Evolution, situational affordances, and the HEXACO model of personality

Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds in fictional stories

Imaginary worlds are present and often central in many of the most culturally successful modern narrative fictions, be it in novels (e.g., Harry Potter), movies (e.g., Star Wars), video games (e.g., The Legend of Zelda), graphic novels (e.g., One Piece) and TV series (e.g., Game of Thrones). We propose that imaginary worlds are popular because they activate exploratory preferences that evolved to help us navigate the real world and find new fitness-relevant information. Therefore, we hypothesize that the attraction to imaginary worlds is intrinsically linked to the desire to explore novel environments and that both are influenced by the same underlying factors. Notably, the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of the preference for imaginary worlds should follow the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of exploratory preferences (with the personality trait Openness-to-experience, age, sex, and ecological conditions). We test these predictions with both experimental and computational methods. For experimental tests, we run a pre-registered online experiment about movie preferences (N = 230). For computational tests, we leverage two large cultural datasets, namely the Internet Movie Database (N = 9424 movies) and the Movie Personality Dataset (N = 3.5 million participants), and use machine-learning algorithms (i.e., random forest and topic modeling). In all, consistent with how the human preference for spatial exploration adaptively varies, we provide empirical evidence that imaginary worlds appeal more to more explorative people, people higher in Openness-to-experience, younger individuals, males, and individuals living in more affluent environments. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the cultural evolution of narrative fiction and, more broadly, the evolution of human exploratory preferences.

HEXACO Personality Factors and their Associations with Facebook use and Facebook Network Characteristics

Personality factors affect the properties of 'offline' social networks, but how they are associated with the structural properties of online networks is still unclear. We investigated how the six HEXACO personality factors (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience) relate to Facebook use and three objectively measured Facebook network characteristics - network size, density, and number of clusters. Participants (n = 107, mean age = 20.6, 66% female) extracted their Facebook networks using the GetNet app, completed the 60-item HEXACO questionnaire and the Facebook Usage Questionnaire. Users high in Openness to Experience spent less time on Facebook. Extraversion was positively associated with network size (number of Facebook Friends). These findings suggest that some personality factors are associated with Facebook use and the size of Facebook networks, and that personality is an important influence on both online and offline sociality.

Inferences about interdependence shape cooperation

During social interactions in daily life, people possess imperfect knowledge of their interdependence (i.e., how behaviors affect each person's outcomes), and what people infer about their interdependence can shape their behaviors. We review theory and research that suggests people can infer their interdependence with others along several dimensions, including mutual dependence, power, and corresponding-versus-conflicting interests. We discuss how perceptions of interdependence affect how people cooperate and punish others' defection in everyday life. We propose that people understand their interdependence with others through knowledge of the action space, cues during social interactions (e.g., partner behaviors), and priors based on experience. Finally, we describe how learning interdependence could occur through domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms.

The social evolution of individual differences: Future directions for a comparative science of personality in social behavior

Personality is essential for understanding the evolution of cooperation and conflict in behavior. However, personality science remains disconnected from the field of social evolution, limiting our ability to explain how personality and plasticity shape phenotypic adaptation in social behavior. Researchers also lack an integrative framework for comparing personality in the contextualized and multifaceted behaviors central to social interactions among humans and other animals. Here we address these challenges by developing a social evolutionary approach to personality, synthesizing theory, methods, and organizing questions in the study of individuality and sociality in behavior. We critically review current measurement practices and introduce social reaction norm models for comparative research on the evolution of personality in social environments. These models demonstrate that social plasticity affects the heritable variance of personality, and that individual differences in social plasticity can further modify the rate and direction of adaptive social evolution. Future empirical studies of frequency- and density-dependent social selection on personality are crucial for further developing this framework and testing adaptive theory of social niche specialization.

