Volitional Change in Pathological Traits: Can People Change Their Maladaptive Traits?

Research suggests people want to change their normative personality traits-and they can volitionally do so. However, studies have not yet addressed volitional change in pathological personality. Consequently, the current study examined (a) people's desires to change pathological traits, (b) whether these change goals predict subsequent trait change, (c) whether this withstands controlling normative traits, and (d) the extent to which pathological trait change predicts relevant outcomes. College students (N = 463) self-reported their pathological traits weekly for up to 16 weeks. People with elevated pathological traits generally desired to decrease these traits. Furthermore, goals to change negative affectivity and disinhibition predicted corresponding trait change. Thus, people want to reduce their pathological traits-and they may be able to do so for some traits.

Lighten the darkness: Personality interventions targeting agreeableness also reduce participants' levels of the dark triad.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research suggests that people want to change their big five traits-and moreover, they may be able to do so. This paper extends these findings in three ways. First, I examined the extent to which people want to change their levels of the dark triad-Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Second, I tested whether desires to change the dark triad predicted actual changes in the corresponding traits across approximately four months. Finally, participants received an intervention designed to change their big five personality traits. Consequently, I tested whether this intervention could also facilitate changes in the dark triad. METHOD: The present study was a 16-wave, weekly, intensive longitudinal design (N = 467). RESULTS: Results revealed that participants generally did not want to change their levels of the dark triad. Nevertheless, individual variance in desires to change the dark triad did predict actual changes in the dark triad across four months. Moreover, interventions targeting agreeableness spurred changes in all three dark triad traits. CONCLUSIONS: This research suggests that taking small steps to become more agreeable may also reduce individuals' levels of the dark triad. These findings may have implications for future research, as well as therapeutic treatments.

Seeing you reminds me of things that never happened: Attachment anxiety predicts false memories when people can see the communicator.

Previous research suggests that attachment avoidance is robustly linked to memory errors of omission-such as forgetting information or events that have occurred. Moreover, these avoidance-related errors of omission are the strongest for relational stimuli (e.g., avoidant people have trouble remembering relationship-related words, but not neutral ones). Conversely, an emerging body of studies has linked attachment anxiety to memory errors of commission-such as falsely remembering events that never actually happened. The present article describes three studies (Ns = 204, 651, 547) that replicate the correlation between attachment anxiety and false memories. Moreover, the present studies experimentally explored the boundary conditions under which anxiety might predict false memories. Results indicated that attachment anxiety predicts false memories only when participants could see a video of another person conveying information-but not when reading a text transcript of the same information or when listening to the audio only. This is consistent with prior studies which suggest that highly attachment-anxious individuals are hypervigilant to others' emotional expressions and may use them to make incorrect inferences (which potentially become falsely encoded into memory). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Trauma exposure and short-term volitional personality trait change.

OBJECTIVE: Research into post-traumatic growth (PTG) finds individuals report positive changes in their identity, relationships, and worldviews after trauma. In a pre-registered 16-week longitudinal study, we examined trait change after recent trauma exposure to test an operationalization of PTG as positive personality change. We examined the influence of intrapersonal and social factors including motivation to change traits, perceived social support, and event centrality. METHOD: Participants (n = 1004) reported on trauma exposure in past 1-month, centrality of each traumatic event, and social support. Participants with trauma exposure (n = 146) and a matched control group reported on their traits in 8 waves at 2-week intervals, and motivation to change traits in 3 waves. RESULTS: Although some trait change was observed, it was not consistent with PTG. We found agreeableness declined in the trauma relative to the control group among participants who did not want to change in this trait. Conscientiousness declined for individuals with highly central traumas. Social support predicted increases in emotional stability, conscientiousness, and openness but only for individuals in the control group. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss the value of defining PTG as positive trait change and suggest future directions including assessment of facet-level changes and ideographic methods.

The relationship between adult attachment and mental health: A meta-analysis.

