#personalitytraits — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #personalitytraits, aggregated by home.social.
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Psychologists say there are 4 types of introverts. These are the personality traits of each one.
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Psychologists say there are 4 types of introverts. These are the personality traits of each one.
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Psychologists say there are 4 types of introverts. These are the personality traits of each one.
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Psychologists say there are 4 types of introverts. These are the personality traits of each one.
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DATE: July 9, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Study Challenges Major Assumption About Why We Bond With Our Friends
Source: PsyPost
A new study suggests that friends tend to have slightly similar personalities, but simply being alike does not do a good job of predicting friendship satisfaction. For that, what matters more is whether friends possess generally positive traits. The findings, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggest that how people perceive the quality of their friends' personalities is more important than strict personality...
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #StudyChallenges #FriendshipResearch #SocialPsychology #PersonalityTraits #FriendshipSatisfaction #PositiveTraits #InterpersonalRelationships #PsychPost #SocialPsychologyScience #ResearchInsights
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DATE: July 9, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Study Challenges Major Assumption About Why We Bond With Our Friends
Source: PsyPost
A new study suggests that friends tend to have slightly similar personalities, but simply being alike does not do a good job of predicting friendship satisfaction. For that, what matters more is whether friends possess generally positive traits. The findings, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggest that how people perceive the quality of their friends' personalities is more important than strict personality...
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #StudyChallenges #FriendshipResearch #SocialPsychology #PersonalityTraits #FriendshipSatisfaction #PositiveTraits #InterpersonalRelationships #PsychPost #SocialPsychologyScience #ResearchInsights
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DATE: July 9, 2026 at 03:46AM
SOURCE: SOCIALPSYCHOLOGY.ORGTITLE: Study Challenges Major Assumption About Why We Bond With Our Friends
Source: PsyPost
A new study suggests that friends tend to have slightly similar personalities, but simply being alike does not do a good job of predicting friendship satisfaction. For that, what matters more is whether friends possess generally positive traits. The findings, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggest that how people perceive the quality of their friends' personalities is more important than strict personality...
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #StudyChallenges #FriendshipResearch #SocialPsychology #PersonalityTraits #FriendshipSatisfaction #PositiveTraits #InterpersonalRelationships #PsychPost #SocialPsychologyScience #ResearchInsights
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DATE: July 6, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People hide psychopathy but highlight narcissism when trying to look good
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
New research published in the journal Collabra: Psychology provides evidence that people with certain antisocial personality traits alter their responses in specific ways when trying to make a good impression. The study suggests that while some individuals hide their toxic traits during a simulated job application, those with strong narcissistic tendencies actually highlight them. These findings offer a better understanding of how deception operates in personality testing and how different dark traits respond to social pressure.
The research team, consisting of Bojana M. Dinić from the University of Novi Sad and Irena Boskovic from Erasmus University Rotterdam, wanted to explore how dark personality traits interact with deceptive test-taking. The Dark Tetrad refers to four socially aversive personality traits that share a core of callousness and manipulative interpersonal behavior.
The first is Machiavellianism, which describes a strategic, calculated, and cynical approach to manipulating other people for personal gain. The second is narcissism, particularly in its grandiose form, which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, entitlement, and a constant need for external validation.
The third trait in this group is psychopathy, which involves a profound lack of empathy, a deficit in feelings of remorse or guilt, and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. The final trait is sadism, defined as deriving pleasure and enjoyment from the physical or psychological suffering of others.
People who score high in these traits tend to engage in deceptive behaviors, including lying to achieve their goals. The researchers initiated this project to see how people with these traits alter their survey responses when specifically instructed to present themselves in the best possible light.
In psychological assessment, presenting oneself in an overly positive manner is known as faking good. This behavior often takes the form of impression management, where a person intentionally distorts their self-description to appear more competent or moral than they actually are. People can manage their impressions in two main ways, often referred to as agency and communion. Agentic management focuses on getting ahead in life, leading a person to exaggerate their social status, intellectual abilities, and overall competence to seem highly capable.
Communal management, by contrast, focuses on getting along with others. A person using this strategy might exaggerate their cooperativeness and helpfulness while firmly denying any socially unacceptable impulses or flaws. Another specific form of faking good is called supernormality. This occurs when an individual systematically denies experiencing even the most common everyday health complaints, such as mild headaches, to appear perfectly healthy and well-adjusted.
Both impression management and supernormality are common in high-stakes situations like job interviews and forensic evaluations. To test these dynamics, the researchers recruited 104 community participants from Serbia. The sample consisted of 87 women and 17 men, with an average age of about 27 years. Most participants were either university students or actively employed.
The study used a within-subject design, meaning that every participant completed the same set of questionnaires twice under different conditions. During one condition, the participants were instructed to answer the questions honestly. In the other condition, they were asked to imagine they were taking a job selection test and needed to make the best possible impression. The order of these conditions was randomized, so about half of the participants answered honestly first, while the other half started with the fake good instructions.
The scientists measured the participants using three specific psychological tools, including hidden attention checks to ensure participants were reading the questions attentively. They used the Short Dark Tetrad questionnaire, which contains 28 statements, to assess levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. To measure impression management, they used the Bidimensional Impression Management Index. This tool evaluates both the tendency to exaggerate social status and the tendency to deny socially unacceptable impulses.
Finally, they used the Supernormality Scale, which consists of true or false statements to measure how often participants denied common everyday health symptoms. The data provides evidence that participants significantly altered their responses based on the instructions. When instructed to fake good, participants showed decreased scores for psychopathy and sadism compared to their honest answers. This suggests that people recognize the socially undesirable nature of callousness and cruelty, prompting them to hide these traits when trying to secure a job.
However, the narcissism scores actually increased under the fake good condition. This indicates that people often perceive narcissistic qualities, such as high self-confidence and assertiveness, as desirable traits in a professional setting. Because grandiosity shares some overlap with adaptive leadership qualities, participants may have actively highlighted their narcissistic tendencies to appear like ideal job applicants.
Machiavellianism scores remained stable across both the honest and the fake good conditions. The authors suggest this stability might occur because modern measures of Machiavellianism focus heavily on strategic planning and emotional control rather than overt aggression. Participants may have felt that these calculating traits did not need to be hidden, or they might have already been masking their true nature even during the honest condition.
When analyzing the shift between honest and fake good scores, the authors found an unexpected pattern regarding Machiavellianism. Higher scores in honest Machiavellianism actually predicted a lower increase in communal management under the fake good condition. The authors suggest that highly Machiavellian individuals might be keenly aware of the challenges of faking good. Because they want to maintain a realistic and credible image, they might avoid exaggerating their interpersonal warmth to the point that it looks suspicious.
The researchers also looked at how the dark traits related to the specific types of faking good. Under honest reporting conditions, individuals with higher levels of narcissism and Machiavellianism tended to engage in agentic management, meaning they naturally exaggerated their competence and social status. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism showed very low communal management, meaning they did not bother to exaggerate their cooperative or moral qualities.
Interestingly, none of the Dark Tetrad traits were significantly associated with supernormality. This suggests that individuals with dark personality traits are more likely to deceive others regarding their social status and adherence to social norms, rather than faking perfect physical or mental health. The scientists also evaluated the Serbian version of the Supernormality Scale during this process. They noted that a slightly higher cutoff score might be necessary to accurately identify health-related deception in this specific population.
While the research offers a detailed look at personality and deception, a few limitations should be noted to avoid misinterpretations. The study relied on a simulated job application rather than a real scenario. People might behave differently when a real job or legal outcome is actually on the line. Additionally, the sample was relatively small, geographically limited to Serbia, and heavily composed of young women.
Cultural norms dictate which traits are considered socially desirable, so these patterns might look different in other countries or across different age groups. One of the subscales measuring social desirability also showed slightly lower statistical reliability, meaning those specific results should be viewed with some caution. Future research could explore these dynamics in larger, more diverse samples to see if the findings hold true across different cultures.
The authors suggest that subsequent studies should also include specific populations that might be more prone to dark traits and deceptive behavior, such as violent offenders. Testing these measures in true high-stakes environments could provide even more information about how people manipulate their self-presentation in the real world.
The study, “Fake Good in the Dark Tetrad: Score Changes and Relationships With Impression Management and Supernormality,” was authored by Bojana M. Dinić and Irena Boskovic.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #Narcissism #ImpressionManagement #FakeGood #Machiavellianism #Psychopathy #Supernormality #DeceptiveTesting #JobInterviewBehavior #PersonalityTraits
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DATE: July 6, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People hide psychopathy but highlight narcissism when trying to look good
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
New research published in the journal Collabra: Psychology provides evidence that people with certain antisocial personality traits alter their responses in specific ways when trying to make a good impression. The study suggests that while some individuals hide their toxic traits during a simulated job application, those with strong narcissistic tendencies actually highlight them. These findings offer a better understanding of how deception operates in personality testing and how different dark traits respond to social pressure.
The research team, consisting of Bojana M. Dinić from the University of Novi Sad and Irena Boskovic from Erasmus University Rotterdam, wanted to explore how dark personality traits interact with deceptive test-taking. The Dark Tetrad refers to four socially aversive personality traits that share a core of callousness and manipulative interpersonal behavior.
The first is Machiavellianism, which describes a strategic, calculated, and cynical approach to manipulating other people for personal gain. The second is narcissism, particularly in its grandiose form, which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, entitlement, and a constant need for external validation.
The third trait in this group is psychopathy, which involves a profound lack of empathy, a deficit in feelings of remorse or guilt, and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. The final trait is sadism, defined as deriving pleasure and enjoyment from the physical or psychological suffering of others.
People who score high in these traits tend to engage in deceptive behaviors, including lying to achieve their goals. The researchers initiated this project to see how people with these traits alter their survey responses when specifically instructed to present themselves in the best possible light.
In psychological assessment, presenting oneself in an overly positive manner is known as faking good. This behavior often takes the form of impression management, where a person intentionally distorts their self-description to appear more competent or moral than they actually are. People can manage their impressions in two main ways, often referred to as agency and communion. Agentic management focuses on getting ahead in life, leading a person to exaggerate their social status, intellectual abilities, and overall competence to seem highly capable.
Communal management, by contrast, focuses on getting along with others. A person using this strategy might exaggerate their cooperativeness and helpfulness while firmly denying any socially unacceptable impulses or flaws. Another specific form of faking good is called supernormality. This occurs when an individual systematically denies experiencing even the most common everyday health complaints, such as mild headaches, to appear perfectly healthy and well-adjusted.
Both impression management and supernormality are common in high-stakes situations like job interviews and forensic evaluations. To test these dynamics, the researchers recruited 104 community participants from Serbia. The sample consisted of 87 women and 17 men, with an average age of about 27 years. Most participants were either university students or actively employed.
The study used a within-subject design, meaning that every participant completed the same set of questionnaires twice under different conditions. During one condition, the participants were instructed to answer the questions honestly. In the other condition, they were asked to imagine they were taking a job selection test and needed to make the best possible impression. The order of these conditions was randomized, so about half of the participants answered honestly first, while the other half started with the fake good instructions.
The scientists measured the participants using three specific psychological tools, including hidden attention checks to ensure participants were reading the questions attentively. They used the Short Dark Tetrad questionnaire, which contains 28 statements, to assess levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. To measure impression management, they used the Bidimensional Impression Management Index. This tool evaluates both the tendency to exaggerate social status and the tendency to deny socially unacceptable impulses.
Finally, they used the Supernormality Scale, which consists of true or false statements to measure how often participants denied common everyday health symptoms. The data provides evidence that participants significantly altered their responses based on the instructions. When instructed to fake good, participants showed decreased scores for psychopathy and sadism compared to their honest answers. This suggests that people recognize the socially undesirable nature of callousness and cruelty, prompting them to hide these traits when trying to secure a job.
However, the narcissism scores actually increased under the fake good condition. This indicates that people often perceive narcissistic qualities, such as high self-confidence and assertiveness, as desirable traits in a professional setting. Because grandiosity shares some overlap with adaptive leadership qualities, participants may have actively highlighted their narcissistic tendencies to appear like ideal job applicants.
Machiavellianism scores remained stable across both the honest and the fake good conditions. The authors suggest this stability might occur because modern measures of Machiavellianism focus heavily on strategic planning and emotional control rather than overt aggression. Participants may have felt that these calculating traits did not need to be hidden, or they might have already been masking their true nature even during the honest condition.
When analyzing the shift between honest and fake good scores, the authors found an unexpected pattern regarding Machiavellianism. Higher scores in honest Machiavellianism actually predicted a lower increase in communal management under the fake good condition. The authors suggest that highly Machiavellian individuals might be keenly aware of the challenges of faking good. Because they want to maintain a realistic and credible image, they might avoid exaggerating their interpersonal warmth to the point that it looks suspicious.
The researchers also looked at how the dark traits related to the specific types of faking good. Under honest reporting conditions, individuals with higher levels of narcissism and Machiavellianism tended to engage in agentic management, meaning they naturally exaggerated their competence and social status. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism showed very low communal management, meaning they did not bother to exaggerate their cooperative or moral qualities.
