Studying Socioeconomic Status: Conceptual Problems and an Alternative Path Forward.

Socioeconomic status (SES; or social class) is considered an important determinant of psychological and life outcomes. Despite this importance, how to appropriately conceive of and measure it remains unsettled. In this article, I argue that SES is, under conventional conceptions of the construct, an unmeasurable construct and present an alternative strategy for studying socioeconomic conditions. I make this argument using several lines of analysis. First, a literature review of 20 years of psychological research on SES reveals that psychologists rarely define SES theoretically (79.6% of articles did not) but call a great number of operationalizations measures of SES (147 in total). Second, current recommendations for studying SES permit contradictory predictions, rendering the recommendations unsatisfactory. Third, the appropriate measurement model for SES inhibits accumulation of results across studies, which makes studying the construct practically impossible. To rectify these issues, I reconceptualize SES as a set of socioeconomic conditions and develop a measurement strategy for studying these conditions. I conclude by considering implications for ongoing research on socioeconomic conditions and for interpreting past research on SES.

The effects of socioeconomic status on personality development in adulthood and aging.

INTRO: The current study examined the effects of adulthood socioeconomic status (SES) on levels of and changes in the Big Five personality traits domains and nuances in adulthood and during aging. We also tested whether the relations between adulthood SES and personality traits differed by childhood SES and age. METHODS: Data were drawn from three longitudinal studies: the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA, N = 2000), the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS, N = 6428), and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS, N = 23,238). RESULTS: Using the latent growth models, across samples, we found associations between high SES and low levels of neuroticism and high levels of extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness. The effects of SES on changes in personality traits were mainly observed in the aging sample of HRS. In general, a similar pattern was observed at the nuance level. Analyses of the moderating effects of age suggested some evidence for the increasingly important role of SES in levels of and changes in personality traits in older ages. CONCLUSION: The findings support SES as a source that partially accounts for individual differences in personality traits level. Some evidence was found for the relations between SES and changes in personality traits in old age.

Who has different-race friends, and does it depend on context? Openness (to other), but not agreeableness, predicts lower racial homophily in friendship networks.

People form relationships with people from their own racial groups, a phenomenon called racial homophily, which reduces interracial contact and exacerbates inequality and prejudice. Although viewed as arising from environmental factors, we argue that racial homophily also involves individual choice and, thus, personality factors. We address three major issues. First, are interpersonal concerns (Agreeableness) and intergroup concerns (Openness) differentially relevant to cross-race friendships? Second, are current conceptions of Openness sufficient, or do we need lower-level facets more attuned to intergroup concerns? Third, can we specify the interplay between personality and contextual factors in different settings? Across four studies (total N = 1,820), Agreeableness failed to predict more cross-race friendships, in both self- and peer reports, suggesting that interpersonal kindness was not sufficient to overcome racial homophily. In contrast, Openness and Openness to Other (O2, a new social facet of Openness) consistently predicted cross-race friendship. However, the O2 facet had the stronger and only unique effect, suggesting it is the "active ingredient." High-O2 individuals had an almost equal 1:1 ratio of same-to-different-race network members, whereas low-O2 individuals had 4:1 same-race. These results held for both college students and middle-aged adults, both friends and new acquaintances in the network, and both networks established before and at a diverse university. Finally, when moving to a more diverse environment, high-O2 individuals seemed to take advantage of the new environmental affordances, adding more different-race members to their networks. Overall, these studies advance understanding of person-environment transactions, showing how personality traits matter to the structure of people's social networks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Empirical audit and review and an assessment of evidentiary value in research on the psychological consequences of scarcity.

Empirical audit and review is an approach to assessing the evidentiary value of a research area. It involves identifying a topic and selecting a cross-section of studies for replication. We apply the method to research on the psychological consequences of scarcity. Starting with the papers citing a seminal publication in the field, we conducted replications of 20 studies that evaluate the role of scarcity priming in pain sensitivity, resource allocation, materialism, and many other domains. There was considerable variability in the replicability, with some strong successes and other undeniable failures. Empirical audit and review does not attempt to assign an overall replication rate for a heterogeneous field, but rather facilitates researchers seeking to incorporate strength of evidence as they refine theories and plan new investigations in the research area. This method allows for an integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches to review and enables the growth of a cumulative science.

Why Has Personality Psychology Played an Outsized Role in the Credibility Revolution?

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 for other fields to emulate (or, for those who share Baumeister's (2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.02.003) skeptical view of the consequences of increasing rigor, a model for what to avoid). In this article we discuss some unique features of our field that may have placed us in an ideal position to be leaders in this movement. We do so from a subjective perspective, describing our impressions and opinions about possible explanations for personality psychology's disproportionate role in the credibility revolution. We also discuss some ways in which personality psychology remains less-than-optimal, and how we can address these flaws.