Relationship between Honesty-Humility and Cyberbullying Perpetration: A Moderated Mediation Model

Previous studies have verified the roles of big five personalities in cyberbullying perpetration (CP). The Big Five model has been revised to include an additional dimension, called Honesty-Humility (HH). It is not clear whether HH would be associated with CP. Thus, the effect of HH on CP was examined. To further explore this influencing mechanism, materialism was examined as a mediator, and parental psychological control (PPC) was examined as a moderator in the relationship between HH and CP. A total of 1,004 Chinese adolescents (M = 12.95, SD =1.12) participated in this study using a cross-sectional design and multiple questionnaires, namely, the Honesty-Humility subscale of the 24-item Brief HEXACO Inventory, the Revised Cyber Bullying Inventory, the Material Values Scale for Children, and the Parental Control Questionnaire. Correlation analyses indicated that CP, materialism, and PPC were significantly and positively correlated with each other, and were significantly and negatively associated with HH. The mediation model revealed that materialism played a mediating role in the relationship between HH and CP. The moderated mediation model revealed that stronger PPC strengthened the direct associations of HH with materialism and CP, and further strengthened the indirect relationship between HH and CP. Specifically, Chinese adolescents with lower levels of HH were more likely to build material values and further engaged in cyberbullying perpetration, when they perceived stronger PPC.

Falsification of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire: No Evidence of Systemic Sexual Harassment in Academic STEM

Herein, the socio-psychological narrative of sexual harassment (SH) is critically evaluated. The notion of systemic SH in university departments of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is contradicted by the overwhelming (>90%) career satisfaction among female STEM academics. The Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ), central to the study of SH, inheres the nominalistic fallacy. SEQ usage deploys subjectivist methodologies, categorical ambiguity, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and treats respondents as cyphers. Intercorrelation of SEQ factors reduces response statistics by 42%, while phase-space vector geometry indicates the SEQ does not measure SH. Personality analysis implies that serial abusers dominate the incidence of SH. The widespread notion that 20–25% of female college students suffer violent sexual assault rests on a misreading of published work. The 2016 Campus Climate Survey permits an upper limit estimate that 3.2% of female college students suffer rape at the hands of 4.3% of male student perpetrators, largely accompanied by drugs or alcohol. The 2018 National Academy (NAS) Report on sexual harassment in STEM exhibits negligent scholarship and carelessly generalizing statistics and may itself promote violation of the EEOC legal definition of SH. Despite instances of grievous sex-based abuse, there is no evidence that female STEM academics face systemic sexual harassment. Finally, evolutionary psychology and the social significance of personality provide a scientific understanding of SH.

The development of trait greed during young adulthood: A simultaneous investigation of environmental effects and negative core beliefs

Recent models of personality development have emphasized the role of the environment in terms of selection and socialization effects and their interaction. Our study provides partial evidence for these models and, crucially, extends these models by adding a person variable: Core beliefs, which are defined as mental representations of experiences that individuals have while pursuing need-fulfilling goals. Specifically, we report results from a longitudinal investigation of the development of trait greed across time. Based on data from the German Personality Panel, we analyzed data on 1,965 young adults on up to 4 occasions, spanning a period of more than 3 years. According to our results, negative core beliefs that have so far been proposed only in the clinical literature (e.g., being unloved or being insecure) contributed to the development of trait greed, indicating that striving for material goals might be a substitute for unmet needs in the past. Additionally, greedy individuals more often self-selected themselves into business-related environments, which presumably allow them to fulfill their greed-related need to earn a lot of money. Our results expose important mechanisms for trait greed development. Regarding personality development in general, core beliefs were identified as an important variable for future theory building.

COVID-19 vermijdingsgedrag: Het belang van persoonlijkheid en de relatie met toename in thuiswerken