Interestingly, none of the Dark Tetrad traits were significantly associated with supernormality. This suggests that individuals with dark personality traits are more likely to deceive others regarding their social status and adherence to social norms, rather than faking perfect physical or mental health. The scientists also evaluated the Serbian version of the Supernormality Scale during this process. They noted that a slightly higher cutoff score might be necessary to accurately identify health-related deception in this specific population.
While the research offers a detailed look at personality and deception, a few limitations should be noted to avoid misinterpretations. The study relied on a simulated job application rather than a real scenario. People might behave differently when a real job or legal outcome is actually on the line. Additionally, the sample was relatively small, geographically limited to Serbia, and heavily composed of young women.
Cultural norms dictate which traits are considered socially desirable, so these patterns might look different in other countries or across different age groups. One of the subscales measuring social desirability also showed slightly lower statistical reliability, meaning those specific results should be viewed with some caution. Future research could explore these dynamics in larger, more diverse samples to see if the findings hold true across different cultures.
The authors suggest that subsequent studies should also include specific populations that might be more prone to dark traits and deceptive behavior, such as violent offenders. Testing these measures in true high-stakes environments could provide even more information about how people manipulate their self-presentation in the real world.
The study, “Fake Good in the Dark Tetrad: Score Changes and Relationships With Impression Management and Supernormality,” was authored by Bojana M. Dinić and Irena Boskovic.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #Narcissism #ImpressionManagement #FakeGood #Machiavellianism #Psychopathy #Supernormality #DeceptiveTesting #JobInterviewBehavior #PersonalityTraits
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DATE: July 6, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People hide psychopathy but highlight narcissism when trying to look good
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
New research published in the journal Collabra: Psychology provides evidence that people with certain antisocial personality traits alter their responses in specific ways when trying to make a good impression. The study suggests that while some individuals hide their toxic traits during a simulated job application, those with strong narcissistic tendencies actually highlight them. These findings offer a better understanding of how deception operates in personality testing and how different dark traits respond to social pressure.
The research team, consisting of Bojana M. Dinić from the University of Novi Sad and Irena Boskovic from Erasmus University Rotterdam, wanted to explore how dark personality traits interact with deceptive test-taking. The Dark Tetrad refers to four socially aversive personality traits that share a core of callousness and manipulative interpersonal behavior.
The first is Machiavellianism, which describes a strategic, calculated, and cynical approach to manipulating other people for personal gain. The second is narcissism, particularly in its grandiose form, which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, entitlement, and a constant need for external validation.
The third trait in this group is psychopathy, which involves a profound lack of empathy, a deficit in feelings of remorse or guilt, and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. The final trait is sadism, defined as deriving pleasure and enjoyment from the physical or psychological suffering of others.
People who score high in these traits tend to engage in deceptive behaviors, including lying to achieve their goals. The researchers initiated this project to see how people with these traits alter their survey responses when specifically instructed to present themselves in the best possible light.
In psychological assessment, presenting oneself in an overly positive manner is known as faking good. This behavior often takes the form of impression management, where a person intentionally distorts their self-description to appear more competent or moral than they actually are. People can manage their impressions in two main ways, often referred to as agency and communion. Agentic management focuses on getting ahead in life, leading a person to exaggerate their social status, intellectual abilities, and overall competence to seem highly capable.
Communal management, by contrast, focuses on getting along with others. A person using this strategy might exaggerate their cooperativeness and helpfulness while firmly denying any socially unacceptable impulses or flaws. Another specific form of faking good is called supernormality. This occurs when an individual systematically denies experiencing even the most common everyday health complaints, such as mild headaches, to appear perfectly healthy and well-adjusted.
Both impression management and supernormality are common in high-stakes situations like job interviews and forensic evaluations. To test these dynamics, the researchers recruited 104 community participants from Serbia. The sample consisted of 87 women and 17 men, with an average age of about 27 years. Most participants were either university students or actively employed.
The study used a within-subject design, meaning that every participant completed the same set of questionnaires twice under different conditions. During one condition, the participants were instructed to answer the questions honestly. In the other condition, they were asked to imagine they were taking a job selection test and needed to make the best possible impression. The order of these conditions was randomized, so about half of the participants answered honestly first, while the other half started with the fake good instructions.
The scientists measured the participants using three specific psychological tools, including hidden attention checks to ensure participants were reading the questions attentively. They used the Short Dark Tetrad questionnaire, which contains 28 statements, to assess levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. To measure impression management, they used the Bidimensional Impression Management Index. This tool evaluates both the tendency to exaggerate social status and the tendency to deny socially unacceptable impulses.
Finally, they used the Supernormality Scale, which consists of true or false statements to measure how often participants denied common everyday health symptoms. The data provides evidence that participants significantly altered their responses based on the instructions. When instructed to fake good, participants showed decreased scores for psychopathy and sadism compared to their honest answers. This suggests that people recognize the socially undesirable nature of callousness and cruelty, prompting them to hide these traits when trying to secure a job.
However, the narcissism scores actually increased under the fake good condition. This indicates that people often perceive narcissistic qualities, such as high self-confidence and assertiveness, as desirable traits in a professional setting. Because grandiosity shares some overlap with adaptive leadership qualities, participants may have actively highlighted their narcissistic tendencies to appear like ideal job applicants.
Machiavellianism scores remained stable across both the honest and the fake good conditions. The authors suggest this stability might occur because modern measures of Machiavellianism focus heavily on strategic planning and emotional control rather than overt aggression. Participants may have felt that these calculating traits did not need to be hidden, or they might have already been masking their true nature even during the honest condition.
When analyzing the shift between honest and fake good scores, the authors found an unexpected pattern regarding Machiavellianism. Higher scores in honest Machiavellianism actually predicted a lower increase in communal management under the fake good condition. The authors suggest that highly Machiavellian individuals might be keenly aware of the challenges of faking good. Because they want to maintain a realistic and credible image, they might avoid exaggerating their interpersonal warmth to the point that it looks suspicious.
The researchers also looked at how the dark traits related to the specific types of faking good. Under honest reporting conditions, individuals with higher levels of narcissism and Machiavellianism tended to engage in agentic management, meaning they naturally exaggerated their competence and social status. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism showed very low communal management, meaning they did not bother to exaggerate their cooperative or moral qualities.
Interestingly, none of the Dark Tetrad traits were significantly associated with supernormality. This suggests that individuals with dark personality traits are more likely to deceive others regarding their social status and adherence to social norms, rather than faking perfect physical or mental health. The scientists also evaluated the Serbian version of the Supernormality Scale during this process. They noted that a slightly higher cutoff score might be necessary to accurately identify health-related deception in this specific population.
While the research offers a detailed look at personality and deception, a few limitations should be noted to avoid misinterpretations. The study relied on a simulated job application rather than a real scenario. People might behave differently when a real job or legal outcome is actually on the line. Additionally, the sample was relatively small, geographically limited to Serbia, and heavily composed of young women.
Cultural norms dictate which traits are considered socially desirable, so these patterns might look different in other countries or across different age groups. One of the subscales measuring social desirability also showed slightly lower statistical reliability, meaning those specific results should be viewed with some caution. Future research could explore these dynamics in larger, more diverse samples to see if the findings hold true across different cultures.
The authors suggest that subsequent studies should also include specific populations that might be more prone to dark traits and deceptive behavior, such as violent offenders. Testing these measures in true high-stakes environments could provide even more information about how people manipulate their self-presentation in the real world.
The study, “Fake Good in the Dark Tetrad: Score Changes and Relationships With Impression Management and Supernormality,” was authored by Bojana M. Dinić and Irena Boskovic.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/people-hide-psychopathy-but-highlight-narcissism-when-trying-to-look-good/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #Narcissism #ImpressionManagement #FakeGood #Machiavellianism #Psychopathy #Supernormality #DeceptiveTesting #JobInterviewBehavior #PersonalityTraits
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DATE: July 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: When do humans reach their psychological peak? A new study points to late midlife
Human cognitive and personality functioning reaches its overall peak in late midlife, aligning with the ages people typically achieve major career milestones and leadership roles. A new analysis integrates multiple psychological traits to reveal that while raw processing speed declines early in adulthood, other abilities and mature personality traits continue to grow for decades. The study was published in the journal Intelligence.
Physical strength and certain functions of the brain, like processing speed, are known to peak when a person is in their 20s. Elite athletes usually perform at their absolute best before age 35. Yet in modern societies, people often reach the peak of their careers, earn their highest wages, and achieve the most occupational prestige between the ages of 50 and 60.
Gilles E. Gignac, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, and Marcin Zajenkowski, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, wanted to understand this discrepancy. They suspected that high-level achievement demands more than just a fast brain. Their research aimed to combine a broad array of psychological traits to estimate the age when humans reach their ultimate functional capacity.
To do this, the researchers reviewed published data across nine distinct categories of mental and emotional functioning. These involved conventional cognitive abilities, the “Big Five” personality traits, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, and moral reasoning. They also gathered data on people’s resistance to cognitive biases, cognitive flexibility, cognitive empathy, and motivation to solve complex problems.
The researchers separated these traits into two general categories. The first category included cognitive abilities, which represent maximum performance. Gignac defines human intelligence in the paper as an individual’s “maximal capacity to achieve a novel goal successfully using perceptual-cognitive processes.” The second category included personality traits, which represent typical performance, or how a person normally thinks and behaves in everyday situations.
Traditional cognitive abilities show diverging patterns as people age. Fluid intelligence, which includes raw reasoning skills and memory span, peaks in early adulthood and falls steadily afterward. Crystallized intelligence, which relies on accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, continues to improve over the adult lifespan and often remains high into a person’s 60s.
Personality traits also change as people mature. Conscientiousness involves being organized, disciplined, and goal-oriented. Emotional stability involves managing stress, staying calm under pressure, and showing resilience. Both of these traits generally increase from early adulthood through middle age, making older adults more reliable and composed than younger adults.
The researchers noted that other applied skills continue moving upward through midlife. Emotional intelligence, which is the ability to read and manage emotions in oneself and others, peaks around the mid-40s. Financial literacy, representing an understanding of complex money concepts, climbs steadily and reaches its highest levels in the late 60s to early 70s.
Moral reasoning capacity also expands in later life. This involves the ability to evaluate ethical dilemmas using principled thinking. Older adults consistently show a greater capacity to handle complex social information and justify decisions based on fairness and justice.
Another trait that improves over time is a person’s resistance to the sunk cost fallacy. This represents an individual’s ability to abandon a failing project despite having already invested time or money into it. Older adults are much better at prioritizing future outcomes over past investments than younger adults.
On the downside, some cognitive functions do decline aside from raw processing speed. Cognitive flexibility, measured by a person’s ability to infer and adapt to changing rules, drops as people age. Cognitive empathy, the ability to read subtle mental states from facial expressions, stays relatively stable through midlife but decreases after age 65.
A trait called “need for cognition” also diminishes in older age. This trait measures a person’s internal drive to seek out severe mental challenges. As people grow older, they often show less motivation to expend intense intellectual effort just for the fun of it.
To compare all these different traits directly, the researchers converted the original study scores into standardized metrics called T-scores. This statistical tool puts different types of tests onto a single, comparable scale. They extracted the necessary numbers from existing large datasets, some of which included large samples of more than 10,000 individuals.
Using these standardized scores, the authors built a Cognitive-Personality Functioning Index. They tested two different versions of this index to see how different assumptions might alter the results.
The first version was a conventional model. It placed 55 percent of the total weight on traditional intelligence tests and 45 percent of the weight on core personality traits. This model showed a modest upward trend through a person’s 20s and 30s, followed by a steeper rise to a peak near age 60. After age 60, scores dropped steadily, with 85-year-olds scoring far below the level of 18-year-olds.
The second version was a comprehensive model. It assigned less weight to raw intelligence and core personality, leaving room to include experience-based skills like emotional intelligence, financial literacy, moral reasoning, and cognitive flexibility. This model showed a steep initial increase from age 18 to 35, followed by a slower rise to a peak between age 55 and 60.
Under the comprehensive model, functioning dropped relatively sharply after age 65. However, older adults at age 85 scored at roughly the same level as young adults at age 18. Both age groups possessed the same overall amount of functional capacity, but their point totals arose from very different strengths and weaknesses.
The study links these findings to practical realities in the workplace and in government. The authors suggest that the period between 55 and 60 represents a high point in psychological readiness for making consequential choices. They proposed that individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65.
This research has specific implications for debates about aging politicians and federal judges. The paper highlights the potential risks of lifetime judicial appointments and the cognitive vulnerabilities of aging heads of state. Once individuals pass age 65, the integrated mixture of cognitive and emotional functioning begins a distinct downward trend.
The researchers noted several boundaries regarding their conclusions. The analysis relied heavily on cross-sectional data. This research technique compares different people of different ages at the same moment in time. This method can sometimes confuse the effects of natural aging with generational differences, unlike longitudinal data that tracks the exact same people over decades.
