Suchergebnisse

Interessen werden meist aus einer Trait- oder State-Perspektive beforscht. Erst kürzlich wurden die beiden Perspektiven in einem theoretischen Modell integriert (Su et al., 2019), das postuliert, dass sich Interesse-Traits als intraindividuell variierende States manifestieren. Aufbauend auf dieses Modell untersucht die vorgelegte Dissertation Interessen anhand der wichtigsten Taxonomie für Interesse-Traits—Hollands (1997) Taxonomie beruflicher Interessen. Das Ziel dieser Dissertation ist zu untersuchen, ob und wie sich Berufsinteresse-Traits als States im Alltag manifestieren. Kernstück dieser Arbeit bilden zwei präregistrierte Experience Sampling Studien. Sie werden mit einem Literaturüberblick zu Interesse-Traits und -States eingeleitet sowie der Identifizierung von zwei Forschungszielen: Die Untersuchung (1) der Natur alltäglicher Manifestationen von Interesse-Traits und (2) der Korrelate von Interesse-States. Beide Studien verfolgten diese zwei Forschungsziele. Zentrale Ergebnisse waren, dass (1) Personen systematisch in ihren Interesse-States im Alltag variieren; (2) ein spezifisches Variabilitätsmuster in Interesse-States die Natur von Interesse-States von derjenigen von Persönlichkeit-States zu unterscheiden scheint; (3) Interesse-States systematisch mit spezifischen situations- und personenbezogenen Variablen assoziiert sind. Die Dissertation schließt mit einer Zusammenfassung, wie die beiden Studien zu den identifizierten Forschungszielen beitragen und einer Diskussion der allgemeinen Stärken, Limitationen und Anregungen für künftige Forschung. Theoretische Implikationen werden vorgestellt und in das integrative Modell (Su, et al., 2019) eingebettet. Insgesamt beleuchtet die vorgestellte Forschung die Natur und Korrelate momentaner Manifestationen von Berufsinteressen im täglichen Leben und kann künftige Forschung dazu anregen, stärker eine State-Perspektive auf Interessen zu berücksichtigen. ; Research on interests is typically conducted with a trait or state perspective. Only recently, the two ...

Acquiescence ("yea-saying") presents a major challenge in personality assessment via questionnaire. Cognitive load when responding to items seems to be related to a greater tendency to acquiesce. The aim of this study was to experimentally investigate whether reducing the complexity of personality items through simplified item wording and response scales with fewer options reduces acquiesce. Based on a heterogeneous sample of almost 6000 respondents, we probed acquiescent responding on the 60-item Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2) in a 2 × 2 design, comparing (a) the original items and simplified versions and (b) the original 5-point and a 4-point response scale without a midpoint. Results show that the response scale format did not affect acquiescent responding. Contrariwise, item simplification reduced the variance attributable to acquiescence in the total sample. Moderation analysis revealed stronger effects for lower-educated respondents.

Holland's RIASEC model is the dominant framework to conceptualize vocational interests. It describes vocational interests with six broad domains: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. The O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form is a freely accessible inventory measuring vocational interests according to Holland's model with 60 items. With this manuscript, we provide a translation of the inventory into German and evaluate the scores' psychometric qualities, construct-related and criterion-related validity. We used data from an age-diverse (N = 276) and high-school sample (N = 672). Internal consistency estimates of the scale scores were adequate. Randomization tests and multidimensional scaling showed that the scores' structural properties mirrored the RIASEC theoretical model. Scale scores were sensitive to gender differences and could predict participants' actual and ideal occupations with reasonable hit rates. Overall, the German O*NET Interest Profiler Short Form seems apt for usage in career counseling and research settings.

The assessment of the Big Five personality domains is standard practice in most large-scale social surveys nowadays. The instrument most widely used for this purpose is the BFI-10, an ultra-short measure assessing each Big Five domain with two items. Recent studies have identified issues with the structural properties of the BFI-10, especially its factorial validity. To investigate whether these issues arise from the instrument itself or biases due to translation or sampling, we examined the extent to which the structural properties of the BFI-10 in terms of descriptive statistics, intercorrelations, reliability, and factorial validity vary when keeping the target population and language constant. Results revealed that, across 16 independent samples (total N ~ 60,000) from eight large-scale surveys representative of the adult population in Germany, the structural properties of the BFI-10 were (a) largely consistent and (b) mostly adequate. Most importantly, in nearly all samples, patterns of loading were congruent with an idealized Big Five structure, thereby supporting factorial validity. These results demonstrate that the structural properties of the BFI-10 are highly stable and replicable in large-scale samples. Especially given its brevity, the BFI-10 can thus be regarded as adequate for use in large-scale survey settings.

