Rank-order Stability Research Articles

PERSON-ENVIRONMENT FIT UNDERLYING PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE AND LATE ADULTHOOD

Abstract The corresponsive principle and the niche-picking principle have been used to explain personality development across adulthood. The corresponsive principle posits that reciprocal effects between people and their environments intensify personality traits because environments are selected based on these traits while the niche-picking principle posits that these reciprocal effects simply maintain existing trait levels. Using a longitudinal sample of twins from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA), we tested whether the corresponsive principle or the niche-picking principle better explained longitudinal within-family differences in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience across two stages of adulthood development: middle adulthood (36--56 years) and older adulthood (56--91 years). Using exploratory data analysis and multilevel structural equation modeling, we show that niche-picking rather coresponsivity tends to provide a better overall description of the development of neuroticism, extraversion, and openness in middle and older adulthood. Within families, twins generally preserve their rank-order stability but do not diverge over time. Instead, there is a generally tendency for twins to maintain within-family differences over time or even become more alike, regardless of whether twins are identical or fraternal. Nevertheless, the role that niche-picking might play in the personality development across adulthood generally is low, as the majority of the total variance of neuroticism, extraversion, and openness is attributed to stable genetic and environmental variance, particularly in older adulthood. Taken together, these findings suggest that environmental variance - whether independent of or correlated with genotype - takes on an increasingly stronger role in personality development over the lifespan.

Changing or stable? The effects of adolescents' social media use on psychosocial functioning.

To better understand the effects of social media use on adolescents' psychosocial functioning, this study examined the temporal stability of social media effects across two separate 3-week experience sampling methodology (ESM) studies conducted 6 months apart in 2019 and 2020. Participants were 297 adolescents (Mage = 14.1 years, SD = 0.7, 58.9% girls; 41.1% boys; 0.1% other; 97% Dutch) who completed 126 momentary questionnaires on social media use, affective well-being, self-esteem, and friendship closeness in each of the two ESM studies. The effects of social media on psychosocial functioning had low rank-order stability (r = .05-.25). Findings indicated that the effects of social media use varied not only between individuals but also changed substantially within individuals over time.

Livin' La Vida Sola: Network Diversity and Well-Being in Middle-Aged Adults Living Alone.

For individuals living alone, having a diverse personal network is considered crucial for mitigating the risk of social isolation and enhancing well-being. Although a reciprocal dynamic between network diversity and well-being is likely, longitudinal evidence supporting reciprocal effects is limited. This study investigates dynamic transactions between network diversity and well-being (life satisfaction, loneliness, and depressiveness) in a community-based sample of middle-aged adults from Germany. It also explores moderations by the duration of living alone. Data were drawn from the three-wave RIKSCHA (Risks and Chances of Living Alone) project, which includes N = 389 middle-aged adults living alone. Cross-lagged panel models revealed high rank-order stabilities and correlated changes in network diversity and well-being. Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models and dynamic panel models indicated that unobserved traits accounted for these high stabilities. Correlated changes disappeared when accounting for the trait-like stability of variables. Across all models, no evidence of reciprocal associations between network diversity and well-being was found. All results remained consistent regardless of the duration of living alone. The study discusses trait factors accounting for the high stabilities observed in network diversity and well-being among middle-aged adults living alone. Future research should further explore the traits impacting successful adaptation to living alone within the context of personal networks.

Agency and Communion in Brief Entire Life Narratives Across the Life Span.

The evolving life story is integral to personality, and motivational themes are central features of the life story. Personality implies individual differences that are relatively stable over time, but still allow for developmental processes. This study explored both long-term stability and developmental change in thematic content of the life story. Fulfilled and unfulfilled agency and communion were studied in brief entire life narratives across 4 measurements in 12 years in a cohort-sequential design including six cohorts (n = 172; age 8-77). Fulfilled agency and communion, as well as unfulfilled agency exhibited moderate rank order stability over 4 and 8 years, fulfilled communion showed even a modest 12-year stability, whereas unfulfilled communion displayed an unsystematic pattern. Developmentally, multilevel analyses revealed an inverted U-shaped association between age and both fulfilled and unfulfilled agency, peaking in mid-life. Fulfilled communion declined after emerging adulthood, but unexpectedly did not increase again in old age. Unfulfilled communion showed no systematic age trends. Girls and women told life narratives with more fulfilled and unfulfilled communion, whereas genders did not differ in either kind of agency. The content of the life story exhibits rank-order stability over time and systematic mean-level development across the life span.