Attachment theory provides a framework for understanding the correlations among interpersonal relationships, stress, and health. Moreover, adult attachment is an important predictor of mental health. However, there is a lack of systematic reviews that simultaneously examine the associations between adult attachment and both positive and negative indicators of mental health. Consequently, we meta-analyzed 224 studies examining the associations between adult attachment and mental health, using robust variance estimation with random effects. The results (k = 245 samples, N = 79,722) showed that higher levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance were positively correlated with negative affect (e.g., depression, anxiety, loneliness) and they were negatively correlated with positive affect (e.g., life satisfaction, self-esteem). More specifically, there were moderate associations between attachment avoidance and negative mental health (r = .28) and positive mental health (r = -.24). Likewise, there were moderate associations between attachment anxiety and negative mental health (r = .42) and positive mental health (r = -.29). Furthermore, the association between the attachment dimensions and mental health outcomes was also moderated by several variables (e.g., gender, age). Finally, these associations remained statistically significant even when the attachment dimensions were mutually controlled using meta-analytic structural equation modeling. Overall, attachment anxiety had larger associations with mental health than did attachment avoidance. Thus, the current results support robust links between adult attachment and mental health. This may have implications for future research and mental health treatments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Are we happier with others? An investigation of the links between spending time with others and subjective well-being.

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 empathy). In the present research, we tested (a) how experiential affect varied as a function of which persons were currently present (e.g., romantic partners, friends, and colleagues), as well as (b) how global well-being varied as a function of total daily time invested in these individuals. Replicating previous research, participants reported the highest levels of experiential well-being in the company of their friends, followed by their romantic partners, and then children. Statistically controlling for the activities performed with others, however, suggested that individuals did not necessarily prefer the mere company of their friends per se: people reported similar levels of well-being while in the presence of friends, partners, and children when adjusting estimates for activities. In contrast to the experiential findings, global well-being varied only as a function of total time spent with one's romantic partner. Our findings further support the claim that experiential and global well-being are often separable constructs that may show different patterns of association with relationship experiences (e.g., well-being may operate differently on within- vs. between-persons levels). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Highs and Lows of Love: Romantic Relationship Quality Moderates Whether Spending Time With One's Partner Predicts Gains or Losses in Well-Being.

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 being unpartnered. Second, research suggests global well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) and experiential well-being (e.g., momentary affect) oftentimes have different predictors. Thus, we tested whether individuals report greater experiential well-being while with their partners. Finally, we examined whether daily time invested into one's relationship predicted well-being. Results indicated that being in a romantic relationship, interacting with one's partner, and investing greater time into the relationship all predicted greater well-being. However, these effects were moderated by relationship quality, such that being in even relatively neutral relationships and interacting therein were associated with lower well-being than being unpartnered.

Comparing the Reliability and Validity of Global Self-Report Measures of Subjective Well-Being With Experiential Day Reconstruction Measures.

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 alternative technique to obtain a potentially more accurate assessment of well-being. Across two multimethod, short-term longitudinal studies, we compared the psychometric properties of global self-reports and short-form DRM-based assessments of well-being. We evaluated their stability across one month, tested their convergent validity using self-informant agreement, and evaluated correlations with personality traits. Results indicated that global measures of well-being were more stable than DRM-based experiential measures. Self-informant agreement was also either equal across global and DRM measures or higher for global measures. Correlations with personality were similar across approaches. These findings suggest that DRM and global measures of well-being have similar psychometric properties when used to provide an overall assessment of a person's typical level of subjective well-being.

Healthier and Happier? A 3-Year Longitudinal Investigation of the Prospective Associations and Concurrent Changes in Health and Experiential Well-Being.

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 associations between health and both global and experiential well-being, assessed 4 times across 3 years. Moreover, we used advanced analyses-random-intercept cross-lag models-which address limitations of traditional cross-lag models. Results revealed health and well-being generally did not prospectively predict changes in one another across 1 year. In contrast, year-to-year changes in health were correlated with simultaneous changes in well-being-with effect sizes being largest for global well-being. These findings suggest that health and well-being change together in processes that unfold relatively quickly. Finally, using traditional cross-lag models, numerous potentially illusory prospective associations between health and well-being emerged, underscoring the importance of using appropriate longitudinal statistical models.

You have to follow through: Attaining behavioral change goals predicts volitional personality change.