De COVID-19 pandemie kan opgevat worden als een situatie waarin een specifieke vorm van trekactivatie plaatsvindt waarbij persoonlijkheid de kans op besmetting met het COVID-19 virus kan beïnvloeden. In dit onderzoek wordt gekeken naar de relatie tussen HEXACO persoonlijkheid en COVID-19 vermijdingsgedrag, dat wil zeggen het omgaan met de bedreiging die uitgaat van de pandemie en de mate waarin men zich schikt naar de COVID-19 gedragsregels. Daarnaast wordt gekeken in hoeverre COVID-19 vermijdingsgedrag een relatie heeft met een toename in thuiswerken. In een gestratificeerde Nederlandse steekproef van 932 volwassenen (waarvan N = 526 werkten) in september 2020 werd gevonden dat – naast leeftijd – hoge emotionaliteit en consciëntieusheid en lage extraversie de voornaamste unieke persoonlijkheidsvoorspellers van COVID-19 vermijdingsgedrag waren. Daarnaast voorspelden een selectie van zes facetten (angstigheid, sociabiliteit, ijver, weetgierigheid, onconventionaliteit en proactiviteit) COVID-19 vermijdingsgedrag beter dan de HEXACO domeinschalen. De belangrijkste voorspellers van een toename in thuiswerken waren het hebben van een kantoorbaan en een hoge opleiding. Het onderzoek maakt duidelijk dat individuele verschillen een grote rol spelen in hoe men omgaat met de pandemie, maar dat verschillen in opleiding en type baan het meest bepalend zijn voor de mate waarin men is gaan thuiswerken.

Do Early Life Experiences Predict Variation in the General Factor of Personality (GFP)?

Objective

The controversial General Factor of Personality (GFP) has been proposed as an indicator of social effectiveness and a slower life history strategy. An alternative hypothesis holds that only meta-trait alpha, comprising agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, is a slow life history indicator. This study tested whether the GFP and/or alpha emerges from both self- and stranger-ratings, and whether either is predicted by indicators of harsh childhood ecologies.

Methods

U.S. undergraduate participants (N = 366) completed a Big Five instrument, a measure of socially desirable response bias, and brief (thin slice) videotaped interviews. Raters scored the interviews using the same Big Five instrument.

Results

Structural equation modeling of the self-report data yielded a well-fitting GFP, which was positively associated with father closeness. Meta-trait alpha, based on self-report, was associated with both father closeness and neighborhood stress, but showed positive loadings only for agreeableness and emotional stability. Stranger-rating data failed to yield either a well-fitting GFP or metatrait alpha.

Conclusions

Our findings are equivocal regarding the usefulness of the GFP specifically, and higher-order personality factors generally, in evolutionary personality science.

On the relations between HEXACO agreeableness (versus anger) and honesty-humility

The HEXACO personality factors of Agreeableness-versus-Anger (A) and Honesty-Humility (H) are interpreted as two complementary aspects of reciprocal altruistic tendency. Here we consider several ways of representing the positive associations between the defining traits of A and of H, through common factor analysis of self-report HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) facet scale scores (N ≈ 111,000). We describe orthogonal solutions that differ in the extent to which H facets show secondary loadings on A (and vice versa), as well as an oblique solution compatible with a higher-order "cooperativeness" factor. We discuss the psychological plausibility of these solutions, and we review research showing differential associations of several phenomena or outcomes with A and H. We conclude that the optimal representation of A/H trait associations is not yet known but that the value of separate A and H factor scales is well established.

The dispositional basis of human prosociality

Individual differences in prosocial behavior have been consistently observed in a variety of contexts. Here, we summarize and critically discuss recent developments in two research agendas on the dispositional basis of human prosociality: a personality approach, proposing a variety of trait concepts and corresponding measures to predict prosocial behavior in different situations; and a behavioral consistency approach, testing for consistency in prosocial behaviors and its underlying latent disposition(s) across situations. Drawing on different properties of situations (so-called situational affordances), we outline a theoretical framework that can help integrate these so far hardly connected research agendas. We also point out limitations of prior research, such as a lack of theory, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them.

Prosociality Beyond Big Five Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility: Is Openness/Intellect Associated With Cooperativeness in the Public Goods Game?

