M. Brent Donnellan's research while affiliated with Michigan State University and other places
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Publications (314)
Inconsistent or careless responding is a significant threat to the validity of self-reported personality data. Using archival samples of undergraduate and community participants, we developed an inconsistent responding scale using items that appear on both the 60- and 100-item versions of the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised-two widely used mea...
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is the most frequently used measure of self-esteem in the social sciences. These items are often administered with a different number of response options, but it is unclear how the number of response options impacts the psychometric properties of this measure. Across three experiments ( Ns = 739, 2,358, and 1,461), w...
Problem solving is a necessary part of all successful relationships. The current study examined how naturally occurring day-to-day problem solving discussions were related to daily reports of relationship quality. In addition, we investigated whether optimism was associated with the nature and occurrence of these problems and moderated the associat...
Major life events can trigger personality trait change. However, a clear, replicable pattern of event-related personality trait change has yet to be identified. We examined whether the perception of major life events is associated with personality trait change. Therefore, we assessed young adults’ personality traits at five measurement occasions wi...
Within the past several decades, scholars have expressed concerns regarding the psychometric properties of global, retrospective self-reports of well-being (e.g., life satisfaction scales). This has led to the development of purportedly psychometrically superior experiential measures of well-being, such as the day reconstruction method. However, re...
Research on major life events and personality change often focuses on the occurrence of specific life events such as childbirth, unemployment, or divorce. However, this typical approach has three important limitations: (1) Life events are typically measured categorically, (2) it is often assumed that people experience and change from the same event...
The current studies help to clarify the nature of growth mindsets by evaluating how strongly people hold a global belief that generalizes across multiple ability domains (e.g., math, writing). Study 1 (N = 651) showed that a bifactor model, consisting of a common global belief and beliefs specific to each domain, fit the data reasonably well. Globa...
The present study evaluates longitudinal trajectories of adult romantic attachment during adulthood using latent growth curve modeling. We also tested how observed family interactions were related to trajectories of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance from ages 25 to 31 years (on average). Stability coefficients for attachment variables across...
We review extant research on the psychological implications of the use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., “I-talk”). A common intuition is that I-talk is associated with an overly positive, highly agentic, and inflated view of the self—including arrogance, self-centeredness, and grandiose narcissism. Initial (small-sample) research provided e...
Research examining the associations between major life events and personality trait development is mixed. Work that evaluates perceptions of life events and how those perceptions are themselves associated with personality traits may help clarify the existing literature. We used a large student sample (N ¼ 1,509) and a demographically diverse sample...
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...
Structural models of personality traits, particularly the five-factor model (FFM), continue to inform ongoing debates regarding what personality attributes and trait domains are central to psychopathy. A growing body of literature has linked the constructs of the triarchic model of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, disinhibition) to the FFM. Recentl...
In virtually all areas of psychology, the question of whether a particular construct has a prospective effect on another is of fundamental importance. For decades, the cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) has been the model of choice for addressing this question. However, CLPMs have recently been critiqued, and numerous alternative models have been prop...
The current investigation tested predictions from the interactionist model (IM) of socioeconomic influences on the development of negative personality traits with respect to feelings of alienation and low well-being. The model tested proposed that lower family socioeconomic status would lead to fewer parenting and material investments in the next g...
Genetic and environmental factors account for variability in a range of developmental outcomes, including socioeconomic status (SES). The challenge is to find ways to incorporate genetic information based on studies using biologically related family members (i.e., studies not involving twins). To address this issue, we computed polygenic scores ass...
This chapter is about a more fundamental issue—just how similar are couples when it comes to their personality traits. Fortunately, spousal similarity is a topic of active research in personality psychology. Personality similarity between spouses tends to be fairly modest. Moreover, a consideration of attributes beyond core personality traits provi...
The basic idea of a projective test is to have research participants, clients, or patients look at standardized images such as inkblots or evocative drawings or photographs and narrate how they interpret the images. Projective tests might be more useful in cases where people lack understanding of their own personalities or in cases where people may...
This chapter looks at a myth that is the polar opposite of the idea that situations are the primary determinant of happiness. Specifically, it addresses the extreme view that people's ability to adapt to changes in life circumstances is so well developed that major life events have no lasting impact on happiness. Although the idea that situational...
The Positivity book promised to give readers the tools to become “the best version of yourself” and emphasized the importance of obtaining a 3‐to‐1 balance between positive emotions and negative emotions for promoting human growth and potential. The idea of a specific 3‐to‐1 ratio of positivity to negativity was described in an earlier academic art...
