Alexander G. Stahlmann’s research while affiliated with University of Zurich and other places

What is this page?


This page lists works of an author who doesn't have a ResearchGate profile or hasn't added the works to their profile yet. It is automatically generated from public (personal) data to further our legitimate goal of comprehensive and accurate scientific recordkeeping. If you are this author and want this page removed, please let us know.

Publications (22)


Personality traits, blood, organ, and body donation: A systematic review and meta-analysis
  • Preprint

November 2024

·

11 Reads

Alexander Georg Stahlmann

·

Blood donation, posthumous organ donation, and bodily donation to science are key forms of health-related philanthropy that support healthcare in ways that paid or coerced labor cannot fulfill. Theory suggests that personality traits may predict differences in health-related philanthropy, though the available evidence has been mixed. This meta-analysis combined data from 10 studies with 7,549 participants to provide reliable estimates of the association between Big Five personality traits and indicators of blood donation, posthumous organ donation, and bodily donation to science. Results showed that extraversion consistently predicted health-related philanthropy across indicators. Additionally, openness and extraversion positively predicted blood donation, while neuroticism was a negative predictor. Agreeableness positively predicted posthumous organ donation, while conscientiousness did not predict any form of health-related philanthropy. These findings highlight the modest but meaningful role of personality traits in predicting health-related philanthropy and suggest applications for personality-targeted outreach to increase donation rates.



Figure 4 Variations in Meta-Analytic Correlations Based on Continuous Moderators
Summary of Studies Identified in the Systematic Review That Pertain to Vaccination Outcomes
Meta-Analytic Personality-Vaccination Correlations
Effects of Continuous Moderators on Personality-Vaccination Correlations
Meta-Analytic Summary Statistics and Heterogeneity Across Various Moderator Models
Big Five Personality Traits and Vaccination: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
  • Article
  • Full-text available

September 2024

·

82 Reads

·

2 Citations

Health Psychology

Objetivo: A pesar de los beneficios comprobados de la vacunación, las personas difieren en su disposición a vacunarse. Estas diferencias son el resultado de múltiples factores, incluyendo variables sociales, culturales y psicológicas. Este metaanálisis estimó los efectos de los Cinco Grandes rasgos de personalidad de las personas en sus actitudes, intenciones y comportamientos en materia de vacunación y examinó el papel de las variables moderadoras derivadas teórica y empíricamente. Métodos: Meta analizamos datos de 28 estudios que tomaron muestras de más de 48,000 personas para estimar los efectos de los rasgos de personalidad de los Cinco Grandes en las actitudes, intenciones y comportamientos de vacunación. Además, probamos los efectos moderadores de la edad, el género, la región de la muestra, el tipo de muestra (representativa vs. conveniencia), la medida de vacunación (actitud, intención, comportamiento, compuesto), el tipo de vacunación (COVID-19, influenza u otra), y confiabilidad de la medida de los Cinco Grandes sobre los vínculos entre los rasgos de personalidad y la vacunación. Resultados: Las personas con niveles altos de afabilidad y extraversión, y niveles bajos de neuroticismo informaron actitudes más positivas hacia la vacunación, mientras que las personas abiertas informaron intenciones más fuertes de vacunarse. Las personas abiertas y afables también se mostraron más positivas con respecto a las nuevas vacunas contra el COVID-19, mientras que las personas extrovertidas fueron más positivas con respecto a las vacunas contra la influenza. No hubo efectos para la escrupulosidad. En general, los tamaños del efecto fueron pequeños pero generalizados en todas las edades. Otros efectos moderadores sugirieron una imagen más matizada según las regiones culturales, los tipos de muestras y el género. Conclusiones: Los hallazgos proporcionan una imagen convincente de los efectos significativos, aunque pequeños, de los rasgos de personalidad en la vacunación. Quedan dudas sobre los procesos a través de los cuales los rasgos de personalidad pueden afectar las actitudes, las intenciones y potencialmente también el comportamiento en materia de vacunación.

Download

Big Five personality traits and vaccination: A systematic review and meta-analysis

April 2024

·

107 Reads

·

2 Citations

Objective: Despite the proven benefits of vaccination, people differ in their willingness to get vaccinated. These differences are the result of multiple factors, including social, cultural, and psychological variables. This meta-analysis estimated the effects of people’s Big Five personality traits on their vaccination attitudes, intentions, and behaviors and examined the role of theoretically and empirically derived moderator variables. Methods: We meta-analyzed data from 28 studies that sampled over 48,000 individuals to estimate the effects of Big Five personality traits on vaccination attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. In addition, we tested the moderating effects of age, gender, sample region, sample type (representative vs. convenience), vaccination measure (attitude, intention, behavior, compound), vaccination type (COVID-19, Influenza, or other), and reliability of the Big Five measure on the links between personality traits and vaccination.Results: People with high levels in agreeableness and extraversion, and low levels in neuroticism reported more positive attitudes towards vaccination, while open people reported stronger intentions to get vaccinated. Open and agreeable people were also more positive about novel COVID-19 vaccines, whereas extraverted people were more positive about Influenza vaccines. There were no effects for conscientiousness. Overall, effect sizes were small but generalized across age. Other moderator effects suggested a more nuanced picture across cultural regions, sample types, and gender. Conclusions: The findings provide a compelling picture of significant, albeit small, effects of personality traits on vaccination. Questions remain about the processes through which personality traits may affect vaccination attitudes, intentions, and potentially also behavior.