Additionally, the original datasets were drawn largely from Western, industrialized populations. Age-related changes in personality and cognition can differ across environments. Future investigations might perform similar analyses on non-Western populations to see if the midlife performance peak happens universally.
The study, “Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective,” was authored by Gilles E. Gignac and Marcin Zajenkowski.
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MidlifePeak #CognitiveDevelopment #PersonalityTraits #EmotionalIntelligence #CrystallizedIntelligence #MoralReasoning #FinancialLiteracy #Conscientiousness #SunkCostEffect #AgingAndDecisionMaking
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DATE: July 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: When do humans reach their psychological peak? A new study points to late midlife
Human cognitive and personality functioning reaches its overall peak in late midlife, aligning with the ages people typically achieve major career milestones and leadership roles. A new analysis integrates multiple psychological traits to reveal that while raw processing speed declines early in adulthood, other abilities and mature personality traits continue to grow for decades. The study was published in the journal Intelligence.
Physical strength and certain functions of the brain, like processing speed, are known to peak when a person is in their 20s. Elite athletes usually perform at their absolute best before age 35. Yet in modern societies, people often reach the peak of their careers, earn their highest wages, and achieve the most occupational prestige between the ages of 50 and 60.
Gilles E. Gignac, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, and Marcin Zajenkowski, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, wanted to understand this discrepancy. They suspected that high-level achievement demands more than just a fast brain. Their research aimed to combine a broad array of psychological traits to estimate the age when humans reach their ultimate functional capacity.
To do this, the researchers reviewed published data across nine distinct categories of mental and emotional functioning. These involved conventional cognitive abilities, the “Big Five” personality traits, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, and moral reasoning. They also gathered data on people’s resistance to cognitive biases, cognitive flexibility, cognitive empathy, and motivation to solve complex problems.
The researchers separated these traits into two general categories. The first category included cognitive abilities, which represent maximum performance. Gignac defines human intelligence in the paper as an individual’s “maximal capacity to achieve a novel goal successfully using perceptual-cognitive processes.” The second category included personality traits, which represent typical performance, or how a person normally thinks and behaves in everyday situations.
Traditional cognitive abilities show diverging patterns as people age. Fluid intelligence, which includes raw reasoning skills and memory span, peaks in early adulthood and falls steadily afterward. Crystallized intelligence, which relies on accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, continues to improve over the adult lifespan and often remains high into a person’s 60s.
Personality traits also change as people mature. Conscientiousness involves being organized, disciplined, and goal-oriented. Emotional stability involves managing stress, staying calm under pressure, and showing resilience. Both of these traits generally increase from early adulthood through middle age, making older adults more reliable and composed than younger adults.
The researchers noted that other applied skills continue moving upward through midlife. Emotional intelligence, which is the ability to read and manage emotions in oneself and others, peaks around the mid-40s. Financial literacy, representing an understanding of complex money concepts, climbs steadily and reaches its highest levels in the late 60s to early 70s.
Moral reasoning capacity also expands in later life. This involves the ability to evaluate ethical dilemmas using principled thinking. Older adults consistently show a greater capacity to handle complex social information and justify decisions based on fairness and justice.
Another trait that improves over time is a person’s resistance to the sunk cost fallacy. This represents an individual’s ability to abandon a failing project despite having already invested time or money into it. Older adults are much better at prioritizing future outcomes over past investments than younger adults.
On the downside, some cognitive functions do decline aside from raw processing speed. Cognitive flexibility, measured by a person’s ability to infer and adapt to changing rules, drops as people age. Cognitive empathy, the ability to read subtle mental states from facial expressions, stays relatively stable through midlife but decreases after age 65.
A trait called “need for cognition” also diminishes in older age. This trait measures a person’s internal drive to seek out severe mental challenges. As people grow older, they often show less motivation to expend intense intellectual effort just for the fun of it.
To compare all these different traits directly, the researchers converted the original study scores into standardized metrics called T-scores. This statistical tool puts different types of tests onto a single, comparable scale. They extracted the necessary numbers from existing large datasets, some of which included large samples of more than 10,000 individuals.
Using these standardized scores, the authors built a Cognitive-Personality Functioning Index. They tested two different versions of this index to see how different assumptions might alter the results.
The first version was a conventional model. It placed 55 percent of the total weight on traditional intelligence tests and 45 percent of the weight on core personality traits. This model showed a modest upward trend through a person’s 20s and 30s, followed by a steeper rise to a peak near age 60. After age 60, scores dropped steadily, with 85-year-olds scoring far below the level of 18-year-olds.
The second version was a comprehensive model. It assigned less weight to raw intelligence and core personality, leaving room to include experience-based skills like emotional intelligence, financial literacy, moral reasoning, and cognitive flexibility. This model showed a steep initial increase from age 18 to 35, followed by a slower rise to a peak between age 55 and 60.
Under the comprehensive model, functioning dropped relatively sharply after age 65. However, older adults at age 85 scored at roughly the same level as young adults at age 18. Both age groups possessed the same overall amount of functional capacity, but their point totals arose from very different strengths and weaknesses.
The study links these findings to practical realities in the workplace and in government. The authors suggest that the period between 55 and 60 represents a high point in psychological readiness for making consequential choices. They proposed that individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65.
This research has specific implications for debates about aging politicians and federal judges. The paper highlights the potential risks of lifetime judicial appointments and the cognitive vulnerabilities of aging heads of state. Once individuals pass age 65, the integrated mixture of cognitive and emotional functioning begins a distinct downward trend.
The researchers noted several boundaries regarding their conclusions. The analysis relied heavily on cross-sectional data. This research technique compares different people of different ages at the same moment in time. This method can sometimes confuse the effects of natural aging with generational differences, unlike longitudinal data that tracks the exact same people over decades.
Additionally, the original datasets were drawn largely from Western, industrialized populations. Age-related changes in personality and cognition can differ across environments. Future investigations might perform similar analyses on non-Western populations to see if the midlife performance peak happens universally.
The study, “Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective,” was authored by Gilles E. Gignac and Marcin Zajenkowski.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MidlifePeak #CognitiveDevelopment #PersonalityTraits #EmotionalIntelligence #CrystallizedIntelligence #MoralReasoning #FinancialLiteracy #Conscientiousness #SunkCostEffect #AgingAndDecisionMaking
-
DATE: July 5, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: When do humans reach their psychological peak? A new study points to late midlife
Human cognitive and personality functioning reaches its overall peak in late midlife, aligning with the ages people typically achieve major career milestones and leadership roles. A new analysis integrates multiple psychological traits to reveal that while raw processing speed declines early in adulthood, other abilities and mature personality traits continue to grow for decades. The study was published in the journal Intelligence.
Physical strength and certain functions of the brain, like processing speed, are known to peak when a person is in their 20s. Elite athletes usually perform at their absolute best before age 35. Yet in modern societies, people often reach the peak of their careers, earn their highest wages, and achieve the most occupational prestige between the ages of 50 and 60.
Gilles E. Gignac, a researcher at the University of Western Australia, and Marcin Zajenkowski, a researcher at the University of Warsaw, wanted to understand this discrepancy. They suspected that high-level achievement demands more than just a fast brain. Their research aimed to combine a broad array of psychological traits to estimate the age when humans reach their ultimate functional capacity.
To do this, the researchers reviewed published data across nine distinct categories of mental and emotional functioning. These involved conventional cognitive abilities, the “Big Five” personality traits, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, and moral reasoning. They also gathered data on people’s resistance to cognitive biases, cognitive flexibility, cognitive empathy, and motivation to solve complex problems.
The researchers separated these traits into two general categories. The first category included cognitive abilities, which represent maximum performance. Gignac defines human intelligence in the paper as an individual’s “maximal capacity to achieve a novel goal successfully using perceptual-cognitive processes.” The second category included personality traits, which represent typical performance, or how a person normally thinks and behaves in everyday situations.
Traditional cognitive abilities show diverging patterns as people age. Fluid intelligence, which includes raw reasoning skills and memory span, peaks in early adulthood and falls steadily afterward. Crystallized intelligence, which relies on accumulated knowledge and vocabulary, continues to improve over the adult lifespan and often remains high into a person’s 60s.
Personality traits also change as people mature. Conscientiousness involves being organized, disciplined, and goal-oriented. Emotional stability involves managing stress, staying calm under pressure, and showing resilience. Both of these traits generally increase from early adulthood through middle age, making older adults more reliable and composed than younger adults.
The researchers noted that other applied skills continue moving upward through midlife. Emotional intelligence, which is the ability to read and manage emotions in oneself and others, peaks around the mid-40s. Financial literacy, representing an understanding of complex money concepts, climbs steadily and reaches its highest levels in the late 60s to early 70s.
Moral reasoning capacity also expands in later life. This involves the ability to evaluate ethical dilemmas using principled thinking. Older adults consistently show a greater capacity to handle complex social information and justify decisions based on fairness and justice.
Another trait that improves over time is a person’s resistance to the sunk cost fallacy. This represents an individual’s ability to abandon a failing project despite having already invested time or money into it. Older adults are much better at prioritizing future outcomes over past investments than younger adults.
On the downside, some cognitive functions do decline aside from raw processing speed. Cognitive flexibility, measured by a person’s ability to infer and adapt to changing rules, drops as people age. Cognitive empathy, the ability to read subtle mental states from facial expressions, stays relatively stable through midlife but decreases after age 65.
A trait called “need for cognition” also diminishes in older age. This trait measures a person’s internal drive to seek out severe mental challenges. As people grow older, they often show less motivation to expend intense intellectual effort just for the fun of it.
To compare all these different traits directly, the researchers converted the original study scores into standardized metrics called T-scores. This statistical tool puts different types of tests onto a single, comparable scale. They extracted the necessary numbers from existing large datasets, some of which included large samples of more than 10,000 individuals.
Using these standardized scores, the authors built a Cognitive-Personality Functioning Index. They tested two different versions of this index to see how different assumptions might alter the results.
The first version was a conventional model. It placed 55 percent of the total weight on traditional intelligence tests and 45 percent of the weight on core personality traits. This model showed a modest upward trend through a person’s 20s and 30s, followed by a steeper rise to a peak near age 60. After age 60, scores dropped steadily, with 85-year-olds scoring far below the level of 18-year-olds.
The second version was a comprehensive model. It assigned less weight to raw intelligence and core personality, leaving room to include experience-based skills like emotional intelligence, financial literacy, moral reasoning, and cognitive flexibility. This model showed a steep initial increase from age 18 to 35, followed by a slower rise to a peak between age 55 and 60.
Under the comprehensive model, functioning dropped relatively sharply after age 65. However, older adults at age 85 scored at roughly the same level as young adults at age 18. Both age groups possessed the same overall amount of functional capacity, but their point totals arose from very different strengths and weaknesses.
The study links these findings to practical realities in the workplace and in government. The authors suggest that the period between 55 and 60 represents a high point in psychological readiness for making consequential choices. They proposed that individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65.
This research has specific implications for debates about aging politicians and federal judges. The paper highlights the potential risks of lifetime judicial appointments and the cognitive vulnerabilities of aging heads of state. Once individuals pass age 65, the integrated mixture of cognitive and emotional functioning begins a distinct downward trend.
The researchers noted several boundaries regarding their conclusions. The analysis relied heavily on cross-sectional data. This research technique compares different people of different ages at the same moment in time. This method can sometimes confuse the effects of natural aging with generational differences, unlike longitudinal data that tracks the exact same people over decades.
Additionally, the original datasets were drawn largely from Western, industrialized populations. Age-related changes in personality and cognition can differ across environments. Future investigations might perform similar analyses on non-Western populations to see if the midlife performance peak happens universally.
The study, “Humans peak in midlife: A combined cognitive and personality trait perspective,” was authored by Gilles E. Gignac and Marcin Zajenkowski.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MidlifePeak #CognitiveDevelopment #PersonalityTraits #EmotionalIntelligence #CrystallizedIntelligence #MoralReasoning #FinancialLiteracy #Conscientiousness #SunkCostEffect #AgingAndDecisionMaking
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DATE: July 1, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study explores how cultural tightness shapes personality and political beliefs
Two studies of cultural tightness found that people from culturally tighter U.S. states were more likely to endorse racial stereotyping and right-wing authoritarianism, and to have a higher need for certainty. The study also reported associations between cultural tightness and the personality traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, but these relationships depended on the way cultural tightness was assessed. The paper was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Cultural tightness refers to the degree to which a society has strong social norms and expects people to follow them closely. Tight cultures usually have strict rules about acceptable behavior and show relatively little tolerance for people who deviate from those expectations. Loose cultures, in contrast, have weaker norms and allow a wider range of behaviors, lifestyles, and personal expression.
Cultural tightness can be observed in everyday areas such as dress, manners, punctuality, public conduct, and family roles. It tends to be stronger in societies that have historically faced threats such as war, natural disasters, disease, resource scarcity, or high population density. Under such conditions, strict coordination and conformity may help groups maintain order and respond effectively to danger.