The degree of consistency across time raises the possibility that personality traits might become fixed at some point in the life span. William James, one of the most influential psychologists in history, suggested that personality was set like plaster by age 30. This idea has also influenced more modern perspectives, with McCrae and Costa suggesti...
This chapter begins by briefly refuting the myth that personality disorders are a life sentence but then turn to an extended discussion about the definition of personality disorders and evidence about treatment. It discusses this myth in more detail by acknowledging the challenges of conceptualizing and measuring personality disorders and then summ...
This chapter explores whether parenting practices systematically affect people's personality traits. The task for personality researchers is to identify the specific non‐shared environmental factors that contribute to personality differences. Parenting practices are often blamed. It is common to hear that parents were too lax with their children or...
This chapter focuses on the utility of the typological approach to each individual dimension of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is based, at least loosely, on a theory of personality proposed by Carl Jung in the early 20th century. The biggest concern about the MBTI is the typological approach on which it is based. In comparison to...
People are complex, and their personalities may simply be too complicated to measure with much accuracy, even if these personalities do have powerful effects on behavior and other outcomes. This chapter addresses the myth that this complexity is so great that useful measures of personality cannot be created. It discusses well‐established steps—step...
More recent work has used principles from evolutionary psychology to better understand variation in personality. This chapter illustrates how such advances are changing how personality attributes are understood from evolutionary perspectives. It also illustrates why it is a myth to assume that evolutionary psychology is not relevant to personality...
Personality types are seen as useful fictions that offer a short‐hand way of referring to different configurations of personality information within people in an efficient and reasonable easy to communicate labels. Two broad, almost philosophical approaches to addressing the question of the basic units of a science of personality have emerged in pe...
One popular interpretation of W. Mischel's 1968 book was that traits are inconsequential. This leads directly to the myth that traits are useless for predicting outcomes that people (psychologists or otherwise) care about. In this chapter, the authors define the key terms in this myth and then consider the overall evidence about the predictive powe...
This chapter presents the debate over structured and unstructured interviews. Unlike the unstructured interviews, structured interviews occur when applicants are asked to address the exact same set of questions in a standardized format. Structured interviews by virtue of their systematic nature place constraints on how such biases can be introduced...
Personality psychologists focus on characteristics that are thought to be a part of the psychological makeup of the individual. This chapter addresses the myth that the cumulative effect of life experiences results in virtually no long‐term stability in personality traits across the life span. It discusses the evidence for personality consistency o...
Birth order is an intuitively appealing explanation for why genetically similar siblings are so different. The neo‐Freudian psychotherapist Alfred Adler was a vocal proponent of the idea that birth order was a significant determinant of personality. Evidence that birth order is a systematic predictor of personality is weak. When adequate tests of b...
Some psychological researchers seem to equate high self‐esteem with narcissism, especially when they express worries that efforts to enhance or support self‐esteem run the risk of turning children and adolescents into narcissists. In contrast to narcissism, self‐esteem is a less controversial construct that seems to reflect a single psychological a...
This chapter addresses the myth that personality is radically different from culture to culture. It aims to clarify two things and gets to the evidence. First, when examining cross‐cultural differences in personality traits, it's important to separate personality characteristics themselves from behaviors that more directly reflect cultural practice...
This chapter focuses on individual differences in the core personality dispositions captured by contemporary trait models such as the Big Five traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) or the Big Three traits (positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and constraint). It considers these kinds of question...
This chapter addresses the idea that personality measures are so easily faked that they have no validity. It presents the various issues that arise when studying faking on personality tests and then provides an overview of which issues have been resolved and which still lead to debate. Using personality measures in applied settings follows from a l...
In this chapter, the authors describe the steps involved in developing a personality measure, and they hope this information convinces readers of the work in terms of conceptual analysis, evidence gathering, and evidence interpretation that is required to develop a personality measure that has acceptable levels of precision and validity. Armed with...
This chapter is really about skepticism about whether certain scientific claims have a sufficient evidentiary basis. It begins with some clear cases where interactions between person and environment would be expected; then moves to a broader discussion of the issues that are involved in testing these interactions. If the person–environment‐fit hypo...
Questions about the stability of personality over the life span necessarily build on issues regarding stability from one moment to the next, one day to the next, and one month to the next. Therefore, this chapter introduces some basic ideas about what personality is and what we should expect from people's personalities. As a science of human behavi...
