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In this introduction to the Journal of Personality special issue devoted to "Advances in Personality and Daily Experience" we attempt to trace recent progress in the study of personality and daily life. We begin by comparing and contrasting the methods of daily experience research adopted by investigators who authored empirical articles in the 1991 and current special issues according to the mode, schedule, and sampling frame for data collection. We then compare data analytic strategies across the 14 years between the two special issues and conclude that although the nature of the questions addressed has not changed dramatically, newer analytic methods and associated software have enhanced our ability to answer these questions more precisely. Finally, we provide an overview of the special issue contributions organized around three broad themes: personal vulnerabilities and resources that predict reactions to everyday events, interpersonal manifestations of personality in daily experience, and how personality in daily life affects physical and mental health and relates to disease risk.

A decade ago, Bolger and Zuckerman (1995) incorporated personality into the study of daily life events and psychological distress. Their approach put an entirely new cast on research and theorizing in this area. In their work, they focused on the predominantly negative personality trait of Neuroticism. In this article we extend their work to include theory and measurement of positive events and indicators of well-being. Integrating these research strands offers the possibility of a comprehensive yet highly sensitive and dynamic approach to the study of emotions, stress, and health in everyday life.

Comments on the article 'A Systems Framework for the Field of Personality,' by John D. Mayer, published in the April 1998 issue of the periodical 'Psychology Inquiry.' Definition, components, organization, and development of personality; Method repetition compulsion in double bind and learned helplessness research; Three compulsions of stress and coping research.

The discovery of benefits from living with adversity has been implicated in psychological well-being in numerous investigations, is pivotal to several prominent theories of cognitive adaptation to threat, and can be predicted by personality differences. This article summarizes the prevalence and adaptive significance of finding benefits from major medical problems, locates the place of benefit-finding in stress and coping theories, and examines how it may be shaped by specific psychological dispositions such as optimism and hope and by broader personality traits such as Extraversion and Openness to Experience. The distinction between beliefs about benefits from adversity (benefit-finding) and the use of such knowledge as a deliberate strategy of coping with the problem (benefit-reminding) is underscored and illustrated by daily process research on coping with chronic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One hundred fifty randomly selected articles published in Journal of Personality from 1970 to 1995 were evaluated with regard to subject population, sampling, research design, dependent measures, statistical methods, methodological difficulty, sample size, manipulation of independent variables (for experimental studies), use of manipulation checks, and gender representation of authors and participants. Our findings support Endler and Speer's (this issue) conclusion that the typical study in personality research continues to use a cross-sectional design, questionnaire measures, and undergraduate participants. Echoing West et al.'s (1992) findings for Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we found that whereas subject recruitment and design implementation appear to be less difficult than they were two decades ago, statistical analyses have become somewhat more complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personality and social psychological studies of depression and depressive phenomena have become more methodologically sophisticated in recent years. In response to earlier problems in this literature, investigators have formulated sound suggestions for research designs. Studies of depression published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) between 1988 and 1993 were reviewed to evaluate how well these recommendations have been followed. Forty-one articles were examined for adherence to 3 suggestions appearing consistently in the literature: (a) multiple assessment periods, (b) multiple assessment methods, and (c) appropriate comparison groups. The studies published in JPSP have not adhered well to these standards. The authors recommend resetting minimum methodological criteria for studies of depression published in the premier journal in personality and social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the concordance among daily, trait (global retrospective), and time-limited retrospective reports of coping. A sample of 93 adults completed the COPE (C. S. Carver, M. F. Scheier, & J. K. Weintraub, 1989) prior to recording coping with the day's most negative event for 30 consecutive days. At the end of daily data collection, participants recalled to what extent they used each of 16 coping strategies over the past 30 days. Whereas findings indicate generally good concordance between daily and time-limited retrospective reports, concordance between global and daily reports was weak. Only limited evidence was found for systematic individual differences in concordance. Time-limited reports appear to be an adequate, though not ideal, method of determining usual patterns of coping with stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]