Tight cultures tend to provide greater predictability, discipline, and social cooperation. However, they also tend to restrict individual freedom, creativity, and acceptance of unconventional people or ideas. Loose cultures are more likely to encourage innovation, flexibility, and personal autonomy, but they can also experience greater disorder and weaker coordination.
Researchers Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini explored the associations between cultural tightness and a group of sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality traits. The scientists conducted two studies. The first study explored the association between cultural tightness and a group of ideological characteristics, beliefs, and personality traits across different U.S. states. The second study examined the associations between cultural tightness and personality traits across 56 nations.
In the first study, the researchers analyzed data from three independent sources. They used an established archival index of cultural tightness for U.S. states, self-report data on sociopolitical beliefs and personality traits from a large online database called Project Implicit, and their own survey estimating self-reported cultural tightness. This survey involved a total of 1,290 participants across 45 U.S. states. The authors aggregated the individual-level responses to create state-level assessments of the psychological traits and self-reported tightness.
The data for the second study came from the International Study of Metanorms, which examined perceptions of norm violations across 57 countries, and the International Situations Project, a multinational study conducted across 56 countries. The first dataset included 22,863 participants, including university students and non-students, while the second dataset included 13,278 undergraduate students. Both of these datasets assessed cultural tightness using the same scale used in the first study, and the second dataset also contained an assessment of the Big Five personality traits.
Results of the first study showed that, across U.S. states, more pronounced cultural tightness was associated with higher social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, belief in a just world, Protestant ethic, and Bayesian racism. The researchers defined Bayesian racism as the belief that it is rational to discriminate against people based on existing racial stereotypes. People from tighter cultures tended to endorse egalitarianism less, but this association was found only with the archival measure of cultural tightness.
People from culturally tighter states also tended to experience a higher personal need for structure, self-monitoring, avoidance of ambiguity, and a need for order and predictability. They tended to report a lower need for cognition, which is the tendency to engage in and enjoy complex thinking. Additionally, cultural tightness assessed using the archival index was associated with lower self-deception, higher impression management, and decisiveness.
People from culturally tighter states tended to be more conscientious and extraverted, but less open to experience. The associations with conscientiousness and extraversion were only present when using the archival index as the estimate of cultural tightness, but absent when tightness was estimated from survey data. The opposite was true for openness to experience. The relationship with openness was present when cultural tightness was estimated from survey data, but absent when the archival index was used.
Similar to the first study, the second study found that people from more culturally tight countries tended to be less open to experience, specifically in the realm of creativity. However, somewhat contrary to the findings of the first study, people from culturally tighter countries tended to be less extraverted. There were no consistent associations between cultural tightness and personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or negative emotionality on a global scale.
“Taken together, we find that cultural tightness is a parsimonious predictor of regional psychological variation across many constructs within the United States and across nations,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the links between cultural properties and psychological characteristics. However, findings about associations with personality traits depended heavily on the way cultural tightness was assessed. This raises questions about the equivalence and validity of different state-level and country-level estimates of cultural tightness and personality used in the study.
The paper “Cultural Tightness Predicts Regional Sociopolitical Ideologies, Beliefs, and Personality Traits” was authored by Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CulturalTightness #SociopoliticalIdeologies #PersonalityTraits #BayesianRacism #RightWingAuthoritarianism #NeedForStructure #BigFive #OpenToExperience #CulturalNorms #SocialConformity
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DATE: July 1, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study explores how cultural tightness shapes personality and political beliefs
Two studies of cultural tightness found that people from culturally tighter U.S. states were more likely to endorse racial stereotyping and right-wing authoritarianism, and to have a higher need for certainty. The study also reported associations between cultural tightness and the personality traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, but these relationships depended on the way cultural tightness was assessed. The paper was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Cultural tightness refers to the degree to which a society has strong social norms and expects people to follow them closely. Tight cultures usually have strict rules about acceptable behavior and show relatively little tolerance for people who deviate from those expectations. Loose cultures, in contrast, have weaker norms and allow a wider range of behaviors, lifestyles, and personal expression.
Cultural tightness can be observed in everyday areas such as dress, manners, punctuality, public conduct, and family roles. It tends to be stronger in societies that have historically faced threats such as war, natural disasters, disease, resource scarcity, or high population density. Under such conditions, strict coordination and conformity may help groups maintain order and respond effectively to danger.
Tight cultures tend to provide greater predictability, discipline, and social cooperation. However, they also tend to restrict individual freedom, creativity, and acceptance of unconventional people or ideas. Loose cultures are more likely to encourage innovation, flexibility, and personal autonomy, but they can also experience greater disorder and weaker coordination.
Researchers Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini explored the associations between cultural tightness and a group of sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality traits. The scientists conducted two studies. The first study explored the association between cultural tightness and a group of ideological characteristics, beliefs, and personality traits across different U.S. states. The second study examined the associations between cultural tightness and personality traits across 56 nations.
In the first study, the researchers analyzed data from three independent sources. They used an established archival index of cultural tightness for U.S. states, self-report data on sociopolitical beliefs and personality traits from a large online database called Project Implicit, and their own survey estimating self-reported cultural tightness. This survey involved a total of 1,290 participants across 45 U.S. states. The authors aggregated the individual-level responses to create state-level assessments of the psychological traits and self-reported tightness.
The data for the second study came from the International Study of Metanorms, which examined perceptions of norm violations across 57 countries, and the International Situations Project, a multinational study conducted across 56 countries. The first dataset included 22,863 participants, including university students and non-students, while the second dataset included 13,278 undergraduate students. Both of these datasets assessed cultural tightness using the same scale used in the first study, and the second dataset also contained an assessment of the Big Five personality traits.
Results of the first study showed that, across U.S. states, more pronounced cultural tightness was associated with higher social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, belief in a just world, Protestant ethic, and Bayesian racism. The researchers defined Bayesian racism as the belief that it is rational to discriminate against people based on existing racial stereotypes. People from tighter cultures tended to endorse egalitarianism less, but this association was found only with the archival measure of cultural tightness.
People from culturally tighter states also tended to experience a higher personal need for structure, self-monitoring, avoidance of ambiguity, and a need for order and predictability. They tended to report a lower need for cognition, which is the tendency to engage in and enjoy complex thinking. Additionally, cultural tightness assessed using the archival index was associated with lower self-deception, higher impression management, and decisiveness.
People from culturally tighter states tended to be more conscientious and extraverted, but less open to experience. The associations with conscientiousness and extraversion were only present when using the archival index as the estimate of cultural tightness, but absent when tightness was estimated from survey data. The opposite was true for openness to experience. The relationship with openness was present when cultural tightness was estimated from survey data, but absent when the archival index was used.
Similar to the first study, the second study found that people from more culturally tight countries tended to be less open to experience, specifically in the realm of creativity. However, somewhat contrary to the findings of the first study, people from culturally tighter countries tended to be less extraverted. There were no consistent associations between cultural tightness and personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or negative emotionality on a global scale.
“Taken together, we find that cultural tightness is a parsimonious predictor of regional psychological variation across many constructs within the United States and across nations,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the links between cultural properties and psychological characteristics. However, findings about associations with personality traits depended heavily on the way cultural tightness was assessed. This raises questions about the equivalence and validity of different state-level and country-level estimates of cultural tightness and personality used in the study.
The paper “Cultural Tightness Predicts Regional Sociopolitical Ideologies, Beliefs, and Personality Traits” was authored by Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CulturalTightness #SociopoliticalIdeologies #PersonalityTraits #BayesianRacism #RightWingAuthoritarianism #NeedForStructure #BigFive #OpenToExperience #CulturalNorms #SocialConformity
-
DATE: July 1, 2026 at 02:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Study explores how cultural tightness shapes personality and political beliefs
Two studies of cultural tightness found that people from culturally tighter U.S. states were more likely to endorse racial stereotyping and right-wing authoritarianism, and to have a higher need for certainty. The study also reported associations between cultural tightness and the personality traits of openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness, but these relationships depended on the way cultural tightness was assessed. The paper was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Cultural tightness refers to the degree to which a society has strong social norms and expects people to follow them closely. Tight cultures usually have strict rules about acceptable behavior and show relatively little tolerance for people who deviate from those expectations. Loose cultures, in contrast, have weaker norms and allow a wider range of behaviors, lifestyles, and personal expression.
Cultural tightness can be observed in everyday areas such as dress, manners, punctuality, public conduct, and family roles. It tends to be stronger in societies that have historically faced threats such as war, natural disasters, disease, resource scarcity, or high population density. Under such conditions, strict coordination and conformity may help groups maintain order and respond effectively to danger.
Tight cultures tend to provide greater predictability, discipline, and social cooperation. However, they also tend to restrict individual freedom, creativity, and acceptance of unconventional people or ideas. Loose cultures are more likely to encourage innovation, flexibility, and personal autonomy, but they can also experience greater disorder and weaker coordination.
Researchers Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini explored the associations between cultural tightness and a group of sociopolitical ideologies, beliefs, and personality traits. The scientists conducted two studies. The first study explored the association between cultural tightness and a group of ideological characteristics, beliefs, and personality traits across different U.S. states. The second study examined the associations between cultural tightness and personality traits across 56 nations.
In the first study, the researchers analyzed data from three independent sources. They used an established archival index of cultural tightness for U.S. states, self-report data on sociopolitical beliefs and personality traits from a large online database called Project Implicit, and their own survey estimating self-reported cultural tightness. This survey involved a total of 1,290 participants across 45 U.S. states. The authors aggregated the individual-level responses to create state-level assessments of the psychological traits and self-reported tightness.
The data for the second study came from the International Study of Metanorms, which examined perceptions of norm violations across 57 countries, and the International Situations Project, a multinational study conducted across 56 countries. The first dataset included 22,863 participants, including university students and non-students, while the second dataset included 13,278 undergraduate students. Both of these datasets assessed cultural tightness using the same scale used in the first study, and the second dataset also contained an assessment of the Big Five personality traits.
Results of the first study showed that, across U.S. states, more pronounced cultural tightness was associated with higher social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, belief in a just world, Protestant ethic, and Bayesian racism. The researchers defined Bayesian racism as the belief that it is rational to discriminate against people based on existing racial stereotypes. People from tighter cultures tended to endorse egalitarianism less, but this association was found only with the archival measure of cultural tightness.
People from culturally tighter states also tended to experience a higher personal need for structure, self-monitoring, avoidance of ambiguity, and a need for order and predictability. They tended to report a lower need for cognition, which is the tendency to engage in and enjoy complex thinking. Additionally, cultural tightness assessed using the archival index was associated with lower self-deception, higher impression management, and decisiveness.
People from culturally tighter states tended to be more conscientious and extraverted, but less open to experience. The associations with conscientiousness and extraversion were only present when using the archival index as the estimate of cultural tightness, but absent when tightness was estimated from survey data. The opposite was true for openness to experience. The relationship with openness was present when cultural tightness was estimated from survey data, but absent when the archival index was used.
Similar to the first study, the second study found that people from more culturally tight countries tended to be less open to experience, specifically in the realm of creativity. However, somewhat contrary to the findings of the first study, people from culturally tighter countries tended to be less extraverted. There were no consistent associations between cultural tightness and personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, or negative emotionality on a global scale.
“Taken together, we find that cultural tightness is a parsimonious predictor of regional psychological variation across many constructs within the United States and across nations,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the links between cultural properties and psychological characteristics. However, findings about associations with personality traits depended heavily on the way cultural tightness was assessed. This raises questions about the equivalence and validity of different state-level and country-level estimates of cultural tightness and personality used in the study.
The paper “Cultural Tightness Predicts Regional Sociopolitical Ideologies, Beliefs, and Personality Traits” was authored by Liz Wilson and Jimmy Calanchini.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #CulturalTightness #SociopoliticalIdeologies #PersonalityTraits #BayesianRacism #RightWingAuthoritarianism #NeedForStructure #BigFive #OpenToExperience #CulturalNorms #SocialConformity
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DATE: July 1, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Honesty and openness are the primary personality traits that long-term couples share
A recent study published in the Journal of Research in Personality suggests that long-term spouses share strong similarities in specific personality traits, particularly regarding honesty and openness. The findings provide evidence that while couples accurately judge each other’s personalities overall, they also tend to assume their partners are more similar to themselves than they actually are.
Psychologists often measure human personality using structured frameworks that group complex behaviors into broad categories. One prominent framework is the HEXACO model, which organizes human personality into six broad dimensions. These dimensions include Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Each of these broad categories contains narrower sub-categories, known as facets, that describe specific behavioral tendencies.
For example, the Honesty-Humility dimension encompasses facets like fairness, sincerity, and modesty. The Openness to Experience dimension involves facets such as aesthetic appreciation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and unconventionality. Researchers use these detailed frameworks to understand how personality influences our daily choices, including the people we choose as long-term romantic partners.
In the context of romantic relationships, scientists often look at three distinct statistical concepts to understand personality dynamics. The first concept is self-partner agreement, which measures how accurately one person’s assessment of their partner matches the partner’s own self-assessment. A high score here means partners know each other very well.