When thinking about personality characteristics, people might not limit themselves to considering the personalities of individuals. Instead, people may consider broader groups and wonder whether, on average, these groups differ in terms of their collective “personality.” One particularly interesting group‐based stereotype concerns perceptions of na...
People differ in their levels of happiness, and these levels of happiness persist over time. Some might even consider happiness to be a personality trait or something that approximates a consistent individual difference. When something bad happens, happiness may be replaced by less pleasant feelings like sadness, anxiety, or fear. Therefore, it's n...
Adolescence is a phase in life characterized by physical, cognitive, and emotional changes. In view of the tradition of viewing adolescence as a difficult time of life, there is a belief that adolescence is perhaps the time of the life span with most substantial personality development. This chapter builds on personality development by drawing on m...
This chapter tackles a set of stereotypes that is the target of much speculation and discussion, that is, the difference in personalities between men and women. Meta‐analyses concerning differences between women and men have been conducted for the major personality traits. There are some good reasons to expect that women may score higher on trait l...
Determining whether major life events, traumatic or otherwise, influence personality trait change turns out to be extremely difficult to address in a conclusive fashion. Different people might define traumatic differently. And more importantly, a person's current personality may be related to the tendency to classify things this way. The point is t...
This chapter provides a basic understanding of the types of evidence that have been used to show broad genetic effects on personality. It explores whether personality trait differences result from large effects of single genes. Psychologists have long been aware that genetic differences between people help explain variation in personality traits. T...
Measurement invariance (MI) is a critical issue whenever scores are compared in research. MI is especially relevant when analyzing repeated measures data—regardless of whether there are 2 measurement occasions or 200. In such instances, evaluating MI amounts to testing whether scores at one time point are psychometrically equivalent to scores at a...
We critique Roy et al.'s (2020; this issue) approach to characterizing the item-level factor structure of the three scales of the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), in light of the manner in which the TriPM scales were developed, the purposes they were designed to serve, and the growing body of evidence supporting their construct validity. We f...
Registered reports are a relatively new type of journal article format in which the decision to publish an article is based on sound conceptualization, methods, and planned analyses rather than the specific nature of the results. Registered reports are becoming increasingly instituted in journals across the sciences but mostly in experimental conte...
Although the Children's Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Rothbart, Ahadi, Hershey, & Fisher, 2001) is the most popular assessment for childhood temperament, its psychometric qualities have yet to be examined using Item Response Theory (IRT) methods. These methods highlight in detail the specific contributions of individual items for measuring different...
To what extent are research results influenced by subjective decisions that scientists make as they design studies? Fifteen research teams independently designed studies to answer five original research questions related to moral judgments, negotiations, and implicit cognition. Participants from 2 separate large samples (total N > 15,000) were then...
Digital aggression (DA) refers to the use of computer-mediated technologies to harm others. A handful of previous studies have provided mixed results regarding the personality correlates of DA. We clarified these findings by analyzing the associations between three measures of DA (behavioral, Twitter, and self-report) and the Big Five traits using...
Sensation seeking and lack of inhibition are often discussed as risk factors for hazardous and maladaptive behavior, particularly during the transition into adulthood. However, some degree and types of novelty-seeking and exploration may also be adaptive and conducive to psychological well-being. The current study examines associations between sens...
The day reconstruction method (DRM) is an approach to measuring well-being that is designed to approximate the rich data that can be obtained from intensive repeated measures designs like those used in the experience sampling method (ESM). Although some preliminary tests of the validity of the DRM have been conducted, these typically focus on agree...
Previous research suggests that having close relationships is a fundamental human need that, when fulfilled, is positively associated with subjective well-being. Recently, however, scholars have argued that actually interacting with one's closest partners may be psychologically taxing (e.g., because of pressures to provide support, care, and empath...
In the past 10 years, the field of relationship science—like many other fields—has been exposed to dramatic changes in how scientists approach the research process. Relationship science has been at the forefront of many recent changes in the field, whether it be high profile replication attempts or broader discussions about how to increase rigor an...
The current study evaluated bidirectional associations between mother and father positive parenting and child effortful control. Data were drawn from 220 families when children were 3, 4, 5, and 6 years old. Parenting and effortful control were assessed when the child was 3, 4, and 5 years old. These variables were used to statistically predict chi...
The performance and well-being of university students is influenced by many factors, including self-control and affect regulation, but little is known about how these factors relate. We therefore analyzed data from a multi-site research project that assessed trait self-control, affect regulation, and anxiety in a longitudinal cohort design ('N' = 1...