Who is cooperative? Although Big Five (B5) Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility are correlates of charitable prosociality, distinctions between “charity” and “cooperation” suggest that additional traits could be associated with cooperative prosociality. Echoing prior theoretical and empirical indications that B5 Openness/Intellect may play a role in cooperation, Study 1 ( N = 119; exploratory) revealed a significant correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperativeness in the one-shot Public Goods Game that did not generalize to charitableness in the Dictator Game. We therefore conducted three preregistered replications to discern the robustness of this Openness/Intellect–cooperativeness link. As expected, Openness/Intellect showed no consistent correlation with charitable behavior. Surprisingly, the predicted correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behavior was also inconsistent, partially replicating in Study 3 ( N = 304) but not Studies 2 or 4 ( Ns = 131; 552). Across our replications, cooperative behavior was most strongly correlated with Honesty-Humility (internal meta-analytic [Formula: see text] = .15, p = .005). The correlation between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behavior across our replications was significant and identical in magnitude to that between Agreeableness and cooperative behavior, though this effect-size was weak (internal meta-analytic [Formula: see text] = .08, p < .001). We therefore conclude that Openness/Intellect is a nonnull but very modest correlate of cooperativeness.

Relations between HEXACO personality and ideology variables are mostly genetic in nature

Existing work indicates that socio-political attitudes (or: ideology) are associated with personality, with Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism relating most strongly to honesty-humility and openness to experience, the two value-related domains of the HEXACO framework. Using a sample of 7067 twins and siblings of twins (including 1376 complete twin pairs), we examined the degree to which these relations arise from common genetic and environmental sources. Heritability estimates for the HEXACO personality and ideology variables ranged from .34 to .58. Environmental factors shared by twins reared together showed negligible effects on individual differences in personality and ideology. At the phenotypic level, Social Dominance Orientation and Right-Wing Authoritarianism dimensions related most strongly to honesty-humility and openness to experience. These associations were mostly explained by genetic factors (48%–93%). Genetic correlations between openness to experience and the ideology scales ranged from –.29 to –.53; those between honesty-humility and the ideology scales ranged from –.31 to –.43. None of the environmental correlations exceeded | r| = .18. These results suggest that the relations between the two value-related domains of the HEXACO personality model and ideology are mostly genetic in nature, and that there is substantial overlap in the heritable components of personality and ideology.

HEXACO personality correlates of adolescents' involvement in bullying situations

Adolescents' involvement in bullying situations is—at least partially—personality trait‐activated. Although some studies investigated personality correlates of bullying and being victimized, little is known about personality correlates of bystander responses (i.e., reinforcing, outsider behavior, indirect defending, and direct defending). The present study investigated whether Dutch adolescents' self‐reported HEXACO personality traits could explain their peer‐reported involvement in bullying (N = 552; M_age = 13.4 years, SD = 0.8 years). The results show that bullying was negatively related to honesty‐humility, emotionality, agreeableness (for boys specifically), and openness, whereas reinforcing was only negatively related to honesty‐humility and openness. Conversely, direct defending and outsider behavior were positively related to honesty‐humility, emotionality, and openness, whereas indirect defending was only positively related to emotionality and openness. Furthermore, reinforcing was positively related to extraversion (for boys only), whereas outsider behavior was negatively related extraversion and positively to conscientiousness. Finally, being victimized was positively related to emotionality and negatively to extraversion. These findings contribute to our understanding of the heterogeneity in adolescents' involvement in bullying and fit the view of bullying and defending as strategic and goal‐directed behavior. Implications for bullying prevention programs are discussed.

Selection effects on dishonest behavior

In many situations people behave ethically, while elsewhere dishonesty reigns. Studies of the determinants of unethical behavior often use random assignment of participants in various conditions to identify contextual or psychological factors influencing dishonesty. However, in many real-world contexts, people deliberately choose or avoid specific environments. In three experiments (total N = 2,124) enabling self-selection of participants in two similar tasks, one of which allowed for cheating, we found that participants who chose the task where they could lie for financial gain reported a higher number of correct predictions than those who were assigned it at random. Introduction of financial costs for entering the cheating-allowing task led to a decrease in interest in the task; however, it also led to more intense cheating. An intervention aimed to discourage participants from choosing the cheating-enabling environment based on social norm information did not have the expected effect; on the contrary, it backfired. In summary, the results suggest that people low in moral character are likely to eventually dominate cheating-enabling environments, where they then cheat extensively. Interventions trying to limit the preference of this environment may not have the expected effect as they could lead to the selection of the worst fraudsters.

