Current Issues in Personality Psychology

Do stimulation and support in the early childhood home environment and best friendship quality in adolescence predict adult personality?

Maria Wängqvist, Mathias Allemand, Ann Frisén, Michael E. Lamb, C. Philip Hwang — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background
The aim of this study was to determine whether stimulation and support in early childhood and best friendship quality in adolescence predict adult personality.

Participants and procedure
We used data from 123 individuals from an ongoing longitudinal study, with multiple assessment phases and modalities (observation, parental rating, self-report) to investigate prospective associations between stimulation and support in the home in early childhood (age 1-2), best friendship quality in adolescence (age 15), and the Big Five personality traits in adulthood (age 29) controlling for temperament, socioeconomic status (SES), and gender.

Results
After controlling for temperament, SES, and gender, we found that early childhood stimulation and support was related to adult openness to experiences, but not the other four traits, and that best friendship quality in adolescence was related to adult extraversion and agreeableness, but not conscientiousness, neuroticism, or openness to experiences.

Conclusions
The study contributes to research indicating that while personalities are relatively stable, they are not fixed at an early age and may be related to experiences and salient relationships throughout development. There is a dearth of research investigating such associations and the available findings are inconsistent. Conclusions about the relations between experiences such as stimulation and support in the home in early childhood or best friendship quality in adolescence and adult personality should thus be viewed skeptically until replicated.

Demographic factors, personality, and executive functions as predictors of procrastination in Polish and Ukrainian youth

Katarzyna Markiewicz, Lidiya Oryshchyn-Buzhdyhan — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background:
Procrastination is an irrational and unproductive behavior that disrupts psychological well-being and the quality of interpersonal relationships. The study aimed to determine the differences between Polish and Ukrainian youth in procrastinating and establish personality and executive functions as predictors of procrastination. Also, cultural differences were taken into account.

Participants and procedure:
It included 180 students (86 females and 94 males) aged 12 to 17; 84 lived in Lublin, Poland, while 96 lived in Lviv, Ukraine. The Pure Procrastination Scale, Ten Item Personality Inventory, and Comprehensive Executive Function Inventory were used.

Results:
There were no significant differences in the level of procrastination between the whole Polish and Ukrainian groups, but age was an important predictor of procrastination. Gender was not a differentiating factor within the Polish or Ukrainian group. The most stable negative set of predictors of procrastination appeared to be age, agreeableness, and inhibitory control. These traits can be helpful in dealing with procrastination tendencies.

Conclusions:
Our research shows that an ability to control procrastination depends more on predispositions related to personality traits than on executive function improvement linked to the maturation of the frontal lobes. Combining the demographic, personality, and executive variables showed that students in the older age groups were more resistant to procrastination.

Citizenship activity in emerging adults: the role of self-esteem, social skills, and well-being

Anna M. Zalewska — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background:

The paper considers the broad model of citizenship activity by Zalewska and Krzywosz-Rynkiewicz, including the passive (national identity and patriotism), semi-active (loyalty and voting), and active (social, political, change-oriented, and personal activity) forms of citizenship among emerging adults who already have civil rights. The study examines the profile of citizenship activity and psychological factors – personality constructs (self-esteem and social skills in intimate, social exposure, and demanding assertiveness situations) and personal experiences (emotional, social, and psychological well-being) – as correlates and predictors of civic behaviour dimensions.

Participants and procedure:

A set of questionnaires (Multidimensional Self-esteem Inventory, Social Skills Inventory, Mental Health Continuum – Short Form, and Citizenship Behaviour Questionnaire-30 – general version) were completed by 140 Polish emerging adults (50% women) aged 19 to 25.

Results:

Results of Student’s t-tests showed that emerging adults (like adolescents) manifested the highest level of personal activity, lower level of passive and then semi-active citizenship, even less involvement in socio-political activities, and the lowest in political activity. Particular dimensions of civic behaviours were positively but differently correlated with personality constructs and well-being – only personal activity was associated with all psychological factors. They were also differently predicted by the set of psychological variables (regression analyses), but self-esteem, so-cial exposure skills, and social well-being were particularly important predictors.

Conclusions:

These results indicate that policies promoting the citizenship activity of emerging adults need to recognise, support, and strengthen these psychological variables, as they can be modified by deliberate influences and interventions that may be the subject of further research.

Developmental figures: an attempt at conceptualization and classification

Lucyna T. Bakiera — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The subject of this paper deals with the theoretical area of personality psychology and lifespan psychology. This paper presents a novel approach to the social context of personal development, as a certain terminological gap regarding the category of the developmental figure has been observed. I propose that the developmental figure be defined, analogically to the attachment figure or the transition figure, as an individual who has significant meaning to another person’s psychosocial development. Developmental figures can be categorized on the basis of various criteria; for example, based on the type of implications for development we can identify progressive and regressive figures; based on the strength of the influence we identify primary and secondary figures; based on the type of social relation we can identify direct and indirect figures; and based on the duration of the influence we can identify sporadic and frequent interactions.

