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Social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills comprise a broad set of abilities that are essential for building and maintaining relationships, regulating emotions, selecting and pursuing goals, or exploring novel stimuli. Toward an improved SEB skill assessment, Soto and colleagues recently introduced the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI). Measuring 32 facets from 5 domains with 192 items (assessment duration: [approximately]15 min), BESSI constitutes the most extensive SEB inventory to date. However, so far, BESSI exists only in English. In three studies, we comprehensively validated a novel German-language adaptation, BESSI-G. Moreover, we expanded evidence on BESSI in three ways by (1) assessing the psychometric properties of the 32 individual skill facets, in addition to their domain-level structure; (2) providing first insights into the temporal stabilities of the 32 facets over 1.5 and 8 months; and (3) investigating the domains' and facets' associations with intelligence, in addition to personality traits. Results show that BESSI-G exhibits good psychometric properties (unidimensionality, reliability, factorial validity). Its domain-level structure is highly similar to that of the English-language source version. The facets show high temporal stabilities, convergent validity with personality traits, and discriminant validity with fluid and crystallized intelligence. We discuss implications for research on SEB skills.

Providing a valid and reliable measure of conscientiousness constitutes a worthwhile endeavor to allow research and intervention in Brazil. This study aimed to adapt the Chernyshenko Conscientiousness Scales (CCS) into Brazilian Portuguese, evaluate their psychometric properties, and investigate the relationship between conscientiousness and academic involvement, taking into account the possible confound effect of subjective well-being (SWB). Two samples were studied to cross-validate the CCS's internal structure. Participants were university students (N1 = 332, N2 = 684) who answered the CCS and measures of SWB and academic involvement. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the CCS presented a five-factor solution corresponding to the previously replicated facets of industriousness, orderliness, self-control, traditionalism, and virtue. Most facets related positively to life satisfaction, positive affect, and involvement in academic activities, and negatively to negative affect. A structural model indicated strong associations of conscientiousness with SWB and academic engagement, suggesting more conscious students are happier and engage more in academic tasks. These results support the use of the CCS in Brazil. Trial registration number and date of registration 32732820.6.0000.5334, July 8th, 2020., Author(s): Amanda M. Rocha [sup.1] , Cristian Zanon [sup.1] , Brent W. Roberts [sup.2] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.8532.c, 0000 0001 2200 7498, Department of Developmental Psychology and Personality, Universidade [...]

Why does conscientiousness matter for education? How is conscientiousness conceptualized in the field of research on education? How do socio-emotional (SE) skills relate to conscientiousness? In an effort to help answer these questions, we review the current research on conscientiousness in education. Specifically, we examine (1) how conscientiousness is defined, (2) the assessment of conscientiousness, (3) the relation between conscientiousness and educational outcomes, (4) whether too much conscientiousness may be a bad thing, (5) the relation between conscientiousness and conceptually related educational constructs, (6) the changeability of conscientiousness and the importance of that fact to education, and (7) the challenges of assessing conscientiousness across cultures.

Emerging from faculty collaboration across disciplines, the four-stage Field Immersion Framework (FIF) marries place-based experiential learning with civic engagement to promote important transformative learning outcomes such as shifts in Worldview, Self, Epistemology, Ontology, Behavior, and Capacity. To support those outcomes, we developed this adaptable pedagogical framework for immersive courses that cultivate shared inquiry by faculty and students while fostering civic agency. The FIF positions students as explorers in communities grappling with important, unresolved issues and facilitates deep learning in the affective domain. Immersing students in the field as they experience civic issues is an emancipatory opportunity for many students, particularly those bound by geography or digital screens. We detail the FIF's grounding in learning theory and provide examples of its implementation in varied courses and geographic settings.

The association between personality traits and motivational units, such as life goals, has been a long-standing interest of personality scientists. However, little research has investigated the longitudinal associations between traits and life goals beyond young adulthood. In the present study (N = 251), we examined the rank-order stability of, and mean-level changes in, the Big Five and major life goals (Aesthetic, Economic, Family/Relationship, Hedonistic, Political, Religious, Social) from college (age 18) to midlife (age 40), as well as their co-development. Findings showed that personality traits and major life goals were both moderately-to-highly stable over 20 years. On average, there were mean-level increases in the Big Five and mean-level decreases in life goals over time. Patterns of co-development suggest people formulate goals consistent with their personality traits, and conversely, investing in goal-relevant contexts is associated with trait change. We discuss the results in light of Social Investment Theory and the developmental regulation literature.

Personality is not the most popular subfield of psychology. But, in one way or another, personality psychologists have played an outsized role in the ongoing credibility revolution in psychology. Not only have individual personality psychologists taken on visible roles in the movement, but our fields practices and norms have now become models for other fields to emulate (or, for those who share Baumeisters (2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.02.003) skeptical view of the consequences of increasing rigor, a model for what to avoid). In this article we discuss some unique features of our field that may have placed us in an ideal position to be leaders in this movement. We do so from a subjective perspective, describing our impressions and opinions about possible explanations for personality psychologys disproportionate role in the credibility revolution. We also discuss some ways in which personality psychology remains less-than-optimal, and how we can address these flaws.