Becoming European: Mid- and Short-Term Development of a European Identity Among Adolescents

ABSTRACT European identity formation is a component of political identity and linked to the support of European institutions and values. To understand how it develops, we examined three processes of identity formation (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment) on a short- and mid-term time scale, and their interrelations. A total of 371 German adolescents (M age = 14.24, SD age = 0.55, 60.37% females) participated in a longitudinal study and in a ten-day daily diary study. We conducted latent growth curve analysis (LGCM) and assessed rank-order stability and profile similarity for both time scales. Next, conditional LGCMs were run to examine associations of both time scales. We found a significant increase of all identity processes from the beginning to the middle of the school year and a significant decrease from the middle to the end of the school year. Across 10 days, growth curves varied according to the identity process. Stabilities were high for both time scales. Commitment at the beginning of the school year was negatively associated with fluctuations in commitment. Our results highlight the importance of examining different time scales and focusing on specific domains for understanding identity development in adolescence. They further indicate that short-term processes are associated with long-term development.

Becoming a "Hungry Mind": Stability and Change in Need for Cognition across Adolescence.

Need for Cognition has been established as a key intellectual investment trait shaping students' academic development. However, little is yet known about its malleability, particularly in youth. This study investigated stability and change in Need for Cognition in a large longitudinal sample of 3409 adolescents from 166 classes in 27 schools in Flanders. Participants reported on their Need for Cognition in Grades 7, 8, 11 and 12. First, the latent rank-order stability of Need for Cognition between Grades 7 and 11 was found to be r = 0.50. This stability was of a similar magnitude to that of the Big Five personality traits observed in the same sample and larger than that of academic intrinsic motivation. Second, trajectories of Need for Cognition over time were found to vary between individuals. In particular, three trajectory classes could be identified, differentiated mainly by the initial level of Need for Cognition (i.e., a low, medium, and high trajectory). Finally, cognitive ability, cognitive stimulation at home, and parental autonomy support, but not parental educational level, were associated with higher odds of belonging to the high Need for Cognition trajectory and lower odds of belonging to the low Need for Cognition trajectory.

How should one design and position straw feeders in group-housed horses? A case study on occupancy and agonistic interactions at straw feeders in a large group of horses

How should one design and position straw feeders in group-housed horses? A case study on occupancy and agonistic interactions at straw feeders in a large group of horses

Stability and Change in Narcissism From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: Findings From a Longitudinal Study of Mexican-Origin Youth

The present study examined stability and change in narcissism during adolescence and emerging adulthood, a time of turbulent transitions and shifting social roles. Using data from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth, we investigated rank-order stability and mean-level change in narcissistic grandiosity from age 14 to 26 and narcissistic vulnerability from age 19 to 26. Grandiosity and vulnerability showed moderate-to-high stability across 2- to 3-year intervals (rs = .43–.75) and across the full study period. On average, grandiosity increased from age 14 to 26 and vulnerability increased from age 19 to 26. However, these overall trends obscured significant individual-level changes, with about one third of the sample declining or showing no change in narcissism. Thus, although most individuals become more narcissistic from adolescence to emerging adulthood, many do not, and future research should identify factors that explain why some people increase and others decrease during the critical transition into adulthood.

Stick to your role! Stability of personal values expressed in large language models.

The standard way to study Large Language Models (LLMs) through benchmarks or psychology questionnaires is to provide many different queries from similar minimal contexts (e.g. multiple choice questions). However, due to LLM's highly context-dependent nature, conclusions from such minimal-context evaluations may be little informative about the model's behavior in deployment (where it will be exposed to many new contexts). We argue that context-dependence should be studied as another dimension of LLM comparison alongside others such as cognitive abilities, knowledge, or model size. In this paper, we present a case-study about the stability of value expression over different contexts (simulated conversations on different topics), and as measured using a standard psychology questionnaire (PVQ) and behavioral downstream tasks. We consider 21 LLMs from six families. Reusing methods from psychology, we study Rank-order stability on the population (interpersonal) level, and Ipsative stability on the individual (intrapersonal) level. We explore two settings: with and without instructing LLMs to simulate particular personalities. We observe similar trends in the stability of models and model families-Mixtral, Mistral, GPT-3.5 and Qwen families being more stable than LLaMa-2 and Phi-over those two settings, two different simulated populations, and even on three downstream behavioral tasks. When instructed to simulate particular personas, LLMs exhibit low Rank-Order stability, and this stability further diminishes with conversation length. This highlights the need for future research directions on LLMs that can coherently simulate a diversity of personas, as well as how context-dependence can be studied in more thorough and efficient ways. This paper provides a foundational step in that direction, and, to our knowledge, it is the first study of value stability in LLMs. The project website with code is available at https://sites.google.com/view/llmvaluestability.