The second concept is actual similarity, which looks at whether two partners genuinely share the same personality traits based on their individual self-reports. The third concept is assumed similarity, which describes a person’s tendency to perceive their partner as having the same personality traits as they do. Assumed similarity happens regardless of whether the couple actually shares those traits in reality.
Past research looking into whether spouses have similar personalities has produced mixed results. Studies using another popular framework called the Big Five model often find very little actual similarity between spouses. This tends to suggest that people do not necessarily choose romantic partners with similar personalities, a finding that challenges the common idea that birds of a feather flock together.
However, studies using the HEXACO model have sometimes found different patterns, leading researchers to examine these dynamics in an older demographic. “Studies on whether social partners (friends and romantic partners) share similar personality traits show that partners are similar to each other in two personality traits, but only in those two traits Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience, and people often overestimate this similarity, a phenomenon known as assumed similarity,” said Kibeom Lee, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary and lead author of the study.
By focusing on older adults, the authors hoped to see how enduring marriages align with these earlier findings. “We wanted to find out whether this pattern is more prominent among long-term spouses than close friends or young romantic partners,” Lee said. “The data supported this expectation.”
To explore these personality dynamics, the researchers recruited participants through a certified Dutch internet survey panel. The final sample consisted of 451 heterosexual married or cohabiting couples from the Netherlands. This resulted in a total sample size of 902 individual participants.
The individuals in the study had an average age of about 55 years old, representing a mature demographic. The couples in this sample had a notably long history together. Their relationship lengths ranged from one year to just over 64 years. On average, the couples had been together for 28 years, providing an ideal testing ground for seeing how well partners know each other.
Each participant completed a standard personality questionnaire known as the HEXACO-100. This survey asks individuals to rate their agreement with various statements on a five-point scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire reliably measures the six main personality factors as well as twenty-five specific facet traits.
The participants completed the questionnaire twice during the study. First, they filled it out to describe their own personal behavioral tendencies. Then, they completed the exact same survey again, but this time they answered the questions based on how they viewed their partner’s personality. This dual approach allowed the scientists to directly compare self-reports with partner-reports.
The data provides evidence of very high self-partner agreement across all measured traits. The statistical correlation for agreement averaged around 0.70, which is remarkably high in psychological research. This suggests that people in long-term relationships are extremely accurate at judging their partner’s true personality traits.
Openness to Experience showed the highest level of agreement among the six major traits. Spouses were particularly good at identifying their partner’s levels of inquisitiveness and appreciation for art and beauty. The researchers suspect that these high agreement scores might represent the practical upper limit of what a paper-and-pencil personality questionnaire can measure.
Interestingly, Honesty-Humility showed the lowest level of self-partner agreement among the major traits, though it was still relatively high overall. When the researchers looked closer at the specific facets of Honesty-Humility, they found that spouses had a harder time accurately judging sincerity and modesty. On the other hand, they were much better at agreeing on their partner’s levels of fairness and greed avoidance.
The authors suggest a few possible reasons for this lower agreement regarding sincerity and modesty. It is highly possible that individuals have a hard time objectively judging their own modesty, which skews their initial self-reports. It is also likely that internal traits like sincerity and modesty are simply harder for outside observers to judge accurately, even if the observer is a spouse of nearly three decades.
When looking at actual similarity, the study found a distinct pattern that separates the HEXACO traits from one another. Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience were the only major traits that showed a strong positive similarity between spouses. If one partner scored high in honesty or openness, the other partner tended to score high in that specific area as well.
The other four major traits showed almost zero actual similarity. For instance, an extroverted person was just as likely to be married to an introverted person as they were to another extrovert. Only a few specific sub-traits of extraversion, such as social self-esteem and liveliness, showed a mild similarity between partners.
The findings for assumed similarity followed a similar pattern but were generally much stronger. Spouses naturally assumed they were highly similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience. In fact, for Honesty-Humility, the assumed similarity was significantly higher than the actual similarity calculated by the researchers.
This suggests that people tend to heavily project their own moral and ethical values onto their romantic partners. Because it is somewhat difficult to perfectly judge a partner’s internal sincerity or modesty, individuals might just assume their partner shares their own level of honesty. If a person values fairness and sincerity highly, they tend to believe their long-term partner holds those exact same moral values.
The authors urge caution when interpreting what these similarities mean for individual relationships. While sharing values is common, it is not a strict requirement for a successful marriage.
“The key takeaway is that social partners tend to be similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience because these traits are closely linked to people’s values and worldviews, which are important for starting and maintaining relationships,” Lee told PsyPost.
At the same time, differing personalities do not doom a romance to failure. The overall effect sizes observed in the data were notable but not absolute. “However, we should note that this similarity is only modest,” Lee added. “There are many happy and long-lasting couples who differ substantially in these traits.”
The researchers also note some limitations to their findings, along with directions for future study. The entire sample consisted of Dutch individuals, which represents a very specific Western cultural context. Dating and marriage practices vary widely around the globe, and these cultural differences might influence whether people choose partners with similar traits.
For instance, a previous study conducted in mainland China found almost zero similarity between romantic partners across all HEXACO traits, including honesty and openness. It is not fully understood if this discrepancy is due to differing cultural norms surrounding marriage in collectivist societies. It might also be due to differences in how people from various geographic regions interpret translated survey questions.
Future research should focus on testing these personality dynamics in other non-Western cultures to see if the patterns hold up globally. Scientists could also investigate exactly why specific traits like social self-esteem show slight similarities in couples. It is possible that sharing similar self-esteem levels helps maintain a romantic bond, or it could simply be that a couple’s shared life circumstances influence both partners’ self-esteem equally over time.
The study, “Self/spouse agreement, similarity, and assumed similarity in the HEXACO personality factors,” was authored by Kibeom Lee, Michael C. Ashton, and Reinout E. de Vries.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: July 1, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Honesty and openness are the primary personality traits that long-term couples share
A recent study published in the Journal of Research in Personality suggests that long-term spouses share strong similarities in specific personality traits, particularly regarding honesty and openness. The findings provide evidence that while couples accurately judge each other’s personalities overall, they also tend to assume their partners are more similar to themselves than they actually are.
Psychologists often measure human personality using structured frameworks that group complex behaviors into broad categories. One prominent framework is the HEXACO model, which organizes human personality into six broad dimensions. These dimensions include Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Each of these broad categories contains narrower sub-categories, known as facets, that describe specific behavioral tendencies.
For example, the Honesty-Humility dimension encompasses facets like fairness, sincerity, and modesty. The Openness to Experience dimension involves facets such as aesthetic appreciation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and unconventionality. Researchers use these detailed frameworks to understand how personality influences our daily choices, including the people we choose as long-term romantic partners.
In the context of romantic relationships, scientists often look at three distinct statistical concepts to understand personality dynamics. The first concept is self-partner agreement, which measures how accurately one person’s assessment of their partner matches the partner’s own self-assessment. A high score here means partners know each other very well.
The second concept is actual similarity, which looks at whether two partners genuinely share the same personality traits based on their individual self-reports. The third concept is assumed similarity, which describes a person’s tendency to perceive their partner as having the same personality traits as they do. Assumed similarity happens regardless of whether the couple actually shares those traits in reality.
Past research looking into whether spouses have similar personalities has produced mixed results. Studies using another popular framework called the Big Five model often find very little actual similarity between spouses. This tends to suggest that people do not necessarily choose romantic partners with similar personalities, a finding that challenges the common idea that birds of a feather flock together.
However, studies using the HEXACO model have sometimes found different patterns, leading researchers to examine these dynamics in an older demographic. “Studies on whether social partners (friends and romantic partners) share similar personality traits show that partners are similar to each other in two personality traits, but only in those two traits Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience, and people often overestimate this similarity, a phenomenon known as assumed similarity,” said Kibeom Lee, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary and lead author of the study.
By focusing on older adults, the authors hoped to see how enduring marriages align with these earlier findings. “We wanted to find out whether this pattern is more prominent among long-term spouses than close friends or young romantic partners,” Lee said. “The data supported this expectation.”
To explore these personality dynamics, the researchers recruited participants through a certified Dutch internet survey panel. The final sample consisted of 451 heterosexual married or cohabiting couples from the Netherlands. This resulted in a total sample size of 902 individual participants.
The individuals in the study had an average age of about 55 years old, representing a mature demographic. The couples in this sample had a notably long history together. Their relationship lengths ranged from one year to just over 64 years. On average, the couples had been together for 28 years, providing an ideal testing ground for seeing how well partners know each other.
Each participant completed a standard personality questionnaire known as the HEXACO-100. This survey asks individuals to rate their agreement with various statements on a five-point scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire reliably measures the six main personality factors as well as twenty-five specific facet traits.
The participants completed the questionnaire twice during the study. First, they filled it out to describe their own personal behavioral tendencies. Then, they completed the exact same survey again, but this time they answered the questions based on how they viewed their partner’s personality. This dual approach allowed the scientists to directly compare self-reports with partner-reports.
The data provides evidence of very high self-partner agreement across all measured traits. The statistical correlation for agreement averaged around 0.70, which is remarkably high in psychological research. This suggests that people in long-term relationships are extremely accurate at judging their partner’s true personality traits.
Openness to Experience showed the highest level of agreement among the six major traits. Spouses were particularly good at identifying their partner’s levels of inquisitiveness and appreciation for art and beauty. The researchers suspect that these high agreement scores might represent the practical upper limit of what a paper-and-pencil personality questionnaire can measure.
Interestingly, Honesty-Humility showed the lowest level of self-partner agreement among the major traits, though it was still relatively high overall. When the researchers looked closer at the specific facets of Honesty-Humility, they found that spouses had a harder time accurately judging sincerity and modesty. On the other hand, they were much better at agreeing on their partner’s levels of fairness and greed avoidance.
The authors suggest a few possible reasons for this lower agreement regarding sincerity and modesty. It is highly possible that individuals have a hard time objectively judging their own modesty, which skews their initial self-reports. It is also likely that internal traits like sincerity and modesty are simply harder for outside observers to judge accurately, even if the observer is a spouse of nearly three decades.
When looking at actual similarity, the study found a distinct pattern that separates the HEXACO traits from one another. Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience were the only major traits that showed a strong positive similarity between spouses. If one partner scored high in honesty or openness, the other partner tended to score high in that specific area as well.
The other four major traits showed almost zero actual similarity. For instance, an extroverted person was just as likely to be married to an introverted person as they were to another extrovert. Only a few specific sub-traits of extraversion, such as social self-esteem and liveliness, showed a mild similarity between partners.
The findings for assumed similarity followed a similar pattern but were generally much stronger. Spouses naturally assumed they were highly similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience. In fact, for Honesty-Humility, the assumed similarity was significantly higher than the actual similarity calculated by the researchers.
This suggests that people tend to heavily project their own moral and ethical values onto their romantic partners. Because it is somewhat difficult to perfectly judge a partner’s internal sincerity or modesty, individuals might just assume their partner shares their own level of honesty. If a person values fairness and sincerity highly, they tend to believe their long-term partner holds those exact same moral values.
The authors urge caution when interpreting what these similarities mean for individual relationships. While sharing values is common, it is not a strict requirement for a successful marriage.
“The key takeaway is that social partners tend to be similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience because these traits are closely linked to people’s values and worldviews, which are important for starting and maintaining relationships,” Lee told PsyPost.
At the same time, differing personalities do not doom a romance to failure. The overall effect sizes observed in the data were notable but not absolute. “However, we should note that this similarity is only modest,” Lee added. “There are many happy and long-lasting couples who differ substantially in these traits.”
The researchers also note some limitations to their findings, along with directions for future study. The entire sample consisted of Dutch individuals, which represents a very specific Western cultural context. Dating and marriage practices vary widely around the globe, and these cultural differences might influence whether people choose partners with similar traits.
For instance, a previous study conducted in mainland China found almost zero similarity between romantic partners across all HEXACO traits, including honesty and openness. It is not fully understood if this discrepancy is due to differing cultural norms surrounding marriage in collectivist societies. It might also be due to differences in how people from various geographic regions interpret translated survey questions.
Future research should focus on testing these personality dynamics in other non-Western cultures to see if the patterns hold up globally. Scientists could also investigate exactly why specific traits like social self-esteem show slight similarities in couples. It is possible that sharing similar self-esteem levels helps maintain a romantic bond, or it could simply be that a couple’s shared life circumstances influence both partners’ self-esteem equally over time.
The study, “Self/spouse agreement, similarity, and assumed similarity in the HEXACO personality factors,” was authored by Kibeom Lee, Michael C. Ashton, and Reinout E. de Vries.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #HonestyHumility #OpennessToExperience #HEXACO #RomanticRelationships #SelfPartnerAgreement #PersonalityTraits #LongTermCouples #AssumedSimilarity #InterpersonalDifferences #PsychologyResearch
-
DATE: July 1, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Honesty and openness are the primary personality traits that long-term couples share
A recent study published in the Journal of Research in Personality suggests that long-term spouses share strong similarities in specific personality traits, particularly regarding honesty and openness. The findings provide evidence that while couples accurately judge each other’s personalities overall, they also tend to assume their partners are more similar to themselves than they actually are.
