The Mindful Personality II: Exploring the Metatraits from a Cybernetic Perspective

Individuals' contribution to household energy savings: The role of big-two personality traits

Household energy consumption (HEC) is one of the major contributors to global emissions, making it a critical area for addressing sustainability challenges. The impact of personality traits on human behaviour is significant in shaping HEC patterns, and therefore, have important implications for sustainability policies. This study aims to investigate role of biologically predicted big-two personality traits (i.e., stability and plasticity), a higher order solution to five-factor traits and orthogonal traits, on HEC. To that end, a structural equation model is developed using a national household survey in Australia. The performance of the model is benchmarked against a five-factor (i.e., agreeableness, consciousness, emotional stability, extraversion and openness) personality trait model. The performance of the models is measured using six goodness-of-fit indices, all of which show a superior performance in the big-two traits model. The results indicate that a higher score in stability poses energy-intensive behaviour, while a higher plasticity score poses energy-saving behaviours. The plasticity trait is linked to environmentally friendly behaviours, while the stability trait is associated with environmentally unfavourable behavioural practices. The effects of socioeconomic status on HEC are mediated by stability and plasticity to identify those who are more likely to change their energy consumption habits as the target group for policy intervention. This study can assist policy makers to determine energy-intensive and energy-saving behaviours from the big-two traits, and to develop more effective and targeted sustainability policies that can help in reducing HEC and promote sustainable living in societies.

The moderating role of dispositional mindfulness in the associations of morningness-eveningness with depressive and anxiety symptoms

Several studies have shown that eveningness is positively related to both depressive and anxiety symptoms. However, little is known about factors that may play a protective role against the undesirable emotional consequences of evening preference. Thus, in the present study, we explored the moderating effects of dispositional mindfulness on the relationship between morningness-eveningness and the presence of depressive symptoms, as well as between morningness-eveningness and the presence of anxiety symptoms. The study was conducted on a group of 1107 individuals (559 women and 548 men) aged 18-55 years (M = 36.26, SD = 9.89). Consistent with previous findings, eveningness was positively related to the presence of both depressive and anxiety symptoms. The magnitude of these effects decreased with higher dispositional mindfulness. The latter result remained significant when the analogical moderating effects of personality, established in earlier studies, were controlled for in the regression models. This leads to the conclusion that dispositional mindfulness may act as a protective factor against the elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms reported by evening-oriented individuals.

Value Fulfillment from a Cybernetic Perspective: A New Psychological Theory of Well-Being

Value Fulfillment Theory (VFT) is a philosophical theory of well-being. Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) is a psychological theory of personality. Both start with a conception of the person as a goal-seeking (or value-pursuing) organism, and both take goals and the psychological integration of goals to be key to well-being. By joining VFT and CB5T, we produce a cybernetic value fulfillment theory in which we argue that well-being is best conceived as the fulfillment of psychologically integrated values. Well-being is the effective pursuit of a set of nonconflicting values that are emotionally, motivationally, and cognitively suitable to the person. The primary difference in our theory from other psychological theories of well-being is that it does not provide a list of intrinsic goods, instead emphasizing that each person may have their own list of intrinsic goods. We discuss the implications of our theory for measuring, researching, and improving well-being.