Test-retest reliability of the play-or-pass version of the Iowa Gambling Task

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is used to assess decision-making in clinical populations. The original IGT does not disambiguate reward and punishment learning; however, an adaptation of the task, the “play-or-pass” IGT, was developed to better distinguish between reward and punishment learning. We evaluated the test-retest reliability of measures of reward and punishment learning from the play-or-pass IGT and examined associations with self-reported measures of reward/punishment sensitivity and internalizing symptoms. Participants completed the task across two sessions, and we calculated mean-level differences and rank-order stability of behavioral measures across the two sessions using traditional scoring, involving session-wide choice proportions, and computational modeling, involving estimates of different aspects of trial-level learning. Measures using both approaches were reliable; however, computational modeling provided more insights regarding between-session changes in performance, and how performance related to self-reported measures of reward/punishment sensitivity and internalizing symptoms. Our results show promise in using the play-or-pass IGT to assess decision-making; however, further work is still necessary to validate the play-or-pass IGT.

Nuanced HEXACO: A Meta-Analysis of HEXACO Cross-Rater Agreement, Heritability, and Rank-Order Stability.

Most Five-Factor Model (FFM) questionnaire items contain unique variance that is partly heritable, stable, and consensually observable, demonstrates consistent associations with age and sex, and predicts life outcomes beyond higher order factors. Extending these findings to the HEXACO model, we meta-analyzed single-item cross-rater agreement, heritability, and 2-year stability using samples from six countries. We analyzed raw item scores and their residual variance and adjusted the estimates for measurement unreliability. The median cross-rater agreement, heritability, and stability estimates were, respectively, .30, .30, and .57, for raw items and .10, .16, and .39, for item residuals. Adjusted for reliability, the respective medians were .46 and .25 for cross-rater agreement, .46 and .39 for heritability, and .87 and .94 for stability. These results are strikingly consistent with FFM-based findings, providing nondismissible evidence that single items index a partly unique level of the trait hierarchy-personality nuances-with trait properties comparable to those of higher-order traits.

Development of narcissism across the life span: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.

This meta-analytic review investigated the development of narcissism across the life span, by synthesizing the available longitudinal data on mean-level change and rank-order stability. Three factors of narcissism were examined: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism. Analyses were based on data from 51 samples, including 37,247 participants. As effect size measures, we used the standardized mean change d per year and test-retest correlations that were corrected for attenuation due to measurement error. The results suggested that narcissism typically decreases from age 8 to 77 years (i.e., the observed age range), with aggregated changes of d = -0.28 for agentic narcissism, d = -0.41 for antagonistic narcissism, and d = -0.55 for neurotic narcissism. Rank-order stability of narcissism was high, with average values of .73 (agentic), .68 (antagonistic), and .60 (neurotic), based on an average time lag of 11.42 years. Rank-order stability did not vary as a function of age. However, rank-order stability declined as a function of time lag, asymptotically approaching values of .62 (agentic), .52 (antagonistic), and .33 (neurotic) across long time lags. Moderator analyses indicated that the findings on mean-level change and rank-order stability held across gender and birth cohort. The meta-analytic data set included mostly Western and White/European samples, pointing to the need of conducting more research with non-Western and ethnically diverse samples. In sum, the findings suggest that agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism show normative declines across the life span and that individual differences in these factors are moderately (neurotic) to highly (agentic, antagonistic) stable over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Autobiographical memory functions as a stable property of narrative identity

The functionalist approach claims that autobiographical memory functions could be part of narrative identity. If so, the use of memory functions in personal narratives should be as stable as other properties of narrative identity. Testing this claim, the present study elicited repeated narratives and functional self-ratings for turning point and low point memories from 145 undergraduates (68.90 % female) in a two-wave eight-month longitudinal study. Stability of memory functions in specific memories was conceptualized in terms of mean-level and rank-order stability. Results showed little mean-level stability, yet substantial rank-order stability for memory functions regardless of assessment. The later use of the same memory functions in repeated narratives was predicted by baseline of functions at T1, age of event, valence, and frequency of rehearsal. Combining these results with theories on autobiographical memory and narrative identity suggests that memory functions might be a stable property of narrative identity hitherto overlooked.

The stability of cognitive abilities: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies.