Psychologists often measure human personality using structured frameworks that group complex behaviors into broad categories. One prominent framework is the HEXACO model, which organizes human personality into six broad dimensions. These dimensions include Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Each of these broad categories contains narrower sub-categories, known as facets, that describe specific behavioral tendencies.
For example, the Honesty-Humility dimension encompasses facets like fairness, sincerity, and modesty. The Openness to Experience dimension involves facets such as aesthetic appreciation, inquisitiveness, creativity, and unconventionality. Researchers use these detailed frameworks to understand how personality influences our daily choices, including the people we choose as long-term romantic partners.
In the context of romantic relationships, scientists often look at three distinct statistical concepts to understand personality dynamics. The first concept is self-partner agreement, which measures how accurately one person’s assessment of their partner matches the partner’s own self-assessment. A high score here means partners know each other very well.
The second concept is actual similarity, which looks at whether two partners genuinely share the same personality traits based on their individual self-reports. The third concept is assumed similarity, which describes a person’s tendency to perceive their partner as having the same personality traits as they do. Assumed similarity happens regardless of whether the couple actually shares those traits in reality.
Past research looking into whether spouses have similar personalities has produced mixed results. Studies using another popular framework called the Big Five model often find very little actual similarity between spouses. This tends to suggest that people do not necessarily choose romantic partners with similar personalities, a finding that challenges the common idea that birds of a feather flock together.
However, studies using the HEXACO model have sometimes found different patterns, leading researchers to examine these dynamics in an older demographic. “Studies on whether social partners (friends and romantic partners) share similar personality traits show that partners are similar to each other in two personality traits, but only in those two traits Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience, and people often overestimate this similarity, a phenomenon known as assumed similarity,” said Kibeom Lee, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary and lead author of the study.
By focusing on older adults, the authors hoped to see how enduring marriages align with these earlier findings. “We wanted to find out whether this pattern is more prominent among long-term spouses than close friends or young romantic partners,” Lee said. “The data supported this expectation.”
To explore these personality dynamics, the researchers recruited participants through a certified Dutch internet survey panel. The final sample consisted of 451 heterosexual married or cohabiting couples from the Netherlands. This resulted in a total sample size of 902 individual participants.
The individuals in the study had an average age of about 55 years old, representing a mature demographic. The couples in this sample had a notably long history together. Their relationship lengths ranged from one year to just over 64 years. On average, the couples had been together for 28 years, providing an ideal testing ground for seeing how well partners know each other.
Each participant completed a standard personality questionnaire known as the HEXACO-100. This survey asks individuals to rate their agreement with various statements on a five-point scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire reliably measures the six main personality factors as well as twenty-five specific facet traits.
The participants completed the questionnaire twice during the study. First, they filled it out to describe their own personal behavioral tendencies. Then, they completed the exact same survey again, but this time they answered the questions based on how they viewed their partner’s personality. This dual approach allowed the scientists to directly compare self-reports with partner-reports.
The data provides evidence of very high self-partner agreement across all measured traits. The statistical correlation for agreement averaged around 0.70, which is remarkably high in psychological research. This suggests that people in long-term relationships are extremely accurate at judging their partner’s true personality traits.
Openness to Experience showed the highest level of agreement among the six major traits. Spouses were particularly good at identifying their partner’s levels of inquisitiveness and appreciation for art and beauty. The researchers suspect that these high agreement scores might represent the practical upper limit of what a paper-and-pencil personality questionnaire can measure.
Interestingly, Honesty-Humility showed the lowest level of self-partner agreement among the major traits, though it was still relatively high overall. When the researchers looked closer at the specific facets of Honesty-Humility, they found that spouses had a harder time accurately judging sincerity and modesty. On the other hand, they were much better at agreeing on their partner’s levels of fairness and greed avoidance.
The authors suggest a few possible reasons for this lower agreement regarding sincerity and modesty. It is highly possible that individuals have a hard time objectively judging their own modesty, which skews their initial self-reports. It is also likely that internal traits like sincerity and modesty are simply harder for outside observers to judge accurately, even if the observer is a spouse of nearly three decades.
When looking at actual similarity, the study found a distinct pattern that separates the HEXACO traits from one another. Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience were the only major traits that showed a strong positive similarity between spouses. If one partner scored high in honesty or openness, the other partner tended to score high in that specific area as well.
The other four major traits showed almost zero actual similarity. For instance, an extroverted person was just as likely to be married to an introverted person as they were to another extrovert. Only a few specific sub-traits of extraversion, such as social self-esteem and liveliness, showed a mild similarity between partners.
The findings for assumed similarity followed a similar pattern but were generally much stronger. Spouses naturally assumed they were highly similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience. In fact, for Honesty-Humility, the assumed similarity was significantly higher than the actual similarity calculated by the researchers.
This suggests that people tend to heavily project their own moral and ethical values onto their romantic partners. Because it is somewhat difficult to perfectly judge a partner’s internal sincerity or modesty, individuals might just assume their partner shares their own level of honesty. If a person values fairness and sincerity highly, they tend to believe their long-term partner holds those exact same moral values.
The authors urge caution when interpreting what these similarities mean for individual relationships. While sharing values is common, it is not a strict requirement for a successful marriage.
“The key takeaway is that social partners tend to be similar in Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience because these traits are closely linked to people’s values and worldviews, which are important for starting and maintaining relationships,” Lee told PsyPost.
At the same time, differing personalities do not doom a romance to failure. The overall effect sizes observed in the data were notable but not absolute. “However, we should note that this similarity is only modest,” Lee added. “There are many happy and long-lasting couples who differ substantially in these traits.”
The researchers also note some limitations to their findings, along with directions for future study. The entire sample consisted of Dutch individuals, which represents a very specific Western cultural context. Dating and marriage practices vary widely around the globe, and these cultural differences might influence whether people choose partners with similar traits.
For instance, a previous study conducted in mainland China found almost zero similarity between romantic partners across all HEXACO traits, including honesty and openness. It is not fully understood if this discrepancy is due to differing cultural norms surrounding marriage in collectivist societies. It might also be due to differences in how people from various geographic regions interpret translated survey questions.
Future research should focus on testing these personality dynamics in other non-Western cultures to see if the patterns hold up globally. Scientists could also investigate exactly why specific traits like social self-esteem show slight similarities in couples. It is possible that sharing similar self-esteem levels helps maintain a romantic bond, or it could simply be that a couple’s shared life circumstances influence both partners’ self-esteem equally over time.
The study, “Self/spouse agreement, similarity, and assumed similarity in the HEXACO personality factors,” was authored by Kibeom Lee, Michael C. Ashton, and Reinout E. de Vries.
-------------------------------------------------
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #HonestyHumility #OpennessToExperience #HEXACO #RomanticRelationships #SelfPartnerAgreement #PersonalityTraits #LongTermCouples #AssumedSimilarity #InterpersonalDifferences #PsychologyResearch
-
DATE: June 28, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People who experience a frequent inner void may actually possess higher levels of empathy
People who frequently experience a profound inner void often struggle with maintaining a firm sense of identity and regulating their emotions. A recent smartphone-based study maps how the sensation of emptiness fluctuates from day to day and relates to broader personality challenges. The research was published in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Mental health professionals often hear patients describe feeling a deep void inside, believing that nothing matters, or lacking a sense of who they are. Currently, the most widely used psychiatric diagnostic manual only lists emptiness as a symptom of borderline personality disorder. The manual also restricts this definition by requiring the feeling to be a chronic, unchanging condition. As a result, many psychologists view the sensation as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state that can come and go.
Psychologists are increasingly recognizing that the subjective experience of emptiness extends far beyond a single clinical diagnosis. Previous investigations have connected the feeling to depression, anxiety, and a general lack of purpose in life. It is also often reported by people who do not meet the criteria for any specific mental health disorder. The experience seems to involve a combination of emotional numbness, a severe sense of social disconnection, and a lack of personal fulfillment.
Modern dimensional models of psychology propose that unhealthy personality traits generally fall into two broad areas of dysfunction. The first area involves how a person views themselves, which includes self-direction and maintaining a coherent identity. The second area involves how a person relates to others, which encompasses intimacy and empathy. Because emptiness involves feeling disconnected from the world and detached from oneself, it likely touches upon both of these domains.
Because the feeling is often viewed as a constant state, researchers rarely measure how it might change within a single person over time. Amanda A. Uliaszek, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto, set out to understand how the feeling of emptiness operates on a daily basis. Along with colleagues Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier, Uliaszek wanted to see how the trait of emptiness relates to people’s overall personality functioning. They also aimed to determine what factors predict whether a person’s feelings of emptiness are stable or highly variable.
To capture the daily ebb and flow of human emotion, the researchers used a technique called experience sampling. This method involves pinging participants on their smartphones at random times throughout the day to ask them how they are feeling right in that specific moment. Instead of relying on a person’s memory of how they felt over the past month, experience sampling acts like a psychological snapshot. The study included a sample of one hundred and twenty adults from the general community. Seven participants were eventually excluded due to technical issues, leaving one hundred and thirteen individuals in the final analysis.
After completing an initial battery of questionnaires assessing their baseline personality traits and their ability to regulate emotions, the participants downloaded a specialized application to their mobile devices. The regulation survey measured how well people can accept negative feelings, engage in goal-directed behaviors, and maintain emotional clarity. Over the course of fourteen days, the application sent four random alerts each day. At each prompt, the software asked participants to rate how intensely they had felt sad, angry, afraid, or empty during the previous hour. A rating of one meant they did not feel the emotion at all, while a rating of seven meant they felt it extremely.
By analyzing thousands of these daily reports, the research team could distinguish between a person’s average baseline level of emptiness and the way that feeling fluctuated over the two weeks. They compared these daily logs against the initial personality surveys. The results showed that people who reported a higher average level of emptiness were much more likely to suffer from identity disturbances. In particular, a specific trait characterized by feeling as though one completely lacks an identity was a strong predictor of chronic emptiness.
The ability to maintain a consistent sense of self is a core component of healthy personality functioning. When people lack a consolidated identity, they may feel as though they are not real or that they lack a soul. The data suggest that this specific deficit in selfhood is closely tied to the average amount of emptiness a person experiences day-to-day. Surprisingly, the researchers found that a lack of self-direction did not predict elevated feelings of emptiness, even though aimlessness is sometimes assumed to be a behavioral side effect of feeling empty.
The researchers also looked at how stable or unstable the feeling of emptiness was for each person. They found that highly variable feelings of emptiness were associated with different psychological challenges. People whose sense of emptiness spiked and crashed frequently tended to struggle with intimacy in their interpersonal relationships. When individuals lack close, consistent relationships or tend to mirror the behaviors of whomever they are interacting with, their internal environment relies heavily on external social cues. This reliance likely causes their feelings of emptiness to vary from hour to hour based on changing social conditions.
Instability in emptiness was also linked to specific difficulties in emotion regulation. People with highly fluctuating emptiness reported having limited access to effective strategies for coping with negative emotions. They also struggled to understand or accurately identify the emotions they were experiencing. This suggests that varying levels of emptiness might reflect a person’s struggle to adjust negative experiential states and a tendency to respond to confusion with emotional withdrawal.
When looking at the daily prompts, the researchers noted a strong relationship between emptiness and other negative affective states. On occasions when participants reported feeling more sad, afraid, or angry than their personal average, they also reported feeling more empty. Sadness stood out as having an especially tight relationship with the void. Out of all the emotions measured, a person’s overall baseline level of sadness was the only one that predicted their overall baseline level of emptiness. This overlap between sadness and emptiness might explain why clinical depression is so frequently accompanied by complaints of an inner void.
The study also yielded one entirely unexpected finding regarding how people relate to others. When evaluating baseline personality traits, the researchers found that higher average emptiness was associated with a higher capacity for empathy. The authors suggest that people who feel empty might occasionally feel things deeply for others, allowing them to better understand and identify with other people’s pain. They note, however, that this specific result requires replication to see if it holds true in other populations.
While the smartphone tracking offers a detailed look at daily life, the study has a few limitations. The researchers measured the momentary feeling of emptiness using a single question, rather than a comprehensive, multi-item survey. Future daily tracking studies could benefit from a more expansive way to measure the nuances of the emotional void.
The sample was also drawn from the general community, meaning the participants generally exhibited relatively low baseline levels of negative emotions. Conducting a similar assessment in a clinical population might reveal different patterns or stronger associations. Because the researchers analyzed daily emotions without looking at time delays between the prompts, they could not determine whether feeling empty causes sadness or if sadness causes a person to feel empty.
The study, “Emptiness, Personality Dysfunction, and Emotion Dysregulation: An Experience Sampling Study,” was authored by Amanda A. Uliaszek, Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier.