Conceptual model that distinguishes links between character strengths, their reflective components (strengths factors), and their formative counterparts (virtues)
Note: ¹ The strengths factors presented are chosen as illustrative examples and are based on McGrath’s well-known three-factor model (e.g., McGrath, 2015; McGrath et al., 2018). However, these factors can be replaced with other factor models for the purpose of this discussion
Ten dos and don'ts of character strengths research
Summary of empirical studies in our knowledge that evaluate criteria for character strengths
Ten dos and don’ts of Character Strengths Research

March 2024

·

387 Reads

·

3 Citations

International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology

While both practitioners and the public regard character strengths positively, some psychologists and philosophers harbor skepticism. In this analytical commentary on current research and literature, we trace such skepticism to a premature focus on positive outcomes, which eclipsed the theoretical groundwork outlined in the 2004 handbook. We propose solutions to ten key issues which, in our estimation, not only sustain this skepticism but also hinder meaningful advancement in the field of character strengths research: (1) Criteria evaluation, (2) Virtue functions, (3) Situational affordances, (4) Content validity, (5) Criterion validity, (6) Fulfillment conceptualization, (7) Adverse outcome modeling (8) Moral excellency, (9) Strengths conservatism, and (10) Methodological mainstream thinking. We contend that resolving these issues is necessary to uphold the standing of character strengths and positive psychology among its counterparts, and to establish a potent foundation for effective character development.



Personality, self-knowledge, and meat reduction intentions

July 2023

·

59 Reads

·

3 Citations

Journal of Personality

Objective: Meat consumption has a host of serious negative consequences for nonhuman animals, underprivileged humans, and the natural environment. Several interventions have been developed to encourage meat reduction but to relatively limited effect. There is also a range of established predictors of meat consumption, but much less is known about the factors that predict intentions to reduce meat consumption. The goal of this study was to determine the roles of personality and self-knowledge in meat reduction intentions. Method: In this set of three preregistered studies, we tested brief interventions to encourage meat reduction intentions and examined personality predictors of intentions to reduce meat consumption. Results: We found no evidence that brief interventions with or without a self-knowledge component had a meaningful effect on changing meat reduction intentions. However, we found robust evidence for relatively small associations between intending to eat less meat and high Openness to Experience, high Emotionality, and perceiving meat reduction as moral behaviors. Conclusion: Individual differences may be a more influential predictor of meat reduction intentions than brief interventions. Implications for promoting meat reduction are discussed.


Improving Scale Equivalence by Increasing Access to Scale-Specific Information

July 2023

·

168 Reads

·

4 Citations

Perspectives on Psychological Science

·

Alexander G. Stahlmann

·

Jennifer Hofmann

·

[...]

·

Measures of the same phenomenon should produce the same results; this principle is fundamental because it allows for replication—the basis of science. Unfortunately, measures of a psychological construct in one language can often measure something a bit different in another language (i.e., low “scale equivalence”). Historically, the problem was thought to stem from insufficient knowledge of best-practice translation procedures. Yet solutions based on this diagnosis and their widespread adoption have not resolved the issue. In this article, we suggest that an additional problem might be insufficient information about the measure being translated. If so, low scale equivalence is a problem that translators and cross-cultural psychologists cannot solve on their own. We explore the possibility that measure-specific translation guides be created by original scale builders for the most widely used measures of important psychological constructs. We describe why such guides are needed, when they are needed, what they might look like, their feasibility, and next steps, providing a complete example guide and test case in a supplement concerning the Primals Inventory. In this article, we seek to spark discussion on translation practices happening behind the scenes and how greater transparency can improve scale equivalence, in the spirit of open science.


Big Five personality traits predict small but robust differences in civic engagement

April 2023

·

152 Reads

·

13 Citations

Journal of Personality

Objective: This preregistered study provides robust estimates of the links between Big Five personality traits and civic engagement across different samples and life stages. Methods: We recruited two samples from the United States and United Kingdom (total N = 1593) and measured Big Five domains, Big Five aspects, and six civic engagement indicators: volunteerism, charitable giving, donating blood, posthumous organ donation, political voting, and vaccination. We compared the links between these measures across samples and tested moderation across life stages and several sociodemographic variables. We explored whether these links replicate between self- and peer-reports. Results: We found small but robust effects. Agreeable, extraverted, and open/intellectual participants reported more civic engagement, especially volunteerism and charitable giving. Neurotic and conscientious participants mainly reported less civic engagement, especially blood and organ donations. One of the two Big Five aspects often drove these links, such as Compassion in the link between Agreeableness and volunteerism. We found some differences between younger and middle-aged adults. Conclusions: Big Five personality traits predict civic engagement modestly but consistently, with adequate study power being critical to detecting these links. Lower-order traits, such as Big Five aspects, clarify the relationships between traits and engagement. Life stages and sociodemographic variables have limited effects.