Cognitive abilities, including general intelligence and domain-specific abilities such as fluid reasoning, comprehension knowledge, working memory capacity, and processing speed, are regarded as some of the most stable psychological traits, yet there exist no large-scale systematic efforts to document the specific patterns by which their rank-order stability changes over age and time interval, or how their stability differs across abilities, tests, and populations. Determining the conditions under which cognitive abilities exhibit high or low degrees of stability is critical not just to theory development but to applied contexts in which cognitive assessments guide decisions regarding treatment and intervention decisions with lasting consequences for individuals. In order to supplement this important area of research, we present a meta-analysis of longitudinal studies investigating the stability of cognitive abilities. The meta-analysis relied on data from 205 longitudinal studies that involved a total of 87,408 participants, resulting in 1,288 test-retest correlation coefficients among manifest variables. For an age of 20 years and a test-retest interval of 5 years, we found a mean rank-order stability of ρ = .76. The effect of mean sample age on stability was best described by a negative exponential function, with low stability in preschool children, rapid increases in stability in childhood, and consistently high stability from late adolescence to late adulthood. This same functional form continued to best describe age trends in stability after adjusting for test reliability. Stability declined with increasing test-retest interval. This decrease flattened out from an interval of approximately 5 years onward. According to the age and interval moderation models, minimum stability sufficient for individual-level diagnostic decisions (rtt = .80) can only be expected over the age of 7 and for short time intervals in children. In adults, stability levels meeting this criterion are obtained for over 5 years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Among Emerging Adult Undergraduates: A Longitudinal and Two-Cohort Study.

Mental disorders constitute one of the population's principal health problems, especially among undergraduates. This quantitative study compared levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in a sample of emerging adult university undergraduates from a gender perspective (1) during the initial and intermediate years of emerging adulthood and (2) in two different cohorts. A total of 383 Spanish emerging adult university undergraduates were monitored longitudinally (2015-2018) and two cohorts were compared (2015-2020). Participants completed the validated Spanish version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. Mean-level and rank-order stability was found across the two waves of the longitudinal study in relation to levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Significant differences were found between the two cohorts, indicating higher levels of psychological distress in 2020 than in 2015. Women were found to have higher levels of psychological distress, particularly stress, than men in both waves and cohorts. Results are discussed in relation to the negative effects of the COVID-19 health crisis on the emotional health of emerging adults. The present study highlights the need to establish measures designed to improve the mental health of emerging adults, which was more severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis than by the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. It also underscores the need to develop interventions designed to alleviate the greater degree of stress suffered by women.

Rank-order stability of domain-specific self-esteem: A meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis examined the rank-order stability of domain-specific self-esteem by comprehensively synthesizing the available evidence in eight domains of self-esteem (i.e., academic, appearance, athletic, morality, romantic, social, mathematics, and verbal abilities). The analyses were based on longitudinal data from 118 independent samples, including 107,550 participants aged 4-24 years. The time lag between assessments ranged from 6 months to 20 years. As effect-size measure, we used test-retest correlations that were corrected for attenuation due to measurement error. The results suggested that individual differences in domain-specific self-esteem are relatively stable over time, with mean effect sizes ranging from .65 to .84 across domains. Rank-order stability systematically increased as a function of age, from low stability in early childhood to high stability in young adulthood. Moreover, rank-order stability systematically decreased as a function of time lag between assessments, asymptotically approaching medium-sized stabilities (ranging from .36 to .62 across domains) when the time lag became very long. Moderator analyses indicated that the findings held across differences with regard to gender and measure. In sum, the findings suggest that rank-order stability of domain-specific self-esteem is relatively high, even over long periods of time, indicating that the eight investigated facets of domain-specific self-esteem should be considered trait-like constructs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychometric Quality of the German HEXACO-60 Personality Inventory-Revised

Abstract: Striving for more valid personality judgments is desirable as more sound decisions can be expected with increasing measurement accuracy. In this study, the psychometric qualities of the German HEXACO-60 personality inventory are evaluated. Extending previous studies, we examined the third-person observer-report form in addition to the first-person rating format, which allowed us to examine the psychometric quality beyond self-reports, such as cross-rater agreement, rank-order stability, structural validity, and measurement invariance. Data from 3,046 self-raters (61% female; age range: 14–90) and ratings from 2,199 well-informed acquaintances (partners, friends, or relatives of the self-raters) were analyzed. Satisfying internal consistency, 2-year and 4-year rank-order stabilities, agreement among self- and informant-raters, and consensus among informant-raters were found. Moreover, the six-factor structure was confirmed in structural equation models that incorporated the perspectives of both self-raters and informant-raters. Finally, partial strict measurement invariance was demonstrated across rater perspectives. Previous validation of the German HEXACO-60 self-report form could thus be replicated and expanded by highlighting the psychometric soundness of the third-person observer-report form and the convergent as well as discriminant validity of HEXACO trait measures across rater perspectives. The informant perspective provides valid additional benefits for the assessment of personality traits within the HEXACO framework.