Sexual debut, or first intercourse, predicts problem behaviors such as substance use. This association could reflect a direct effect of debut itself, general developmental trends, or the fact that some youth are more predisposed to a wide array of problem behaviors (e.g., risky sex, substance use). Understanding the association between sexual debut...
Sexual debut, or first intercourse, predicts problem behaviors such as substance use. This association could reflect a direct effect of debut itself, general developmental trends, or the fact that some youth are more predisposed to a wide array of problem behaviors (e.g., risky sex, substance use). Understanding the association between sexual debut...
To what extent are research results influenced by subjective decisions that scientists make as they design studies? Fifteen research teams independently designed studies to answer five original research questions related to moral judgments, negotiations, and implicit cognition. Participants from two separate large samples (total N > 15,000) were th...
We identify pragmatic considerations as central for any current evaluation of models of personality trait structure. From this perspective, the HEXACO and Big Five perspectives are each probably good enough for making substantive progress in personality psychology.
Narcissism is unrelated to using first-person singular pronouns. Whether narcissism is linked to other language use remains unclear. We aimed to identify linguistic markers of narcissism. We applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to texts ( k = 15; N = 4,941). The strongest positive correlates were using words related to sports, second-perso...
To model data from multi-item scales, many researchers default to a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach that restricts cross-loadings and residual correlations to zero. This often leads to problems of measurement-model misfit while also ignoring theoretically relevant alternatives. Existing research mostly offers solutions by relaxing assum...
Previous research suggests both relationship status and relationship quality correlate with well-being. The present study extended these findings in three ways. First, we benchmarked individuals with various-quality relationships against uncoupled people to determine whether even low-quality relationships are associated with greater well-being than...
The current study evaluated associations among externalizing psychopathology, personality, and relationship quality in a sample of 794 couples. Personality and psychopathology were assessed using dimensional measures, and relationship attributes were assessed with both self-report and observer reports of videotaped interactions. Results were consis...
The symptoms of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and broader personality trait domains such as negative emotionality (NEM) may prove detrimental for marital quality. Previous research with European Americans has found that ASPD negatively predicts couple functioning, even when controlling for NEM. The current study extends previous work by te...
Several meta-analyses have investigated the job-related validities of the traits associated with the Five-Factor Model (FFM). The presence of second-order sampling error, however, might complicate the interpretation of these meta-analyses (i.e., random error across different meta-analyses). The current paper therefore evaluates variability across d...
Global well-being is positively correlated with health. Moreover, studies suggest that health and global well-being predict changes in one another across time. Fewer studies, however, have examined the extent to which health is associated with daily emotional experiences—especially longitudinally. The present study examined the longitudinal associa...
This study used content analysis of survey responses to help understand attitudes regarding taking risks across the adult lifespan. A sample of 842 U.S. adults ages 18–92 were asked to report their personal philosophy of taking risks, and what risks they felt people their age should take more often. Thematic categories were identified to classify t...
Some of the most widely studied variants in psychiatric genetics include variable number tandem repeat variants (VNTRs) in SLC6A3, DRD4, SLC6A4, and MAOA. While initial findings suggested large effects, their importance with respect to psychiatric phenotypes is the subject of much debate with broadly conflicting results. Despite broad interest, the...
What basic personality traits characterize the psychologically healthy individual? The purpose of this article was to address this question by generating an expert-consensus model of the healthy person in the context of the 30 facets (and 5 domains) of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) system of traits. In a first set of...
The Triarchic model (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) posits that psychopathy consists of three elements: Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition. Drislane et al. (2015) recently derived scales from the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI; Andershed, Kerr, Stattin, & Levander, 2002) to assess these traits. The initial validation efforts appeare...
Purpose of review:
Definitions of narcissism have traditionally differed across psychiatry and subfields of psychology. This review aims to highlight emerging points of consensus and suggest further directions needed to obtain a more comprehensive and cohesive conceptualization of the construct.
Recent findings:
An emerging consensus is that sta...
Definitions of narcissism have traditionally differed across psychiatry and subfields of psychology. This review aims to highlight emerging points of consensus and suggest further directions needed to obtain a more comprehensive and cohesive conceptualization of the construct.
Objectives:
To understand the role of the community environment on intergenerational continuity in adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among a rural White sample.
Methods:
Parents in 12 counties in rural Iowa reported retrospectively on their own ACEs in 1989. We measured their child's ACEs retrospectively and prospectively across adolescence (...
