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We estimated the degree to which language used in the high-profile medical/public health/epidemiology literature implied causality using language linking exposures to outcomes and action recommendations; examined disconnects between language and recommendations; identified the most common linking phrases; and estimated how strongly linking phrases imply causality. We searched for and screened 1,170 articles from 18 high-profile journals (65 per journal) published from 2010-2019. Based on written framing and systematic guidance, 3 reviewers rated the degree of causality implied in abstracts and full text for exposure/outcome linking language and action recommendations. Reviewers rated the causal implication of exposure/outcome linking language as none (no causal implication) in 13.8%, weak in 34.2%, moderate in 33.2%, and strong in 18.7% of abstracts. The implied causality of action recommendations was higher than the implied causality of linking sentences for 44.5% or commensurate for 40.3% of articles. The most common linking word in abstracts was "associate" (45.7%). Reviewers' ratings of linking word roots were highly heterogeneous; over half of reviewers rated "association" as having at least some causal implication. This research undercuts the assumption that avoiding "causal" words leads to clarity of interpretation in medical research.

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.

Objective Method Results Conclusions Entringer et al. used longitudinal data from a German panel study to examine reciprocal causal effects between personality and religiosity, along with cultural moderators of these effects. The current paper examines the robustness of the original effects to alternative model specifications.We reanalyzed the same four‐wave data spanning 12 years (total N = 46,316), first replicating the original cross‐lagged panel analyses and then extending these analyses in three ways: Using a random‐intercept cross‐lagged panel model, using observed rather than latent variables, and modeling each trait individually rather than simultaneously.Correlations between personality and religiosity were all small in size, even when aggregating over 12 years. Lagged effects were very small, and none was robust across all model specifications. Cultural moderators also depended on model specifications.The very small size of these reciprocal effects, along with their sensitivity to model specifications, suggest that conclusions about causal effects of personality and religiosity should be drawn very cautiously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replication crisis and subsequent credibility revolution in psychology have highlighted many suboptimal research practices such as p‐hacking, overgeneralizing, and a lack of transparency. These practices may have been employed reflexively but upon reflection, they are hard to defend. We suggest that current practices for reporting and discussing study limitations are another example of an area where there is much room for improvement. In this article, we call for more rigorous reporting of study limitations in social and personality psychology articles, and we offer advice for how to do this. We recommend that authors consider what the best argument is against their conclusions (which we call the "steel‐person principle"). We consider limitations as threats to construct, internal, external, and statistical conclusion validity (Shadish et al., 2002), and offer some examples for better practice reporting of common study limitations. Our advice has its own limitations — both our representation of current practices and our recommendations are largely based on our own metaresearch and opinions. Nevertheless, we hope that we can prompt researchers to write more deeply and clearly about the limitations of their research, and to hold each other to higher standards when reviewing each other's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does personality change when people get older? Numerous studies have investigated this question, overall supporting the idea of so-called personality maturation. However, heterogeneous findings have left open questions, such as whether maturation continues in old age and how large the effects are. We suggest that the heterogeneity is partly rooted in methodological issues. First, studies may have failed to recover age effects as they did not stringently separate within-person changes from confounding between-person differences. Second, items supposedly belonging to the same trait may show different individual trajectories, thus rendering results sensitive to the specific set of items used. We analyzed panel data from Australia (N = 15,268; Study 1), Germany (N = 22,833; Study 2), and the Netherlands (N = 10,163; Study 3) to investigate age trends in the Big Five on the levels of both scores and items. We applied a fixed effects approach that incorporates only within-person changes over time. Developmental trends in the Big Five scores were generally moderate to large and broadly confirmed personality maturation at younger ages. At older ages, maturation consistently continued for Neuroticism, whereas we found mixed evidence for such changes in Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. Furthermore, in each study, individual items showed age trends that diverged from the rest of the corresponding trait, and these differential patterns could be partly replicated across the three studies. Our results highlight the importance of items in the study of personality development and provide an explanation for previously unaccounted for variability in age trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personality trait neuroticism is tightly linked to mental health, and neurotic people experience stronger negative emotions in everyday life. But, do their negative emotions also show greater fluctuation? This commonsensical notion was recently questioned by [Kalokerinos et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112, 15838-15843 (2020)], who suggested that the associations found in previous studies were spurious. Less neurotic people often report very low levels of negative emotion, which is usually measured with bounded rating scales. Therefore, they often pick the lowest possible response option, which severely constrains the amount of emotional variability that can be observed in principle. Applying a multistep statistical procedure that is supposed to correct for this dependency, [Kalokerinos et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112, 15838-15843 (2020)] no longer found an association between neuroticism and emotional variability. However, like other common approaches for controlling for undesirable effects due to bounded scales, this method is opaque with respect to the assumed mechanism of data generation and might not result in a successful correction. We thus suggest an alternative approach that a) takes into account that emotional states outside of the scale bounds can occur and b) models associations between neuroticism and both the mean and variability of emotion in a single step with the help of Bayesian censored location-scale models. Simulations supported this model over alternative approaches. We analyzed 13 longitudinal datasets (2,518 individuals and 11,170 measurements in total) and found clear evidence that more neurotic people experience greater variability in negative emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]