Vocabulary size predicts behavioral problems in emotionally reactive children

Internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems place children at an increased risk for low academic achievement and socioemotional maladjustment. Children's language skills and level of emotional reactivity have been shown to predict behavioral problems later in development. Yet, there is an absence of research investigating vocabulary by negative emotionality interactions with respect to the development of behavioral problems during early childhood. Our study sought to fill this gap by examining whether the relation between preschool (age 3) vocabulary size and internalizing/externalizing problems during the early school years (age 6) is moderated by preschool negative emotional reactivity, even after controlling for preschool behavioral problems as well as children's socioeconomic background. Longitudinal data was collected from 256 typically developing children (129 girls, 75% White) and their mothers (64% held a college degree). Linear regression analyses revealed moderate rank-order stability in children's internalizing and externalizing problems across this period of development. Evidence of an interaction effect emerged in both the internalizing and externalizing problems regression models. That is, age 3 vocabulary was negatively related to age 6 behavioral problems, but only among children exhibiting higher levels of negative emotional reactivity. Our results indicate that early vocabulary acquisition may serve as a buffer against adverse behavioral outcomes in children with a natural propensity toward expressing negative emotions. These findings point to a more nuanced picture of the relations between language, emotional reactivity, and behavioral problems in childhood, which are discussed in greater detail to inform future intervention and educational research.

Family relationships and family predictors of psychological distress in emerging adult college students: A 3-year study

During emerging adulthood, family relationships remain salient. This study examined, from a gender perspective, continuity/discontinuity and stability/instability in family relationships, in a two-time repeated-measures study with Spanish emerging adult college students. It also analyzed the implications of the quality of parent–child relationships for emerging adults’ psychological distress. A sample of 400 Spanish college students aged between 18 and 29 years was followed across two time points (M = 20.31 and SD = 2.04 at Time 1; M = 23.66 and SD = 2.08 at Time 2), completing a self-report measure of parenting behaviors and psychological distress. Results indicated continuity in family social support, parental autonomy support, and psychological control; however, they also revealed discontinuity, with parental warmth, parental involvement, and behavioral control decreasing over time. Results also indicated high rank-order stability in family relationships, seen globally. Regression analyses showed that, only for men, parental involvement at T1 consistently predicted psychological distress at T2, as well as changes in psychological distress between T1 and T2. This study provides data supporting the idea that both change and continuity exist in family relationships. It also expands on the scarce research focused on this developmental context during emerging adulthood in Spain and provides support for designing preventive parenting interventions.

Predictors of time-varying and time-invariant components of psychological distress during COVID-19 in the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study (understanding society).

To understand psychological distress during COVID-19, we need to ensure that the same construct is measured over time and investigate how much of the variance in distress is attributable to chronic time-invariant variance compared to transient time-varying variance. We conducted secondary data analyses of Understanding Society, a U.K. probability-based longitudinal study of adults, using prepandemic (2015-2020) and pandemic data (N = 17,761, April 2020-March 2021). Using the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), analyses encompassed (a) five annual waves before COVID-19 plus the first survey wave during COVID-19 and (b) eight (bi)monthly waves during COVID-19. We investigated (a) longitudinal measurement invariance of distress, (b) time-invariant and time-varying variance components of distress using latent trait-occasion modeling, and (c) predictors of these different variance components. In all analyses, unique measurement invariance in distress was established, indicating the same unidimensional construct was measured using the GHQ before and during COVID-19. Time-varying variance was higher at the first COVID-19 lockdown (April 2020, 61.2%) compared to before COVID-19 (∼50%), suggesting increased fluctuations in distress at the start of the pandemic. Sensitivity analyses with equal time lags pre- and during COVID-19 confirmed this interpretation. During the pandemic, the highest distress time-varying variance (40.7%) was detected in April 2020, decreasing to 29.0% (July 2020) after restrictions eased. Despite mean-level fluctuations, time-varying variance remained stable during subsequent lockdowns, indicating more rank-order stability after this first major disruption. Loneliness most strongly predicted time-varying variance during the first lockdown. Life dissatisfaction and financial difficulties were associated with both variance components throughout the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).