To date, there have been no long-term longitudinal studies of continuity and change in narcissism. This study investigated rank-order consistency and mean-level changes in overall narcissism and 3 of its facets (leadership, vanity, and entitlement) over a 23-year period spanning young adulthood (Mage = 18, N = 486) to midlife (Mage = 41, N = 237). We also investigated whether life experiences predicted changes in narcissism from young adulthood to midlife, and whether young adult narcissism predicted life experiences assessed in midlife. Narcissism and its facets showed strong rank-order consistency from age 18 to 41, with latent correlations ranging from .61 to .85. We found mean-level decreases in overall narcissism (d = -0.79) and all 3 facets, namely leadership (d = -0.67), vanity (d = -0.46), and entitlement (d = -0.82). Participants who were in supervisory positions showed smaller decreases in leadership, and participants who experienced more unstable relationships and who were physically healthier showed smaller decreases in vanity from young adulthood to middle age. Analyses of the long-term correlates of narcissism showed that young adults with higher narcissism and leadership levels were more likely to be in supervisory positions in middle age. Young adults with higher vanity levels had fewer children and were more likely to divorce by middle age. Together, the findings suggest that people tend to become less narcissistic from young adulthood to middle age, and the magnitude of this decline is related to the particular career and family pathways a person pursues during this stage of life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

McCrae (2020) argues that it is premature to explore interventions focused on personality change. In his commentary, he suggests that interventions should be promoted only if their effects in self-report data are confirmed by the additional opinion of informants. We agree with the essence of his position and would go further by envisioning a new framework for rigorous collaborative research on personality change (Bleidorn et al., 2020). We nevertheless maintain that policymakers would benefit from considering the additional opinion of personality scientists. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The importance of personality for predicting life outcomes in the domains of love, work, and health is well established, as is evidence that personality traits, while relatively stable, can change. However, little is known about the sources and processes that drive changes in personality traits and how such changes might impact important life outcomes. In this paper, we make the case that the research paradigms and methodological approaches commonly used in personality psychology need to be revised to advance our understanding of the sources and processes of personality change. We propose Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies as a framework for studying personality change that can address the limitations of current methods, and we discuss strategies for overcoming some of the challenges associated with Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology.

Personality traits are powerful predictors of outcomes in the domains of education, work, relationships, health, and well-being. The recognized importance of personality traits has raised questions about their policy relevance, that is, their potential to inform policy actions designed to improve human welfare. Traditionally, the use of personality traits in applied settings has been predicated on their ability to predict valued outcomes, typically under the assumption that traits are functionally unchanging. This assumption, however, is both untrue and a limiting factor on using personality traits more widely in applied settings. In this article, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions. Though trait change will likely prove a more difficult target than typical targets in applied interventions, it also may be a more fruitful one given the variety of life domains affected by personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Personality traits and social cognitive variables are central constructs in psychological research. It is often assumed that personality traits are less changeable than social cognitive variables, and thus interventions usually tend to focus on the latter. However, these assumptions about the mutability of personality and social cognitive variables have never been tested side-by-side in a longitudinal study. Using a large longitudinal study with four time points and N = 3,876 students in 136 classes (99 schools), we compared the mutability of the Big Five personality traits and social cognitive constructs more often described as socioemotional skills or motivational variables (individual interest, self-concept, and academic effort in the school subjects math, English, and German). The results indicated that there are no marked differences between personality traits and social cognitive constructs across multiple indicators of stability or changeability.

Social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills encompass a broad range of interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities that are crucial for establishing and maintaining relationships, managing emotions, setting and pursuing goals, and exploring new learning opportunities. To address the lack of consensus regarding terminology, definition, and assessment of SEB skills, Soto et al. developed the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI), which consists of 192 items, 32 facets, and 5 domains. The objective of the current study was to adapt the BESSI to Spanish (referred to as BESSI-Sp) and enhance the overall understanding of the BESSI framework. A sample of 303 people was employed with a mean age of 30.35 years (SD = 14.73), ranging from 18 to 85 years. The results indicate that the BESSI-Sp demonstrates strong psychometric properties. Its facet- and domain-level structure aligns with the theoretical expectations and closely resembles the English-language source version. The facets exhibit high reliability (mean ω =.89), and the scores demonstrate adequate stability after 3 to 4 weeks (mean rICC =.77). The BESSI-Sp also displays evidence of convergent validity and integrates well with the Big Five framework, providing incremental validity for various outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the assessment of SEB skills and future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are recent cohorts of college students more narcissistic than their predecessors? To address debates about the so-called "narcissism epidemic," we used data from three cohorts of students (1990s: N = 1,166; 2000s: N = 33,647; 2010s: N = 25,412) to test whether narcissism levels (overall and specific facets) have increased across generations. We also tested whether our measure, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), showed measurement equivalence across the three cohorts, a critical analysis that had been overlooked in prior research. We found that several NPI items were not equivalent across cohorts. Models accounting for nonequivalence of these items indicated a small decline in overall narcissism levels from the 1990s to the 2010s ( d = -0.27). At the facet level, leadership ( d = -0.20), vanity ( d = -0.16), and entitlement ( d = -0.28) all showed decreases. Our results contradict the claim that recent cohorts of college students are more narcissistic than earlier generations of college students.