This chapter reviews research on generational changes in self-esteem and narcissism. First, we clarify terms and distinguish different types of changes associated with generation and age. Second, we describe study designs and methods for the investigation of generational changes. Third, we summarize research on generational changes in self-esteem a...
The commentaries on our target article are insightful and constructive. There were some critical notes, but many commentaries agreed with, or even amplified our message. The first section of our response addresses comments pertaining to specific parts of the target article. The second section provides a response to the commentaries' suggestions to...
Some of the most widely studied polymorphisms in psychiatric genetics include variable number tandem repeat polymorphisms (VNTRs) in SLC6A3, DRD4, SLC6A4, and MAOA. While initial findings suggested large effects, their importance with respect to psychiatric phenotypes is the subject of much debate with broadly conflicting results. Despite broad int...
The Triarchic Model posits that psychopathic personality traits are captured by 3 dimensions—boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Recent findings indicate considerable overlap between the Triarchic constructs and the 6-factor HEXACO (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) model...
Parent–child interactions are likely influenced by the personality characteristics of both the parent and the child. However, questions remain concerning the bidirectional nature of these effects (e.g., does a child’s personality evoke changes in his or her parent’s behavior?). Furthermore, the existing literature is based primarily on European Ame...
Early pubertal timing is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems during adolescence. However, few studies explicitly test whether early puberty is especially problematic for those with pre-existing problems (i.e., accentuation) and little is known about whether the negative correlates of early pubertal timing persist past young adu...
Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6...
Few studies have examined associations between pathological narcissism and self-harm, but those that do indicate that narcissistic vulnerability (not narcissistic grandiosity) relates to self-harm. The current study extends this literature by investigating how facets of pathological narcissism assessed by the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (Pinc...
This article introduces the Lifespan Self-Esteem Scale (LSE), a short measure of global self-esteem suitable for populations drawn from across the lifespan. Many existing measures of global self-esteem cannot be used across multiple developmental periods due to changes in item content, response formats, and other scale characteristics. This creates...
The Name Letter Test (NLT) assesses the degree that participants show a preference for an individual's own initials. The NLT was often thought to measure implicit self-esteem, but recent literature reviews do not equivocally support this hypothesis. Several authors have argued that the NLT is most strongly associated with the state component of sel...
Self-report measures of global well-being are thought to reflect the overall quality of people’s lives. However, several scholars have argued that people rely on heuristics, such as current mood, when reporting their global well-being. Experiential well-being measures, such as the day reconstruction method (DRM), have been proposed as an alternativ...
Gabbiadini, A., Riva, P., Andrighetto, L., Volpato, C., & Bushman, B, (PloS ONE, 2016) provided evidence for a connection between "sexist" video games and decreased empathy toward girls using an experimental paradigm. These claims are based on a moderated mediation model. They reported a three-way interaction between game condition, gender, and ava...
The current study contributes to the ongoing debate about the nature of psychopathic traits by examining the convergence between a measure of the Triarchic model of psychopathy (Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition; Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) and the HEXACO model of personality (e.g., Ashton & Lee, 2007) using a sample of 545 undergraduates...
Many philosophers of science and methodologists have argued that the ability to repeat studies and obtain similar results is an essential component of science. A finding is elevated from single observation to scientific evidence when the procedures that were used to obtain it can be reproduced and the finding itself can be replicated. Recent replic...
Objective:
The validity of self-report psychopathy measures may be undermined by characteristics thought to be defining features of the construct, including poor self-awareness, pathological lying, and impression management. The current study examined agreement between self- and informant perceptions of psychopathic traits captured by the triarchi...
The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory – Short Form (YPI-S; van Baardewijk, 2010) is a convenient measure for assessing psychopathy in settings with constraints on resources. However, the YPI-S does not contain a means of detecting careless or random response styles. The present study describes the development and evaluation of an inconsistent res...
The current study explored parental processes associated with children's global self-esteem development. Eighty 5- to 13-year-olds and one of their parents provided qualitative and quantitative data through questionnaires, open-ended questions, and a laboratory-based reminiscing task. Parents who included more explanations of emotions when writing...
Two studies (N = 649) examined the association between self-alienation (SA; i.e., feelings of detachment from one’s true self) and academic amotivation (AA; i.e., lack of motivation in the academic domain). Based on classical and contemporary theories, a strong link between alienation and amotivation was predicted. A cross-sectional correlation stu...