-------------------------------------------------
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-
DATE: June 28, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People who experience a frequent inner void may actually possess higher levels of empathy
People who frequently experience a profound inner void often struggle with maintaining a firm sense of identity and regulating their emotions. A recent smartphone-based study maps how the sensation of emptiness fluctuates from day to day and relates to broader personality challenges. The research was published in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Mental health professionals often hear patients describe feeling a deep void inside, believing that nothing matters, or lacking a sense of who they are. Currently, the most widely used psychiatric diagnostic manual only lists emptiness as a symptom of borderline personality disorder. The manual also restricts this definition by requiring the feeling to be a chronic, unchanging condition. As a result, many psychologists view the sensation as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state that can come and go.
Psychologists are increasingly recognizing that the subjective experience of emptiness extends far beyond a single clinical diagnosis. Previous investigations have connected the feeling to depression, anxiety, and a general lack of purpose in life. It is also often reported by people who do not meet the criteria for any specific mental health disorder. The experience seems to involve a combination of emotional numbness, a severe sense of social disconnection, and a lack of personal fulfillment.
Modern dimensional models of psychology propose that unhealthy personality traits generally fall into two broad areas of dysfunction. The first area involves how a person views themselves, which includes self-direction and maintaining a coherent identity. The second area involves how a person relates to others, which encompasses intimacy and empathy. Because emptiness involves feeling disconnected from the world and detached from oneself, it likely touches upon both of these domains.
Because the feeling is often viewed as a constant state, researchers rarely measure how it might change within a single person over time. Amanda A. Uliaszek, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto, set out to understand how the feeling of emptiness operates on a daily basis. Along with colleagues Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier, Uliaszek wanted to see how the trait of emptiness relates to people’s overall personality functioning. They also aimed to determine what factors predict whether a person’s feelings of emptiness are stable or highly variable.
To capture the daily ebb and flow of human emotion, the researchers used a technique called experience sampling. This method involves pinging participants on their smartphones at random times throughout the day to ask them how they are feeling right in that specific moment. Instead of relying on a person’s memory of how they felt over the past month, experience sampling acts like a psychological snapshot. The study included a sample of one hundred and twenty adults from the general community. Seven participants were eventually excluded due to technical issues, leaving one hundred and thirteen individuals in the final analysis.
After completing an initial battery of questionnaires assessing their baseline personality traits and their ability to regulate emotions, the participants downloaded a specialized application to their mobile devices. The regulation survey measured how well people can accept negative feelings, engage in goal-directed behaviors, and maintain emotional clarity. Over the course of fourteen days, the application sent four random alerts each day. At each prompt, the software asked participants to rate how intensely they had felt sad, angry, afraid, or empty during the previous hour. A rating of one meant they did not feel the emotion at all, while a rating of seven meant they felt it extremely.
By analyzing thousands of these daily reports, the research team could distinguish between a person’s average baseline level of emptiness and the way that feeling fluctuated over the two weeks. They compared these daily logs against the initial personality surveys. The results showed that people who reported a higher average level of emptiness were much more likely to suffer from identity disturbances. In particular, a specific trait characterized by feeling as though one completely lacks an identity was a strong predictor of chronic emptiness.
The ability to maintain a consistent sense of self is a core component of healthy personality functioning. When people lack a consolidated identity, they may feel as though they are not real or that they lack a soul. The data suggest that this specific deficit in selfhood is closely tied to the average amount of emptiness a person experiences day-to-day. Surprisingly, the researchers found that a lack of self-direction did not predict elevated feelings of emptiness, even though aimlessness is sometimes assumed to be a behavioral side effect of feeling empty.
The researchers also looked at how stable or unstable the feeling of emptiness was for each person. They found that highly variable feelings of emptiness were associated with different psychological challenges. People whose sense of emptiness spiked and crashed frequently tended to struggle with intimacy in their interpersonal relationships. When individuals lack close, consistent relationships or tend to mirror the behaviors of whomever they are interacting with, their internal environment relies heavily on external social cues. This reliance likely causes their feelings of emptiness to vary from hour to hour based on changing social conditions.
Instability in emptiness was also linked to specific difficulties in emotion regulation. People with highly fluctuating emptiness reported having limited access to effective strategies for coping with negative emotions. They also struggled to understand or accurately identify the emotions they were experiencing. This suggests that varying levels of emptiness might reflect a person’s struggle to adjust negative experiential states and a tendency to respond to confusion with emotional withdrawal.
When looking at the daily prompts, the researchers noted a strong relationship between emptiness and other negative affective states. On occasions when participants reported feeling more sad, afraid, or angry than their personal average, they also reported feeling more empty. Sadness stood out as having an especially tight relationship with the void. Out of all the emotions measured, a person’s overall baseline level of sadness was the only one that predicted their overall baseline level of emptiness. This overlap between sadness and emptiness might explain why clinical depression is so frequently accompanied by complaints of an inner void.
The study also yielded one entirely unexpected finding regarding how people relate to others. When evaluating baseline personality traits, the researchers found that higher average emptiness was associated with a higher capacity for empathy. The authors suggest that people who feel empty might occasionally feel things deeply for others, allowing them to better understand and identify with other people’s pain. They note, however, that this specific result requires replication to see if it holds true in other populations.
While the smartphone tracking offers a detailed look at daily life, the study has a few limitations. The researchers measured the momentary feeling of emptiness using a single question, rather than a comprehensive, multi-item survey. Future daily tracking studies could benefit from a more expansive way to measure the nuances of the emotional void.
The sample was also drawn from the general community, meaning the participants generally exhibited relatively low baseline levels of negative emotions. Conducting a similar assessment in a clinical population might reveal different patterns or stronger associations. Because the researchers analyzed daily emotions without looking at time delays between the prompts, they could not determine whether feeling empty causes sadness or if sadness causes a person to feel empty.
The study, “Emptiness, Personality Dysfunction, and Emotion Dysregulation: An Experience Sampling Study,” was authored by Amanda A. Uliaszek, Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier.
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Emptiness #Empathy #MentalHealthResearch #ExperienceSampling #IdentityDisturbance #EmotionRegulation #PersonalityTraits #DailyEmotions #SocialConnection #PsychologyStudies
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DATE: June 28, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: People who experience a frequent inner void may actually possess higher levels of empathy
People who frequently experience a profound inner void often struggle with maintaining a firm sense of identity and regulating their emotions. A recent smartphone-based study maps how the sensation of emptiness fluctuates from day to day and relates to broader personality challenges. The research was published in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Mental health professionals often hear patients describe feeling a deep void inside, believing that nothing matters, or lacking a sense of who they are. Currently, the most widely used psychiatric diagnostic manual only lists emptiness as a symptom of borderline personality disorder. The manual also restricts this definition by requiring the feeling to be a chronic, unchanging condition. As a result, many psychologists view the sensation as a permanent trait rather than a temporary state that can come and go.
Psychologists are increasingly recognizing that the subjective experience of emptiness extends far beyond a single clinical diagnosis. Previous investigations have connected the feeling to depression, anxiety, and a general lack of purpose in life. It is also often reported by people who do not meet the criteria for any specific mental health disorder. The experience seems to involve a combination of emotional numbness, a severe sense of social disconnection, and a lack of personal fulfillment.
Modern dimensional models of psychology propose that unhealthy personality traits generally fall into two broad areas of dysfunction. The first area involves how a person views themselves, which includes self-direction and maintaining a coherent identity. The second area involves how a person relates to others, which encompasses intimacy and empathy. Because emptiness involves feeling disconnected from the world and detached from oneself, it likely touches upon both of these domains.
Because the feeling is often viewed as a constant state, researchers rarely measure how it might change within a single person over time. Amanda A. Uliaszek, a psychology researcher at the University of Toronto, set out to understand how the feeling of emptiness operates on a daily basis. Along with colleagues Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier, Uliaszek wanted to see how the trait of emptiness relates to people’s overall personality functioning. They also aimed to determine what factors predict whether a person’s feelings of emptiness are stable or highly variable.
To capture the daily ebb and flow of human emotion, the researchers used a technique called experience sampling. This method involves pinging participants on their smartphones at random times throughout the day to ask them how they are feeling right in that specific moment. Instead of relying on a person’s memory of how they felt over the past month, experience sampling acts like a psychological snapshot. The study included a sample of one hundred and twenty adults from the general community. Seven participants were eventually excluded due to technical issues, leaving one hundred and thirteen individuals in the final analysis.
After completing an initial battery of questionnaires assessing their baseline personality traits and their ability to regulate emotions, the participants downloaded a specialized application to their mobile devices. The regulation survey measured how well people can accept negative feelings, engage in goal-directed behaviors, and maintain emotional clarity. Over the course of fourteen days, the application sent four random alerts each day. At each prompt, the software asked participants to rate how intensely they had felt sad, angry, afraid, or empty during the previous hour. A rating of one meant they did not feel the emotion at all, while a rating of seven meant they felt it extremely.
By analyzing thousands of these daily reports, the research team could distinguish between a person’s average baseline level of emptiness and the way that feeling fluctuated over the two weeks. They compared these daily logs against the initial personality surveys. The results showed that people who reported a higher average level of emptiness were much more likely to suffer from identity disturbances. In particular, a specific trait characterized by feeling as though one completely lacks an identity was a strong predictor of chronic emptiness.
The ability to maintain a consistent sense of self is a core component of healthy personality functioning. When people lack a consolidated identity, they may feel as though they are not real or that they lack a soul. The data suggest that this specific deficit in selfhood is closely tied to the average amount of emptiness a person experiences day-to-day. Surprisingly, the researchers found that a lack of self-direction did not predict elevated feelings of emptiness, even though aimlessness is sometimes assumed to be a behavioral side effect of feeling empty.
The researchers also looked at how stable or unstable the feeling of emptiness was for each person. They found that highly variable feelings of emptiness were associated with different psychological challenges. People whose sense of emptiness spiked and crashed frequently tended to struggle with intimacy in their interpersonal relationships. When individuals lack close, consistent relationships or tend to mirror the behaviors of whomever they are interacting with, their internal environment relies heavily on external social cues. This reliance likely causes their feelings of emptiness to vary from hour to hour based on changing social conditions.
Instability in emptiness was also linked to specific difficulties in emotion regulation. People with highly fluctuating emptiness reported having limited access to effective strategies for coping with negative emotions. They also struggled to understand or accurately identify the emotions they were experiencing. This suggests that varying levels of emptiness might reflect a person’s struggle to adjust negative experiential states and a tendency to respond to confusion with emotional withdrawal.
When looking at the daily prompts, the researchers noted a strong relationship between emptiness and other negative affective states. On occasions when participants reported feeling more sad, afraid, or angry than their personal average, they also reported feeling more empty. Sadness stood out as having an especially tight relationship with the void. Out of all the emotions measured, a person’s overall baseline level of sadness was the only one that predicted their overall baseline level of emptiness. This overlap between sadness and emptiness might explain why clinical depression is so frequently accompanied by complaints of an inner void.
The study also yielded one entirely unexpected finding regarding how people relate to others. When evaluating baseline personality traits, the researchers found that higher average emptiness was associated with a higher capacity for empathy. The authors suggest that people who feel empty might occasionally feel things deeply for others, allowing them to better understand and identify with other people’s pain. They note, however, that this specific result requires replication to see if it holds true in other populations.
While the smartphone tracking offers a detailed look at daily life, the study has a few limitations. The researchers measured the momentary feeling of emptiness using a single question, rather than a comprehensive, multi-item survey. Future daily tracking studies could benefit from a more expansive way to measure the nuances of the emotional void.
The sample was also drawn from the general community, meaning the participants generally exhibited relatively low baseline levels of negative emotions. Conducting a similar assessment in a clinical population might reveal different patterns or stronger associations. Because the researchers analyzed daily emotions without looking at time delays between the prompts, they could not determine whether feeling empty causes sadness or if sadness causes a person to feel empty.
The study, “Emptiness, Personality Dysfunction, and Emotion Dysregulation: An Experience Sampling Study,” was authored by Amanda A. Uliaszek, Amanda Magurno, Saleena Zedan, and Marc A. Fournier.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
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-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Emptiness #Empathy #MentalHealthResearch #ExperienceSampling #IdentityDisturbance #EmotionRegulation #PersonalityTraits #DailyEmotions #SocialConnection #PsychologyStudies
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DATE: June 27, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: How people interpret life milestones is tied to how their personalities develop
Major life events can shape personality, but their effects depend heavily on who experiences them and how they interpret them. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Personality. The research found that factors such as age, gender, personal perceptions, and even who was assessing the personality influenced whether events were linked to lasting changes.
While personality traits are often viewed as relatively stable characteristics, research has increasingly shown that people can change over time. Events such as entering a relationship, becoming a parent, experiencing illness, or changing jobs have all been proposed as potential triggers for personality development. Yet studies examining these links have often produced conflicting findings, prompting researchers to examine individual differences in greater detail.