We evaluated how the number of response options affects the psychometric properties of the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2). Using two large samples collected from a market research company (N s = 893 and 1,213), we tested how different response options of the BFI-2 influenced scale score distributions, internal consistency estimates, convergent validity correlations, and criterion validity correlations. Results suggest that score distributions were impacted by the number of response options such that ceiling and floor effects were more common when using two or three response options than when using more options. Estimates of Cronbach's alpha were generally lower with fewer scale points as compared with more scale points, but these effects disappeared when ordinal alpha was used. There were no systematic effects of response options on convergent validity and criterion validity correlations. Given these results, there seems to be few psychometric reasons for deciding whether to administer personality items with five, six, or seven scale points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conscientiousness (C) of the self and significant others influences health by way of mediational chains involving socioeconomic attainment, the avoidance and neutralization of stressors, the promotion of health behaviors and the minimization of risk behaviors, and the management of symptoms and diseases. Yet, meta-analyses reveal that these associations are moderated by factors that are not well understood. We propose the Life Course of Personality Model (LCP Model), which comprises a series of hypotheses that suggest how such mediational chains are subject to 2 sources of contingency. First, the mechanisms by which C translates into health and the avoidance of risk change from early childhood to late adulthood, involving processes that are specific to phases of the life course; also, however, C influences health by way of continuous processes extending over many decades of life. Second, C may be more consequential in some social contexts than in others, and when accompanied by some constellations of personality characteristics than by others. That is, the mediational processes by which C translates into health and the avoidance of disease are likely moderated by timing, social context (including the C of others), and other aspects of the individual's personality. We consider methodological implications of the LCP Model.

The present study examined the development of self-esteem in a sample of emerging adults (N = 295) followed longitudinally over 4 years of college. Six waves of self-esteem data were available. Participants also rated, at the end of their 4th year, the degree to which they thought their self-esteem had changed during college. Rank-order stability was high across all waves of data (Mdn disattenuated correlation = .87). On average, self-esteem levels dropped substantially during the 1st semester (d = -.68), rebounded by the end of the 1st year (d = .73), and then gradually increased over the next 3 years, producing a small (d = .16) but significant mean-level increase in self-esteem from the beginning to the end of college. Individuals who received good grades in college tended to show larger increases in self-esteem. In contrast, individuals who entered college with unrealistically high expectations about their academic achievement tended to show smaller increases in self-esteem, despite beginning college with relatively high self-esteem. With regard to perceived change, 67% reported that their self-esteem increased during college, whereas 12% reported that it declined; these perceptions tended to correspond with actual increases and decreases in their self-esteem scale scores (β = .56). Overall, the findings support the perspective that self-esteem, like other personality characteristics, can change in systematic ways while exhibiting continuity over time.

Recent intervention research has shown that personality traits can be modified through psychological interventions. However, it is unclear whether reported effects represent changes in the trait domain or only some facets or items. Using data (N = 552) from a recent intervention trial, the present study examined the effects of a digital-coaching intervention on self- and observer-reported personality facets and items. We focused on participants who wanted to decrease in Negative Emotionality, increase in Conscientiousness or increase in Extraversion. We used measurement invariance testing to examine which level of the trait domain hierarchy changed during the intervention. For the self-reports, we found some heterogeneity in the effects on all three trait domains, but most notably Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Specifically, participants reported to increase strongly on sociability (Extraversion), and moderately on productiveness and organization (Conscientiousness), but not on the other facets of these trait domains. Observers generally reported small but non-significant changes, with no scalar invariance violations except for Extraversion. Overall, this suggests considerable heterogeneity in intervention-related personality change that can be overlooked if only focusing on the trait domain level. We discuss the relevance of measurement invariance testing and measurement approaches for personality development and intervention research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First-generation college students (FGCS) face a myriad of sociocultural, financial, and emotional challenges that impact their educational journey. With less academic capital and lower odds of obtaining a bachelor's degree than their non-FGCS peers, understanding the factors affecting their academic success is pivotal for social work professionals aiming to provide tailored interventions and support systems. This study delved into the potential differences between these groups concerning physical activities, which are linked to learning, cognition, and overall well-being, and evaluated their influence on degree completion. A path model was developed to analyze the relationship between degree completion, physical activities, FGCS status, and background variables, using a sample of 1,625 participants. The model showed a strong fit (CFI = 0.979, RMSEA = 0.055, SRMR = 0.010) and accounted for 29.5% of the variance in degree completion. Walking to school was positively associated with degree attainment. FGCS status was associated with decreased walking to school, reduced degree completion, and increased walking for exercise. An indirect effect suggested that FGCS were less likely to achieve their degree, potentially due to a greater reliance on transportation like buses or cars. The findings emphasize the critical role of campus resources for FGCS. Enhancing access to fitness centers and offering affordable housing options nearer to campus may aid FGCSs' academic success. These insights can guide social work practices, highlighting the importance of environmental factors in the academic experiences of FGCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]