage of the CLPM because, amongst other things, the model commingles within...

Judged by the sheer amount of global media coverage, loneliness rates seem to be an increasingly urgent societal concern. From the late 1970s onward, the life experiences of emerging adults have been changing massively due to societal developments such as increased fragmentation of social relationships, greater mobility opportunities, and changes i...

Several measures that assess loneliness have been developed for adults. Across three studies, we investigated psychometric features of different versions of the Rasch-Type Loneliness Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale, and three single-item measures. In Study 1 (N = 697 self-ratings, N = 282 informant-ratings of 163 targets) and Study 2 (N = 1,216 in...

Relationship science contends that the quality of couples’ communication predicts relationship satisfaction over time. Most studies testing these links have examined between-person associations, yet couple dynamics are also theorized at the within-person level: For a given couple, worsened communication is presumed to predict deteriorations in futu...

Individuals feel lonely when they perceive a discrepancy between the amount of closeness and intimacy in social relationships they desire and what they actually experience. Across several studies, partner relationships have consistently been found to be the most powerful protective factor against loneliness. Previous research on this topic, however...

Loneliness describes a perceived deficiency in quantitative or qualitative aspects of individuals’ social relationships. Whereas the health-related consequences of loneliness are well-documented, surprisingly little is known about its interpersonal features and its consequences for relationship outcomes. In the present study, we investigated the as...

Individuals experience loneliness when they perceive a deficiency in the quality or quantity of their social relationships. In the present meta-analysis, we compiled data from 75 longitudinal studies conducted in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America ($N = 83,679$) to examine the rank-order and mean-level development of loneliness across the l...

Early adulthood is a time of substantial personality change characterized by large inter-individual diversity. To investigate the role of age in this diversity, the present study examined whether emerging adults differ from an older group of young adults in their Big Five personality development. By means of multi-group latent change modelling, two...

Early adulthood is a time of substantial personality change characterized by large inter-individual diversity. To investigate the role of age in this diversity, the present study examined whether emerging adults differ from an older group of young adults in their Big Five personality development. By means of multi-group latent change modelling, two...

Individuals feel lonely when they perceive a discrepancy between their desired and their actually experienced quantity and quality of social relationships. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of loneliness for various health-related aspects. In the present article, we extend the existing literature on loneliness by investigating its role...

For decades, researchers have employed the Cross-Lagged Panel Model (CLPM) to analyze the interactions and interdependencies of a wide variety of inner- or supra-individual variables across the life course. However, in the last years the CLPM has been criticized for its underlying assumptions and several alternative models have been proposed that a...

Individuals feel lonely when they perceive a discrepancy between the desired and actually experienced quantity and quality of social relationships. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of loneliness for various health-related aspects. In the present article, we extend the existing literature on loneliness by investigating its role for pre...

This chapter shows that personality traits and social relationships are deeply entwined in a bidirectional way: Individuals select relationships partly based on their personality traits but at the same time develop across the lifespan partly in response to changes in their social environment. Life transitions are an important catalyst of changes in...

This chapter shows that personality traits and social relationships are deeply entwined in a bidirectional way: Individuals select relationships partly based on their personality traits but at the same time develop across the lifespan partly in response to changes in their social environment. Life transitions are an important catalyst of changes in...

Although social relationships are important ingredients of life, a large body of research found either no or only marginal and scattered effects of aspects of social relationships on personality development. In the present chapter, we review evidence for relationship effects in social networks and partner relationships and argue that the importance...

We agree with Baumert and colleagues that it is important for personality researchers to get out of the closets of their respective subfields and move personality psychology from description to explanation and towards an integrated science. Adding to the authors’ excellent review, we emphasize the need for concrete conceptual and methodological gui...

Individuals feel lonely hen they perceive a discrepancy between the desired and actually experienced quantity and quality of social relationships. Prior research has demonstrated the importance of loneliness for various health-related aspects. In the present article, we extend the existing literature on loneliness by investigating its role for pred...

What characterizes friendships in young and middle adulthood? The current chapter addresses this question with respect to four topics: (1) The importance and functions of friends in young and middle adulthood generally differ from friendships in childhood and adolescence to some degree because people experience life transitions such as entering the...

Prior research demonstrated influences of personality traits and their development on later status of subjective health and loneliness. In the present study, we intended to extend these findings by examining mutual influences between health-related characteristics and personality traits and their development over time. German adults were assessed a...

In many longitudinal studies, self-esteem has been shown to increase up until around age 50 or 60 and to decrease thereafter. These studies have also found substantial inter-individual differences in the intra-individual development of self-esteem. In the current study, we examined whether this variation in change could be attributed to underlying...

What characterizes friendships in young and middle adulthood? The current chapter addresses this question with respect to four topics: (1) The importance and functions of friends in young and middle adulthood generally differ from friendships in childhood and adolescence to some degree because people experience life transitions such as entering the...

We argue from the perspective of long-term personality development that persons and situations are inherently intertwined. It is the situation that makes the person matter, and it is the person who makes the situation matter. Similar situations may exert differential or normative effects on personality development depending on, first, their frequen...

Previous research on the role of self-esteem in partner relationships indicates that it is both predictive of and predicted by variables such as relationship satisfaction. However, most of these studies were constrained to only relationship satisfaction, cross-sectional or individual data. In the present study, we examine the dynamic interplay betw...

Objective: When Freud introduced the term repression, he stated its pathogenic potential. Since then, this notion was adapted and continued to date. Surprisingly, there is no attempt to synthesize research on the effect of repressive coping on somatic diseases quantitatively. The current study closes this gap and examines the association between r...