Prior research has found that people's desires to change their personality traits predict corresponding subsequent trait growth over time. However, few studies have examined the processes through which people can volitionally change their personality traits. Thus, it remains unclear whether merely desiring change predicts trait growth or whether actively pursuing change is necessary. The present study was a 15-week intensive longitudinal design that tested whether engaging in trait-typical behaviors predicted trait change. Participants provided self-report ratings of their personality traits and were able to freely accept and complete weekly "challenges"-prewritten behavioral goals that would pull their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in line with their desired traits. Results indicated that merely accepting behavioral challenges did not predict trait changes. Rather, only actually completing challenges (i.e., performing trait-typical behaviors) predicted trait change over time. Thus, merely wanting to change does not appear to be sufficient to evoke trait growth; successfully changing one's personality traits may require actively and successfully implementing behaviors to change oneself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Does attachment anxiety promote the encoding of false memories? An investigation of the processes linking adult attachment to memory errors.

Previous research has suggested that people's attachment styles influence memory processes. Most of this work has focused on the encoding and retrieval of information about events that actually took place. The purpose of the present research was to determine (a) whether attachment styles also predict memories for events that never occurred (false memories); (b) whether experimentally induced attachment anxiety leads to the generation of false memories for interpersonal experiences; and (c) whether these errors arise during encoding, maintenance, or retrieval processes. Our results indicated that attachment anxiety is associated with people's propensities to experience false alarms on recognition tasks for relational stimuli. Moreover, experimentally altering participants' state levels of attachment anxiety led to more numerous false alarms, as compared with an unprimed control group. These findings are consistent with the idea that attachment-related anxiety might selectively bias and desensitize the encoding of interpersonal events, ultimately leading people to remember events that did not occur. However, experimentally priming anxiety did not lead to more false alarms relative to groups primed with security, raising the possibility that the anxiety-false memory association could be because of making relational issues salient rather than increasing attachment anxiety per se. (PsycINFO Database Record

Religion, repulsion, and reaction formation: Transforming repellent attractions and repulsions.

Protestants were more likely than non-Protestants to demonstrate phenomena consistent with the use of reaction formation. Lab experiments showed that when manipulations were designed to produce taboo attractions (to unconventional sexual practices), Protestants instead showed greater repulsion. When implicitly conditioned to produce taboo repulsions (to African Americans), Protestants instead showed greater attraction. Supportive evidence from other studies came from clinicians' judgments, defense mechanism inventories, and a survey of respondent attitudes. Other work showed that Protestants who diminished and displaced threatening affect were more likely to sublimate this affect into creative activities; the present work showed that Protestants who do not or cannot diminish or displace such threatening affect instead reverse it. Traditional individual difference variables showed little ability to predict reaction formation, suggesting that the observed processes go beyond what we normally study when we talk about self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record

Day-to-day affect is surprisingly stable: A two-year longitudinal study of well-being.

Previous research suggests global assessments of cognitive well-being-life satisfaction-are relatively stable over time. Far fewer studies have examined the extent to which experiential measures of affective well-being-the moods/emotions people regularly experience-are stable, especially over extended periods of time. The present study used longitudinal data from a representative sample of Germans to investigate the long-term stability of different components of well-being. Participants provided global ratings of life satisfaction and affect, along with experiential measures of well-being up to three times over two years. Results indicated between one third and one half of the variance in people's daily affect was attributable to trait-like latent variables. Replicating meta-analytic findings, 50% of the variance in global measures of well-being was attributable to trait-like latent variables.

Getting older, feeling less? A cross-sectional and longitudinal investigation of developmental patterns in experiential well-being.

A large body of previous research suggests that people's global evaluations of their well-being tend to increase as a function of age. Fewer studies, however, have examined the extent to which people's in vivo experiences of well-being (e.g., felt emotions) vary as a function of age-and the existing findings are mixed. The present study used an approximately nationally representative sample of more than 2,500 Germans to evaluate developmental patterns in both experiential and global well-being using cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings converged on the idea that affect-whether positive or negative, global or experiential-decreases as a function of age and time. In contrast, life satisfaction appears to remain consistent, or perhaps decline across midlife before rebounding in old age. These findings suggest that affective well-being may develop in a nuanced way across adulthood: Negative affect appears to ebb with age-but so does positive affect. (PsycINFO Database Record

Changing for the Better? Longitudinal Associations Between Volitional Personality Change and Psychological Well-Being.