Construct and Predictive Validity of an Assessment Game to Measure Honesty-Humility

Research on commercial computer games has demonstrated that in-game behavior is related to the players’ personality profiles. However, this potential has not yet been fully utilized for personality assessments. Hence, we developed an applied (i.e., serious) assessment game to assess the Honesty–Humility personality trait. In two studies, we demonstrate that this game adequately assesses Honesty–Humility. In Study 1 (N = 116), we demonstrate convergent validity of the assessment game with self-reported Honesty–Humility and divergent validity with the other HEXACO traits and cognitive ability. In Study 2 (N = 287), we replicate the findings from Study 1, and also demonstrate that the assessment game shows incremental validity—beyond self-reported personality—in the prediction of cheating for financial gain, but not of counterproductive work and unethical behaviors. The findings demonstrate that assessment games are promising tools for personality measurement in applied contexts.

The Circumplex of Personality Metatraits and the HEXACO model: Toward refinement and integration

OBJECTIVE

There is a considerable body of evidence from the last 20 years, indicating the need for the reconceptualization of the highest level of the personality structure that the Big Five/Five-Factor Model (FFM) was assumed to occupy. The main goal of the presented study was to test the relationships between two models that have been developed in this respect: The Circumplex of Personality Metatraits (CPM), based on the higher-order factors of the Big Five, and the HEXACO model including a sixth basic personality dimension (Honesty-Humility).

METHOD

The sample consisted of 500 respondents (56.8% females; M_age = 31.9, SD_age  = 14.0), all of whom completed the CPM, HEXACO, and FFM measures.

RESULTS

The results corroborated the expectation that the HEXACO model can be coherently located within the CPM model, despite the latter is rooted in the FFM research tradition. However, this substantial integration has been made possible by a relatively slight but crucial modification of the CPM, already suggested by previous research.

CONCLUSION

After the modification, which concerned the location of the Neuroticism/Emotional stability trait, the CPM enables a comprehensive integration of major models of personality structure encompassing the Two-Factor Model, the FFM, and the HEXACO.

Sometimes hot, sometimes not: the relations between selected situational vocational interests and situation perception

Vocational interests are traditionally conceived as stable preferences for different activities. However, recent theorizing suggests their intraindividual variability. This preregistered experience sampling study examined intraindividual variation in selected vocational interests states and related situation and person factors ( N = 237). Results indicate that the three interest dimensions Investigative, Artistic, and Social interests did vary intraindividually but less so than other phenomena’s dimensions (e.g., personality and happiness). At the within-person level, the focused interest states were related to specific situation characteristics, also after controlling for related personality dimensions and happiness. These relations were either specified a priori, based on the concept of congruence or person-environment fit, and tested in a strictly confirmatory manner, or identified using a more exploratory approach. Furthermore, aggregated states of the three selected interest dimensions mainly varied below their corresponding trait levels. This suggests that interest trait levels could represent an upper limit for aggregated interest states that could be due to method-related or construct-related reasons. The results demonstrate the situational character of interests and provide novel approaches for studying vocational interest in daily life.

Behavioral Immune Trade-Offs: Interpersonal Value Relaxes Social Pathogen Avoidance

Behavioral-immune-system research has illuminated how people detect and avoid signs of infectious disease. But how do we regulate exposure to pathogens that produce no symptoms in their hosts? This research tested the proposition that estimates of interpersonal value are used for this task. The results of three studies (N = 1,694), each conducted using U.S. samples, are consistent with this proposition: People are less averse to engaging in infection-risky acts not only with friends relative to foes but also with honest and agreeable strangers relative to dishonest and disagreeable ones. Further, a continuous measure of how much a person values a target covaries with comfort with infection-risky acts with that target, even within relationship categories. Findings indicate that social prophylactic motivations arise not only from cues to infectiousness but also from interpersonal value. Consequently, pathogen transmission within social networks might be exacerbated by relaxed contamination aversions with highly valued social partners.