Developmental Psychology in cultural historical context – overview and further reflections

Willem Koops — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From Bill Kessen’s idea of the child as a “cultural invention” (Kessen, 1983) it follows that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without historical analysis. Developmentalists should stop “positivistic dreaming” and develop a historical developmental psychology. The history of childhood shows how a historical process of infantilization has taken place since Rousseau and the 19th century pedagogical and educational theories and institutions. In the 20th century a new process of deinfantilization took place, caused mainly by the modern mass media (Postman, 1982). It is demonstrated how this led to the “disappearance of childhood”. Babies no longer were considered and studied as “empty-headed” (William James’ conception of the baby experiencing “one great blooming, buzzing confusion”): impressive new research methods and data “filled the baby’s brain” and made the baby much more human than ever before in history. With the narrowing of the gap between childhood and adulthood adolescence as a bridge is less necessary than before. Not only the disappearance of childhood is going on; at the same time there is a correlated disappearance of adolescence. The conclusion must be that the study of cognitive, social and personality development should take into consideration the cultural historical embeddedness.

Perceived significant others’ values: Are they important in the relationship between personal values and self-reported prosociality?

Francesca Danioni, Daniela Barni, Claudia Russo, Ioana Zagrean, Camillo Regalia — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background:
Personal values have been extensively found to be relevant variables linked to prosociality; they are desirable and trans-situational goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives to select modes, means and actions, these reflecting what people consider relevant and worthy. Research has investigated how cultural background influences people’s personal values and prosociality, but little is known about the influence of the perception of the values endorsed by significant others, namely the people belonging to the micro-relational context with whom daily interactions and exchanges are possible. Based on Schwartz’s theory of basic human values, we analyzed the moderating role of the perceptions of significant others’ values in the relationship between personal values and self-reported prosociality.

Participants and procedure:
Two hundred and forty-five Italian young adults (66.9% women) aged between 18 and 30 years (M = 22.58, SD = 2.53) completed a self-report questionnaire.

Results:
Specifically, openness to change values were a significant positive predictor of self-reported prosociality when respondents perceived low importance assigned both to openness to change and self-transcendence by significant others, whereas conservation values were a significant positive predictor of self-reported prosociality when respondents perceived low importance assigned to self-enhancement by significant others.

Conclusions:
Our findings show a complex interplay between personal values and perceived significant others’ values in shaping young adults’ self-reported prosociality.

Typology of civic identity

Inha Petrovska — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background:
Civic identity is considered a kind of organizational identity, which is a value-semantic experience of the individual’s identity with themself as a citizen of the state. It is manifested in the institutional, community, and individual dimensions. Each of the mentioned dimensions of civic identity can be differently developed (actualized) in a particular individual, which suggests the existence of certain types of civic identity. The article aims to empirically verify the typology of the civic identity of an individual and identify both the most common and least common types among Ukrainian citizens.

Participants and procedure:
The study involved 965 citizens of Ukraine aged 16-60, of whom 377 were men (39.1%) and 588 women (60.9%). To assess the dimensions of civic identity and establish the development degree of each of them, the author’s questionnaire “Diagnosis of maturity and type of civic identity” was used.

Results:
The existence of 8 main types of civic identity inherent in Ukrainians has been empirically established, namely Institutional-community (17%), Latent (16%), Game (16%), Community-game (15%), Institutional-game (12%), Community (11%), Versatile (8%), and Institutional (5%).

Conclusions:
Most citizens of Ukraine tend to engage in game interaction with the state, which is dominated by subject-object paradigms. The orientation of the game interaction with the state is also societal, which indicates that games and scenarios are borrowed from others and conditioned mainly by conformity rather than conscious choice. The prevalence of the Latent (indeterminate) type of civic identity coincides with the study subjects’ relatively low level of civic identity maturity.

Psychometric properties of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (KKaPsy)

Agnieszka Lipińska-Grobelny, Olga Zwardoń-Kuchciak — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction:
The aim of the study was to prepare and design a Polish version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire. The psychometric tool allows synthetic assessment of four personal resources known to play a significant role in effective functioning, viz. self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience.

Material and methods:
The psychometric properties of the questionnaire were developed in two studies, the first one involving 308 people (166 women and 142 men) and the second involving 206 people (111 women and 95 men).

Results:
Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the tool has a four-component structure with an overall score. It is characterized by satisfactory internal consistency (α = .73-.86), stability (rtt = .85-.92) and construct validity.

Conclusions:
The Psychological Capital Questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool that can be used in research and in practice.