The Big Five personality traits are established predictors of school grades. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not yet well understood. Effects of personality on grades might arise because behavioral tendencies facilitate learning and increase subject-specific competencies. Alternatively, personality effects on grades might be independent of cognitive competencies and reflect otherwise valued behaviors or teachers' grading practices. In the current study, we drew on large-scale data of 7th and 9th graders in Germany to explore the extent to which personality predicted grades even after accounting for competencies. Controlling for competencies and other key covariates, we cross-sectionally and longitudinally examined personality-grade associations across different school subjects, grade levels, and school types. Results indicate that the predictive power of personality is largely independent of subject-specific and general cognitive competencies. The largest effects emerged for conscientiousness. For openness, associations with grades partly overlapped with competencies, suggesting that openness may operate by fostering competencies. Overall, our results suggest that the associations between personality and grades unfold mostly independently of course mastery. This finding underlines the socioemotional value of personality in the classroom and encourages a more fine-grained view of the interplay between personality, competencies, classroom behavior, and grades.

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. ; Peer Reviewed

Recent contributions propose to integrate a state perspective into the conceptualization of vocational interests. Such integration addresses in-the-moment expressions of interests and allows to track relations to distal outcomes of vocational interests more closely. To further the trait-state integration of vocational interests, insights into the nomological network of state vocational interests are necessary. In this preregistered experience sampling study of 217 university students, we studied state investigative interest in daily life and the relations with theory-derived person- and situation-related constructs. Results from 5631 observations across 3.5 weeks showed that specific situation characteristics, openness, happiness, and current social student role were associated with state investigative interest. Furthermore, person-aggregated state investigative interest and the reactivity of investigative interest in situations related with their academic studies predicted individuals' overall academic engagement in some cases. Generally, the relations in the nomological network were stronger when state investigative interest and hypothesized constructs were more closely aligned. Overall, the results underline the systematic nature and psychological relevance of state vocational interests. We discuss how integrating a state perspective into research on vocational interests implies novel approaches for capitalizing on the power of vocational interests.

When formulating questionnaire items, generally accepted rules include: Keeping the wording as simple as possible and avoiding double-barreled items. However, the empirical basis for these rules is sparse. The present study aimed to systematically investigate in an experimental design whether simplifying items of a personality scale and avoiding double-barreled items (i.e., items that contain multiple stimuli) markedly increases psychometric quality. Specifically, we compared the original items of the Big Five Inventory-2 - most of which are either double-barreled or can be regarded as complexly formulated - with simplified versions of the items. We tested the two versions using a large, heterogeneous sample (N = 2,234). The simplified versions did not possess better psychometric quality than their original counterparts; rather, they showed weaker factorial validity. Regarding item characteristics, reliability, and criterion validity, no substantial differences were identified between the original and simplified versions. These findings were also replicated for the subsample of lower-educated respondents, who are considered more sensitive to complex item formulations. Our study thus suggests that simplifying item wording and avoiding double-barreled items in a personality inventory does not improve the quality of a questionnaire; rather, using simpler (and consequently more vague) item formulations may even decrease factorial validity.

In recent decades, the number of large-scale surveys that have included measures of the Big Five personality traits in their standard questionnaires has grown sharply both in Germany and internationally. Consequently, a vast, heterogeneous, high-quality data base is now readily available to personality psychologists for secondary analyses. In this paper, we provide an overview of 25 public large-scale surveys assessing the Big Five. Our aim is to increase researchers' awareness of the availability and analytical potential of these data, and ultimately to increase their reuse. We restricted our selection to surveys of the adult population, conducted in Germany, based on probabilistic samples with a minimum sample size of 1,500 respondents, and assessing all Big Five dimensions with a validated Big Five instrument. We describe the study designs, the measures used to assess the Big Five, and the research potential of these valuable data.