The Nomological Net of the HEXACO Model of Personality: A Large-Scale Meta-Analytic Investigation

Based on lexical studies, the HEXACO (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) model of personality has been proposed as a model of basic personality structure that summarizes individual differences in six broad trait dimensions. Although research across various fields relies on the HEXACO model increasingly, a comprehensive investigation of the nomological net of the HEXACO dimensions is missing entirely. Thus, it remains unclear whether each HEXACO dimension accounts for individual variation across theoretically relevant outcome criteria. We close this gap through a large-scale meta-analytic investigation, testing whether each HEXACO dimension is uniquely linked to one broad and theoretically relevant outcome domain. Results from 426 individual meta-analyses, 436 independent samples, and 3,893 effect-size estimates corroborate this unique mapping. Specifically, honesty-humility maps onto the outcome domain of exploitation, emotionality onto insecurity, extraversion onto sociality, agreeableness versus anger onto obstruction, conscientiousness onto duty, and openness to experience onto exploration. Overall, the current investigation provides a comprehensive empirical test of the (breadth of) content captured by the HEXACO dimensions and allows for a broad specification of the nomological net of the HEXACO model overall.

Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure

The covariance structure of personality traits derived from statistical models (for example, Big Five) is often assumed to be a human universal. Cross-cultural studies have challenged this view, finding that less-complex societies exhibit stronger covariation among behavioural characteristics, resulting in fewer derived personality factors. To explain these results, we propose the niche diversity hypothesis, in which a greater diversity of social and ecological niches elicits a broader range of multivariate behavioural profiles and, hence, lower trait covariance in a population. We formalize this as a computational model, which reproduces empirical results from recent cross-cultural studies and also yields an additional prediction for which we find empirical support. This work provides a general explanation for population differences in personality structure in both humans and other animals and suggests a substantial reimagining of personality research: instead of reifying statistical descriptions of manifest personality structures, research should focus more on modelling their underlying causes.

Gamified Personality Assessment

Abstract. Unobtrusive behavioral cues of personality traits can be found in physical and virtual environments (e.g., office environments and social media profiles), but detecting and coding such cues are a painstaking effort, and therefore impractical for research purposes. Measuring people’s choices in a virtual, gamified environment may offer a suitable substitute. It is currently unknown whether Honesty-Humility can also be assessed in a virtual environment. In two studies, we demonstrate that Honesty-Humility can be inferred with at least modest validity from virtual behavior cues. In a third study, we tested the fakeability of the virtual cues. This study found that even under faking instructions the virtual cues were related to Honesty-Humility, however, the virtual cues were just as fakeable as self-reported Honesty-Humility. Our results imply that virtual cues can be incorporated in serious games to measure personality. Future research may investigate whether the identified virtual cues are able to predict important Honesty-Humility related outcomes.

Why do people vary in disgust?

People vary in the degree to which they experience disgust toward—and, consequently, avoid—cues to pathogens. Prodigious work has measured this variation and observed that it relates to, among other things, personality, psychopathological tendencies, and moral and political sentiments. Less work has sought to generate hypotheses aimed at explaining why this variation exists in the first place, and even less work has evaluated how well data support these hypotheses. In this paper, we present and review the evidence supporting three such proposals. First, researchers have suggested that variability reflects a general tendency to experience anxiety or emotional distress. Second, researchers have suggested that variability arises from parental modelling, with offspring calibrating their pathogen avoidance based on their parents' reactions to pathogen cues. Third, researchers have suggested that individuals calibrate their disgust sensitivity to the parasite stress of the ecology in which they develop. We conclude that none of these hypotheses is supported by existing data, and we propose directions for future research aimed at better understanding this variation.

This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Evolution of pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours’.

The Influence of Competition on Motivation to Fake in Employment Interviews

Abstract. Many applicants fake, or intentionally misrepresent information, in employment interviews. Recent theories of faking propose that applicants may fake more when there are situational cues that signal intense competition for the job. We tested this proposition by manipulating the number of competitors and selection ratio in selection scenarios, and assessed individuals’ faking intentions. We also examined whether Honesty-Humility moderated the relation between competition and faking intentions. Hypotheses were tested using a between-subjects study with 775 participants. Results show that faking intentions increased with few competitors and a small selection ratio. Honesty-Humility did not moderate the relation between competition and faking intentions. Findings support competition as a situational predictor of faking intentions, lending support to models of faking.