Recent research has found that a vast majority of people want to change their personality traits--and they may be able to find some degree of success in doing so. However, desires for self-change have been theoretically and empirically linked to reduced well-being. The present study utilized a longitudinal design to better understand the associations between people's desires and attempts to change their personality traits and their psychological well-being. Results indicated that possessing change goals did not necessarily predict growing deficits in well-being over time. In contrast, people who were able to change their personality traits in ways that aligned with their desires tended to experience increases in well-being over time. These findings are consistent with theory that dissatisfaction can precipitate change goals, and successful change can ameliorate dissatisfaction.

Income reliably predicts daily sadness, but not happiness: A replication and extension of Kushlev, Dunn, & Lucas (2015).

Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadness-but not greater happiness-among Americans. The present study used longitudinal data from an approximately representative German sample to replicate and extend these findings. Our results largely replicated Kushlev and colleagues': income predicted less daily sadness (albeit with a smaller effect size), but was unrelated to happiness. Moreover, the association between income and sadness could not be explained by demographics, stress, or daily time-use. Extending Kushlev and colleagues' findings, new analyses indicated that only between-persons variance in income (but not within-persons variance) predicted daily sadness-perhaps because there was relatively little within-persons variance in income. Finally, income predicted less daily sadness and worry, but not less anger or frustration-potentially suggesting that income predicts less "internalizing" but not less "externalizing" negative emotions. Together, our study and Kushlev and colleagues' provide evidence that income robustly predicts select daily negative emotions-but not positive ones.

Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits?

Previous research has found that most people want to change their personality traits. But can people actually change their personalities just because they want to? To answer this question, we conducted 2, 16-week intensive longitudinal randomized experiments. Across both studies, people who expressed goals to increase with respect to any Big Five personality trait at Time 1 tended to experience actual increases in their self-reports of that trait-as well as trait-relevant daily behavior-over the subsequent 16 weeks. Furthermore, we tested 2 randomized interventions designed to help participants attain desired trait changes. Although 1 of the interventions was inefficacious, a second intervention that trained participants to generate implementation intentions catalyzed their ability to attain trait changes. We also tested several theoretical processes through which volitional changes might occur. These studies suggest that people may be able to change their self-reported personality traits through volitional means, and represent a first step toward understanding the processes that enable people to do so.

Are adult attachment styles categorical or dimensional? A taxometric analysis of general and relationship-specific attachment orientations.

One of the long-standing debates in the study of adult attachment is whether individual differences are best captured using categorical or continuous models. Although early research suggested that continuous models might be most appropriate, we revisit this issue here because (a) categorical models continue to be widely used in the empirical literature, (b) contemporary models of individual differences raise new questions about the structure of attachment, and (c) methods for addressing the types versus dimensions question have become more sophisticated over time. Analyses based on 2 samples indicate that individual differences appear more consistent with a dimensional rather than a categorical model. This was true with respect to general attachment representations and attachment in specific relationship contexts (e.g., attachment with parents and peers). These findings indicate that dimensional models of attachment style may be better suited for conceptualizing and measuring individual differences across multiple levels of analysis.

Coregulation in Romantic Partners' Attachment Styles: A Longitudinal Investigation.

The goal of the present research was to examine the coregulation of partner-specific attachment security in romantic relationships. We studied a sample of 172 couples 5 times over 1 year. At each assessment wave, partners independently completed a self-report measure of their security in the relationship. We operationalized attachment coregulation both as direct impacts (i.e., prospective effects of one partner on the other) and coordination (i.e., correlated changes across time). Results indicated that, after taking into account people's prototypical levels of security, changes in security were coordinated within couples.

Personality Trait Development and Social Investment in Work.

A longitudinal study of employed individuals was used to test the relationship between social investment at work-the act of cognitively and emotionally committing to one's job-and longitudinal and cross-sectional personality trait development. Participants provided ratings of personality traits and social investment at work at two time-points, separated by approximately three years. Data were analyzed using latent change models. Cross-sectional results showed that extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability were related to social investment at work. Additionally, a positive association was found between longitudinal change in social investment in work and change in personality traits-especially conscientiousness. Finally, the correlated changes in social investment and personality traits were invariant across age groups, suggesting that personality traits remain malleable across the lifespan.