Lara Oeltjen from the University of Bremen and Christian Kandler from Bielefeld University analyzed data from 623 participants who completed three assessments over a four-year period. In addition to self-reports, up to three informants rated each participant’s personality. The researchers examined 21 categories of life events spanning work, finances, relationships, housing, health, and personal achievements.
Utilizing a new modeling approach, they found that life events were associated with changes in several personality traits, but the patterns varied considerably depending on the type of event. Social and personal events showed the largest number of associations with personality change, whereas housing-related events tended to have weaker effects.
Relationship events appeared particularly influential, though sometimes in unexpected ways. Entering a new relationship was linked to decreases in conscientiousness in some analyses, while relationship dissolution was associated with decreases in agreeableness. The birth of a child was associated with a decrease in openness, whereas setbacks and adverse experiences showed more mixed effects.
The study also found that age mattered. Older participants generally showed stronger personality changes following certain life events than younger adults. Gender differences emerged as well, with some events producing personality shifts among women but not men, and vice versa. For example, women experienced a steeper decrease in trait variance following a gain-based occupational event.
In addition, people’s subjective interpretations of events played an important role. Individuals who viewed an event as more positive often showed different personality trajectories than those who viewed the same event negatively. For instance, experiencing a change in the domestic situation caused a decrease in emotionality when the event was viewed positively.
One of the most striking findings was the inconsistency between measurement methods. Some life-event effects appeared only when participants rated their own personalities, while others were visible only in ratings provided by friends, family members, or partners. This suggests that personality changes following major life experiences may be noticeable from some perspectives but not others.
Oeltjen and Kandler concluded that “this high volatility of life-event effects might serve as an explanation for the inconclusive state of research on this topic, as studies differing in one or more of these factors are unlikely to produce similar results.”
The study also identified several important limitations. Life events were assessed retrospectively, meaning participants had to recall experiences that occurred over the previous two years. The researchers also did not collect precise information about exactly when the events occurred during the observation windows.
The study, “Individual Differences in the Effects of Life Events on Personality Trait Change,” was authored by Lara Oeltjen and Christian Kandler. It was published in 2026.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #LifeEventsAndPersonality #PersonalityDevelopment #LifeMilestones #RelationshipImpact #AgeGenderDifferences #SubjectiveInterpretation #PersonalityChangeResearch #JournalOfPersonality #BehavioralScience #PersonalityTraits
-
DATE: June 27, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: How people interpret life milestones is tied to how their personalities develop
Major life events can shape personality, but their effects depend heavily on who experiences them and how they interpret them. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Personality. The research found that factors such as age, gender, personal perceptions, and even who was assessing the personality influenced whether events were linked to lasting changes.
While personality traits are often viewed as relatively stable characteristics, research has increasingly shown that people can change over time. Events such as entering a relationship, becoming a parent, experiencing illness, or changing jobs have all been proposed as potential triggers for personality development. Yet studies examining these links have often produced conflicting findings, prompting researchers to examine individual differences in greater detail.
Lara Oeltjen from the University of Bremen and Christian Kandler from Bielefeld University analyzed data from 623 participants who completed three assessments over a four-year period. In addition to self-reports, up to three informants rated each participant’s personality. The researchers examined 21 categories of life events spanning work, finances, relationships, housing, health, and personal achievements.
Utilizing a new modeling approach, they found that life events were associated with changes in several personality traits, but the patterns varied considerably depending on the type of event. Social and personal events showed the largest number of associations with personality change, whereas housing-related events tended to have weaker effects.
Relationship events appeared particularly influential, though sometimes in unexpected ways. Entering a new relationship was linked to decreases in conscientiousness in some analyses, while relationship dissolution was associated with decreases in agreeableness. The birth of a child was associated with a decrease in openness, whereas setbacks and adverse experiences showed more mixed effects.
The study also found that age mattered. Older participants generally showed stronger personality changes following certain life events than younger adults. Gender differences emerged as well, with some events producing personality shifts among women but not men, and vice versa. For example, women experienced a steeper decrease in trait variance following a gain-based occupational event.
In addition, people’s subjective interpretations of events played an important role. Individuals who viewed an event as more positive often showed different personality trajectories than those who viewed the same event negatively. For instance, experiencing a change in the domestic situation caused a decrease in emotionality when the event was viewed positively.
One of the most striking findings was the inconsistency between measurement methods. Some life-event effects appeared only when participants rated their own personalities, while others were visible only in ratings provided by friends, family members, or partners. This suggests that personality changes following major life experiences may be noticeable from some perspectives but not others.
Oeltjen and Kandler concluded that “this high volatility of life-event effects might serve as an explanation for the inconclusive state of research on this topic, as studies differing in one or more of these factors are unlikely to produce similar results.”
The study also identified several important limitations. Life events were assessed retrospectively, meaning participants had to recall experiences that occurred over the previous two years. The researchers also did not collect precise information about exactly when the events occurred during the observation windows.
The study, “Individual Differences in the Effects of Life Events on Personality Trait Change,” was authored by Lara Oeltjen and Christian Kandler. It was published in 2026.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #LifeEventsAndPersonality #PersonalityDevelopment #LifeMilestones #RelationshipImpact #AgeGenderDifferences #SubjectiveInterpretation #PersonalityChangeResearch #JournalOfPersonality #BehavioralScience #PersonalityTraits
-
DATE: June 27, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: How people interpret life milestones is tied to how their personalities develop
Major life events can shape personality, but their effects depend heavily on who experiences them and how they interpret them. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Personality. The research found that factors such as age, gender, personal perceptions, and even who was assessing the personality influenced whether events were linked to lasting changes.
While personality traits are often viewed as relatively stable characteristics, research has increasingly shown that people can change over time. Events such as entering a relationship, becoming a parent, experiencing illness, or changing jobs have all been proposed as potential triggers for personality development. Yet studies examining these links have often produced conflicting findings, prompting researchers to examine individual differences in greater detail.
Lara Oeltjen from the University of Bremen and Christian Kandler from Bielefeld University analyzed data from 623 participants who completed three assessments over a four-year period. In addition to self-reports, up to three informants rated each participant’s personality. The researchers examined 21 categories of life events spanning work, finances, relationships, housing, health, and personal achievements.
Utilizing a new modeling approach, they found that life events were associated with changes in several personality traits, but the patterns varied considerably depending on the type of event. Social and personal events showed the largest number of associations with personality change, whereas housing-related events tended to have weaker effects.
Relationship events appeared particularly influential, though sometimes in unexpected ways. Entering a new relationship was linked to decreases in conscientiousness in some analyses, while relationship dissolution was associated with decreases in agreeableness. The birth of a child was associated with a decrease in openness, whereas setbacks and adverse experiences showed more mixed effects.
The study also found that age mattered. Older participants generally showed stronger personality changes following certain life events than younger adults. Gender differences emerged as well, with some events producing personality shifts among women but not men, and vice versa. For example, women experienced a steeper decrease in trait variance following a gain-based occupational event.
In addition, people’s subjective interpretations of events played an important role. Individuals who viewed an event as more positive often showed different personality trajectories than those who viewed the same event negatively. For instance, experiencing a change in the domestic situation caused a decrease in emotionality when the event was viewed positively.
One of the most striking findings was the inconsistency between measurement methods. Some life-event effects appeared only when participants rated their own personalities, while others were visible only in ratings provided by friends, family members, or partners. This suggests that personality changes following major life experiences may be noticeable from some perspectives but not others.
Oeltjen and Kandler concluded that “this high volatility of life-event effects might serve as an explanation for the inconclusive state of research on this topic, as studies differing in one or more of these factors are unlikely to produce similar results.”
The study also identified several important limitations. Life events were assessed retrospectively, meaning participants had to recall experiences that occurred over the previous two years. The researchers also did not collect precise information about exactly when the events occurred during the observation windows.
The study, “Individual Differences in the Effects of Life Events on Personality Trait Change,” was authored by Lara Oeltjen and Christian Kandler. It was published in 2026.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #LifeEventsAndPersonality #PersonalityDevelopment #LifeMilestones #RelationshipImpact #AgeGenderDifferences #SubjectiveInterpretation #PersonalityChangeResearch #JournalOfPersonality #BehavioralScience #PersonalityTraits
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Psychologist explains 7 personality traits of people who walk fast
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Psychologist explains 7 personality traits of people who walk fast
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Psychologist explains 7 personality traits of people who walk fast
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Psychologist explains 7 personality traits of people who walk fast
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PsyPost: New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception. “A study published in the journal F1000Research in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/17/psypost-new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/ -
PsyPost: New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception. “A study published in the journal F1000Research in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/17/psypost-new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/ -
PsyPost: New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception. “A study published in the journal F1000Research in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/17/psypost-new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/ -
PsyPost: New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception. “A study published in the journal F1000Research in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/17/psypost-new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/ -
PsyPost: New research links personality traits to confidence in recognizing artificial intelligence deception. “A study published in the journal F1000Research in 2023 suggests that specific personality traits, particularly honesty and agreeableness, can predict how confident young adults feel in their ability to spot deepfake videos.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/04/17/psypost-new-research-links-personality-traits-to-confidence-in-recognizing-artificial-intelligence-deception/ -
If red is your favourite colour, your personality might be more powerful than you think. Discover what loving red says about you.
#ColorPsychology #RedColorPersonality #PersonalityTraits #FavouriteColorMeaning #PsychologyOfColors #SelfDiscovery #MindAndPersonality #SpiritualPsychology #Pe
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Born on 5, 14 or 23? 👀
You’re not ordinary… you’re magnetic, restless & made for BIG moves.Discover your career strengths & love patterns as Birth Number 5 💫
#BirthNumber5 #Numerology #LifePath5 #CareerPrediction #LovePrediction #MercuryEnergy #PersonalityTraits #NumerologyReading #HimaniGoyalS
https://himanigoyal21.com/2026/03/03/birth-number-5-career-love-life-secrets/
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Word of the day: Irascible
Irascible is a word used to describe someone quick to anger or easily irritated. Whether in everyday interactions…
#NewsBeep #News #Economy #ADJECTIVE #anger #Business #characteranalysis #easilyirritated #emotion #irascible #Literature #personalitytraits #quicktoanger #temperament #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/439430/ -
Loyalty to Trump Characterized by Personality Traits, Analysis Suggests
Studies look at personality traits of Donald Trump supporters. Some people show strong loyalty, like in a personality cult. This affects politics.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
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Loyalty to Trump Characterized by Personality Traits, Analysis Suggests
Studies look at personality traits of Donald Trump supporters. Some people show strong loyalty, like in a personality cult. This affects politics.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
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Loyalty to Trump Characterized by Personality Traits, Analysis Suggests
Studies look at personality traits of Donald Trump supporters. Some people show strong loyalty, like in a personality cult. This affects politics.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
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New research suggests that Donald Trump's strongest supporters have certain personality traits. These traits might explain why their loyalty is so strong and lasts a long time. This loyalty is seen as different from normal political support.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
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New research suggests that Donald Trump's strongest supporters have certain personality traits. These traits might explain why their loyalty is so strong and lasts a long time. This loyalty is seen as different from normal political support.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
-
New research suggests that Donald Trump's strongest supporters have certain personality traits. These traits might explain why their loyalty is so strong and lasts a long time. This loyalty is seen as different from normal political support.
#TrumpSupporters, #PersonalityTraits, #PoliticalLoyalty, #USPolitics, #Analysis
https://newsletter.tf/trump-loyalty-personality-traits-study/
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Psychologists say there are 4 types of introverts. These are the personality traits of each one.
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/psychologists-say-there-are-4-types-of-introverts
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What Really Makes Someone Cool According to Science and Why Most People Aren’t
https://wp.me/p84YjG-abC
#whatmakesyoucool #popular #psychologyofcool #confidence #personalitytraits #authenticity #independence #selfgrowth #living #socialconfidence #mindsetshift #2026goals #zsoltzsemba #cool -
The Riddle That Can Determine If You’re A Psychopath, According To A Diagnosed Narcissist
Jacob Skidmore, who is diagnosed as a narcissist, uses social media as a way to shed light on…
#NewsBeep #News #Mentalhealth #AU #Australia #entertainmentandnews #entertainmentnews #Health #MentalHealth #narcissism #narcissist #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #personality #personalitytest #personalitytraits #psychopath #self
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/386132/ -
The Riddle That Can Determine If You’re A Psychopath, According To A Diagnosed Narcissist
Jacob Skidmore, who is diagnosed as a narcissist, uses social media as a way to shed light on…
#NewsBeep #News #Mentalhealth #entertainmentandnews #EntertainmentNews #Health #MentalHealth #narcissism #narcissist #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #personality #personalitytest #personalitytraits #psychopath #self #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/347077/ -
https://www.europesays.com/ie/262298/ The Riddle That Can Determine If You’re A Psychopath, According To A Diagnosed Narcissist #Éire #EntertainmentAndNews #EntertainmentNews #Health #IE #Ireland #MentalHealth #MentalHealth #narcissism #narcissist #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder #personality #PersonalityTest #PersonalityTraits #psychopath #SELF