Wrecked by Success? Not to Worry.

We examined the wrecked-by-success hypothesis. Initially formalized by Sigmund Freud, this hypothesis has become pervasive throughout the humanities, popular press, and modern scientific literature. The hypothesis implies that truly outstanding occupational success often exacts a heavy toll on psychological, interpersonal, and physical well-being. Study 1 tested this hypothesis in three cohorts of 1,826 high-potential, intellectually gifted individuals. Participants with exceptionally successful careers were compared with those of their gender-equivalent intellectual peers with more typical careers on well-known measures of psychological well-being, flourishing, core self-evaluations, and medical maladies. Family relationships, comfort with aging, and life satisfaction were also assessed. Across all three cohorts, those deemed occupationally outstanding individuals were similar to or healthier than their intellectual peers across these metrics. Study 2 served as a constructive replication of Study 1 but used a different high-potential sample: 496 elite science/technology/engineering/mathematics (STEM) doctoral students identified in 1992 and longitudinally tracked for 25 years. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1 in all important respects. Both studies found that exceptionally successful careers were not associated with medical frailty, psychological maladjustment, and compromised interpersonal and family relationships; if anything, overall, people with exceptionally successful careers were medically and psychologically better off.

Who shines most among the brightest?: A 25-year longitudinal study of elite STEM graduate students.

In 1992, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) surveyed 714 first- and second-year graduate students (48.5% female) attending U.S. universities ranked in the top-15 by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field. This study investigated whether individual differences assessed early in their graduate school career were associated with becoming a STEM leader 25 years later (e.g., STEM full professors at research-intensive universities, STEM CEOs, and STEM leaders in government) versus not becoming a STEM leader. We also studied whether there were any important gender differences in relation to STEM leadership. For both men and women, small to medium effect size differences in interests, values, and personality distinguished STEM leaders from nonleaders. Lifestyle and work preferences also distinguished STEM leaders who were more exclusively career-focused and preferred to work-and did work-more hours than nonleaders. Also, there were small to large gender differences in abilities, interests, and lifestyle preferences. Men had more intense interests in STEM and were more career-focused. Women had more diverse educational and occupational interests, and they were more interested in activities outside of work. Early in graduate school, therefore, there are signs that predict who will become a STEM leader-even among elite STEM graduate students. Given the many ways in which STEM leadership can be achieved, the gender differences uncovered within this high-potential sample suggest that men and women are likely to assign different priorities to these opportunities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Participation in Organized Activities Protects Against Adolescents' Risky Substance Use, Even Beyond Development in Conscientiousness.

Adolescents are at a significant risk for binge drinking and illicit drug use. One way to protect against these behaviors is through participation in extracurricular activities. However, there is a debate about whether highly conscientious adolescents are more likely to participate in activities, which raises the concern of a confound. To disentangle these relationships, we tested the latent trajectories of substance use and personality across 3 years, with participation in activities and sports as time-varying predictors. We surveyed 687 adolescents (55 % female, 85.4 % Caucasian) in Western Australia schools across 3 years. At Time 1, the students were in Year 10 1 (mean age 15 years). The results showed that participation in activities and conscientiousness are related, but each uniquely predicts slower growth in substance use. Across waves, participation in activities predicted less risky substance use a year later, over and above conscientiousness development. These results suggest that there may be unique benefits of participation in activities that protect against risky substance use.

Are traits useful? Explaining trait manifestations as tools in the pursuit of goals.

Traits and motivation mainly have been treated separately for almost a century. The purpose of these studies is to test the proposal that traits and motivation are intricately linked. Specifically, that 1 explanation for traits, at least in terms of their descriptiveness of what people actually do, is the goals people pursue. Study 1 used experience-sampling methodology to show that almost half the variance in extraversion and conscientiousness manifestation was explained by goal pursuit differences. Both why people enacted more of extraversion and/or conscientiousness than others, and why people enacted extraversion and/or conscientiousness at any given moment were explained by the goals people were pursuing at those moments. Study 2 used experimental methodology to show that extraversion and conscientiousness enactment was in fact caused by the goal pursuit. Study 3 employed observer ratings to show that the goal-dependent enactments of traits were observer-verified actual behaviors. In all 3 studies, different goals affected different traits discriminatively. Thus, these findings provided strong evidence for 1 explanation of traits, that they are useful for accomplishing goals. These findings provided 1 answer to long-standing questions about the conceptual relations between traits and motivation. And these findings clarified the meaning and nature of extraversion and conscientiousness by revealing part of what these traits are for.

What is extraversion for? Integrating trait and motivational perspectives and identifying the purpose of extraversion.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the manifestation of extraversion (i.e., acting and being extraverted) in everyday behavior can be explained by intentional (functional) constructs, namely, goals. By using a model in which personality states serve as an outcome of specific, momentary goal pursuit, we were able to identify the function of extraversion states in everyday behavior. Using experience-sampling methodology, we asked participants to describe their state extraversion, goal pursuit, and state affect over 10 days. Results show that 18 selected goals predicted 74% of the variance in state extraversion; both within-person and between-person fluctuations in state extraversion were strongly associated with changes in momentary goal pursuit. We extended findings relating state extraversion and state positive affect, showing that the relationship between goals and positive affect was partially mediated by state extraversion.