Citations (15)


... This distinction is crucial because personality traits are difficult to influence or consider in individual or official communications, as discussed by several studies and reviews on the stability of personality traits in adulthood [14,15]. Personality traits have been associated with a range of preventive health behaviours, including vaccination [16]. While both personality traits and the 7C antecedents are important concepts that have been related to health behaviours and vaccination, no study to date has explored the how the 7C model may be tied to personality traits. ...

Reference:

Are psychological attitudes towards vaccination an expression of personality? A cross-sectional study on COVID-19 vaccination in France
Big Five Personality Traits and Vaccination: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Health Psychology

... In addition, people are attracted to conspiracy narratives e.g. when the social status of their group is perceived as low [5]. As we will explain below, there is evidence that the big five have (in part) effects on vaccination intention [6] and conspiracy beliefs, while at the same time there is an effect of conspiracy beliefs on vaccination intention. This suggests that there is also a mediating effect from at least some of the big five via conspiracy beliefs on the vaccination intention. ...

Big Five personality traits and vaccination: A systematic review and meta-analysis
  • Citing Preprint
  • April 2024

... This study was established by two relatively recent and related literature reviews on the character strengths (CS) model of personality traits in the workplace (Freidlin & Littman-Ovadia, 2020;Miglianico et al., 2020). According to Stahlmann et al. (2024), CS is the term used to describe the individual differences that lead to personal fulfilment, happiness, and satisfaction and are reflected in particular emotions, thoughts, and behaviours. It also refers to the ability to elevate people who observe these differences and inspire admiration rather than caution. ...

Definitional ambiguities in character strengths: A comparative analysis with personality and other psychobiological attributes
  • Citing Article
  • February 2024

Journal of Research in Personality

... Situational affordances enclosed in parentheses may be relevant to the expression of the character strength under certain conditions or at certain times They found significant differences among character strengths, such as social intelligence, judgment, and love (broader), compared to vitality, forgiveness, and gratitude (narrower). Stahlmann and Arbenz (2023) corroborated these findings through psycho-lexical analysis, revealing that narrower strengths often have comprehensive lexical representation-words that encapsulate the entire concept-whereas broader strengths lack this comprehensiveness. For instance, the adjectives 'vital,' 'zestful,' and 'vigorous' comprehensively capture the consensual definition of the character strength vitality. ...

Expressing Virtue in Natural Language: The Character Strengths Adjective Lists
  • Citing Preprint
  • January 2023

... Previous research studies have indicated that openness to experience is the most influential trait on environmentallyfriendly attitudes or behaviours (Brick & Lewis, 2016;Hopwood et al., 2024;Markowitz et al., 2012;Milfont & Sibley, 2012;Soutter et al., 2020), sustainability concerns (Hirsh, 2010) and the usage of green products (Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007;Klein et al., 2019). In some studies, conscientiousness has been highly associated with environmentalism (Milfont & Sibley, 2012), and it contributes to explaining a wide range of sustainable attitudes and behaviours, such as consuming sustainable products (Luchs & Mooradian, 2012), participating in environmental protection activities (Milfont & Sibley, 2012) and pro-environmental behaviours likely to be positively predicted by self-transcendence than self-enhancement. ...

Personality aspects and proenvironmental attitudes
  • Citing Article
  • November 2022

Journal of Personality

... Awe can be a destabilizing experience that can change individuals' beliefs about the world. A recent construct called "Primals" has been proposed to describe individuals' inner assumptions about the world (Clifton 2020;Clifton et al. 2019Clifton et al. , 2022. Primals can be hierarchically organized (Stahlmann et al. 2020) into at least three levels: one primary Primal (Good), three secondary Primals (Safe, Enticing, and Alive), and several tertiary Primals. ...

Improving Scale Equivalence by Increasing Access to Scale-Specific Information

Perspectives on Psychological Science

... In a recent study, compassion for animals was found to be related to the communion/agreeableness and openness to experience personality traits (Hopwood, Stahlmann, & Bleidorn, 2023). In the absence of a specific validated measure of compassion for animals, the researchers used a mixture of measures of attitudes towards animals, solidarity with animals, similarity to animals, and speciesism. ...

Personality and Compassion for Animals

... In contrast, a mindful-humorous perspective, reflected in an open, tolerant, and accepting attitude with an intention to arouse sympathy and understanding, may characterize the same situation, that could be expressed as mindful humor. One positive form of humor, humor as a character strength, correlated positively with the primary primal good and the secondary primals safe, enticing, and alive (Stahlmann & Ruch, 2023). Consequently, good, safe, enticing, and alive should be positively associated with transitioning to a more mindful-humorous perspective, resulting in positive correlations with mindfulness and benevolent humor and negative correlations with sarcasm and cynicism. ...

Primal world beliefs correlate strongly but differentially with character strengths

... As there is accumulating evidence that valence and arousal are correlated (Yik et al., 2023;Kuppens et al., 2013), we added the option to map the features to the polar coordinates (distance and angle) instead of the xand y-axes of the affect grid. ...

On the Relationship Between Valence and Arousal in Samples Across the Globe

Emotion