Invited review: Examining farmers' personalities and attitudes as possible risk factors for dairy cattle health, welfare, productivity, and farm management: A systematic scoping review

We aimed to determine how research regarding farmers' personalities and attitudes as risk factors is reported (methodological approaches to assessing, extracting, and processing data and analyzing risk factors) and to explore evidence for the effect of farmers' attitudes and personalities on dairy cattle health, welfare, productivity, and management. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review of studies on personality and attitude as risk factors for dairy cattle health, welfare, productivity, and farm management. Database searches captured 1,144 records, and 38 were finally included in the review. Thirty-three manuscripts assessed farmers' attitudes, 1 assessed their personalities, and 4 assessed both as risk factors. These potential risk factors were checked for relationships with more than 50 different outcome variables regarding farm management (17 manuscripts), animal health (13 manuscripts), animal productivity (11 manuscripts), and animal welfare (4 manuscripts). The approaches to assessing risk factors and processing and interpreting data varied greatly; thus, drawing conclusions regarding the effects of attitude and personality as risk factors is impeded because manuscripts are difficult to compare. Our findings highlight the need for harmonization of attitudes and personality assessments in future research. Furthermore, researchers should carefully consider which depth of detail to apply when planning and evaluating related research. Nevertheless, results highlight the importance of the effect of personality and attitude on outcomes. Farmers' personality and attitudes are associated with dairy cattle health, welfare, productivity, and management. In general, attitudes indicating higher degrees of technical knowledge, affection with problems, perceived responsibility, perception of control of a situation, a better human-animal relationship, or a positive evaluation of the benefits of management decisions tended to affect outcomes in a beneficial way. "Agreeableness" and "conscientiousness" were shown to promote better farm performance, whereas "neuroticism" had a negative effect. Therefore, further research on attitude and personality and their consideration by professionals and decision-makers within the dairy sector and politics is strongly recommended. This might provide the chance to better understand the needs of dairy farmers and therefore develop tailored advice and support strategies to improve both satisfactory and constructive cooperation.

The Enriching Interplay between Openness and Interest: A Theoretical Elaboration of the OFCI Model and a First Empirical Test

The Openness-Fluid-Crystallized-Intelligence (OFCI) model posits long-term relations between Openness and cognitive abilities and has been successfully tested with longitudinal data. However, research on the developmental interplay between cognitive abilities and personality exists only sparsely. The current paper focuses on a theoretical development of the OFCI model which suggests micro-level mechanisms underlying the long-term development. Specifically, within-situation relations between Openness, interests, situational perception, cognitive abilities, and emotions are proposed to explain longitudinal relations between Openness and cognitive abilities. Using experience sampling, selected parts of this elaboration were empirically scrutinized in a first test of the proposed ideas. Openness and specific interest both varied substantially across situations and covaried systematically. In interaction with an indicator of fluid intelligence, this covariation was related to an indicator of crystallized intelligence. The paper contributes to theorizing the intertwined development of personality and cognitive abilities, and highlights the importance of within-situation research for explaining long-term development.

Associations between psychometrically assessed life history strategy and daily behavior: data from the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)

Life history theory has generated cogent, well-supported hypotheses about individual differences in human biodemographic traits (e.g., age at sexual maturity) and psychometric traits (e.g., conscientiousness), but little is known about how variation in life history strategy (LHS) is manifest in quotidian human behavior. Here I test predicted associations between the self-report Arizona Life History Battery and frequencies of 12 behaviors observed over 72 h in 91 US college students using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), a method of gathering periodic brief audio recordings as participants go about their daily lives. Bayesian multi-level aggregated binomial regression analysis found no strong associations between ALHB scores and behavior frequencies. One behavior, presence at amusement venues (bars, concerts, sports events) was weakly positively associated with ALHB-assessed slow LHS, contrary to prediction. These results may represent a challenge to the ALHB's validity. However, it remains possible that situational influences on behavior, which were not measured in the present study, moderate the relationships between psychometrically-assessed LHS and quotidian behavior.