Dynamics & Determinants of Personality PDF

DYNAMICS & DETERMINANTS OF SOCIAL FACTORS PERSONALITY ASSORTATIVE MATING FOR PERSONALITY: THE SEARCH FOR THE SIMILAR Over the past century, two fundamentally competing scientific theories have been advanced for who is attracted to whom. Complementary needs theory postulates...

DYNAMICS & DETERMINANTS OF SOCIAL FACTORS PERSONALITY ASSORTATIVE MATING FOR PERSONALITY: THE SEARCH FOR THE SIMILAR Over the past century, two fundamentally competing scientific theories have been advanced for who is attracted to whom. Complementary needs theory postulates that people are attracted to those who have different personality dispositions than they have. People who are dominant, for example, might have a need for someone whom they can control and dominate. People who are submissive, according to complementary needs theory, choose a mate who can dominate and control them. One easy way to think about complementary needs theory is with the phrase “opposites attract.” In contrast, attraction similarity theory postulates that people are attracted to those who have similar personality characteristics. People who are dominant might be attracted to those who are also dominant because they like someone who “pushes back.” People who are extraverted might like partners who are also extraverted so that they can party together. One easy way to remember this theory is with the phrase “birds of a feather flock together.” Although there have been many proponents of both theories over the past century, the results are now in. One of the most common findings in the mate selection literature—that people are married to people who are similar to themselves—is a phenomenon known as assortative mating. For nearly every variable that has been examined—from single actions to ethnic status—people seem to select mates who are similar to themselves. Even for physical characteristics such as height, weight, and, astonishingly, nose breadth and earlobe length, couples show positive correlations. Even the perceived personality of individuals based on faces—personality trait assessment based solely on judgments of photographs—shows assortative mating. Couples who have been together the longest appeared most similar in personality, a finding that results from the initial selection process and from dissimilar couples breaking up more often But are these positive correlations caused by the active selection of mates who are similar? Or are these positive correlations merely byproducts of other causal processes? Sheer proximity, for example, could, in principle, account for some of the positive correlations. It is known that people tend to marry those who are close by. Notions of romantic love aside, the “one and only” often lives within driving distance, although internet dating sites have reduced this effect somewhat. And because people in close proximity may have certain common characteristics, the positive correlations found between married couples may be merely a side effect of mating with those who are close by rather than the active selection of partners who are similar. Cultural institutions, such as colleges and universities, may promote assortative mating by preferentially admitting those who are similar with respect to certain variables, such as intelligence, motivation, and social skills. To test these competing predictions, Botwin and colleagues studied two samples of subjects: dating couples and newlywed couples (Botwin et al., 1997). The participants expressed their preferences for the personality characteristics in a potential mate on 40 rating scales, which were scored on five dimensions of personality: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect–Openness. The correlations were consistently positive. Those who scored high on Extraversion wanted to select an extraverted person as a mate. Those who scored high on Conscientiousness desired a The conclusions from this study, of course, must be qualified by one important consideration—perhaps the preferences people express for the personalities of their ideal mates might be influenced by the mates they already have. If an emotionally stable person is already mated to an emotionally stable person, perhaps the choice is justified by claiming that he or she is truly attracted to the person chosen. This could result in positive correlations between one’s own personality and the personality people express for a desired mate. Nonetheless, studies of individuals who are not mated already find the same pattern of results— people prefer those who are similar to themselves (e.g., Buss, 2012), supporting the attraction similarity theory. DO PEOPLE GET THE MATES THEY WANT? AND ARE THEY HAPPY? A fact of human life is that we do not always get what we want, and this is true of mate selection. You may want a mate who is kind, understanding, dependable, emotionally stable, and intelligent, but such desirable mates are always in short supply compared with the numbers of people who seek them. Therefore, many people end up mated with individuals who fall short of their ideals. It is reasonable to predict, therefore, that individuals whose mates deviate from their ideals will be less satisfied than those whose mates embody their desires. Are people who get what they want happier with their marriages than people who do not? Research suggests that one’s partner’s personality had a substantial effect on marital satisfaction. Specifically, people were especially happy with their relationships if they were married to partners who were high on the personality characteristics of Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect– Openness. In other words, the key to marital happiness is having a partner who is agreeable, emotionally stable, and open, regardless of whether the partner departs in specific ways from what one wants. Having a partner who is agreeable is an especially strong predictor of being happy with one’s marriage for both men and women. People married to agreeable partners are more satisfied with their sex lives and view their spouses as more loving and affectionate, a source of shared laughter, and a source of stimulating conversation. People married to disagreeable partners are the most unhappy with the marriage and perhaps are most at risk of getting divorced. Another link between personality and marital satisfaction emerges over the years following the newlywed year of marriage. As a general rule, in the newlywed year, people rate their spouses high on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Intellect–Openness. Over the ensuing two years, however, ratings of spouse’s personalities become increasingly negative on these dimensions, illustrating a “honeymoon effect.” And those who show the most marked negative ratings of their spouse’s personality over time show the largest decreases in marital happiness. One speculation is that spouses in progressively unhappy marriages actually display progressively more unpleasant personalities, such as lower levels of Agreeableness, but only within the marital context itself. Those who maintain positive illusions about their partner’s personality, in contrast, maintain high levels of satisfaction Another key predictor of marital satisfaction is mate value—whether one succeeds in selecting a mate whose personality embodies qualities most people want. Those mated with high mate-value individuals tend to be happier in their relationship than those mated with lower mate value individuals. In summary, the personality of one’s spouse plays an important role in marital satisfaction. Those who select mates high on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect–Openness show the greatest happiness with their marriages. These are qualities linked with high mate value, since most people desire them. Those who select mates low on these personality factors are the most unhappy with their marriages. Differences from each person’s individual ideal, however, do not appear to contribute to marital satisfaction. PERSONALITY AND THE SELECTIVE BREAKUP OF COUPLES According to one theory of conflict between the sexes, breakups should occur more when one’s desires are violated than when they are fulfilled (Buss, 2016). ‘ Following the violation of desire theory, we would predict that people married to others who lack desired characteristics, such as dependability and emotional stability, will more frequently dissolve the marriage. We would also predict, based on people’s preferences for those who share their personality attributes, that the couples who are dissimilar on personality will break up more often than those who fulfill desires for similarity. Are these predictions borne out in the research findings? Across a wide variety of studies, emotional instability has been the most consistent personality predictor of marital instability and divorce, emerging as a significant predictor in nearly every study that has included a measure of it. One reason is that emotionally unstable individuals display high levels of jealousy—they worry more about a partner’s infidelity, try to prevent social contact between their partner and others, and react more explosively when their partner does in fact engage in sex with others. Those high on Neuroticism also create more conflict and disagreement and their emotional upset after a fight tends to last longer. Low impulse control, or low conscientiousness (i.e., being impulsive and unreliable), particularly as exhibited by husbands, also emerges as a good predictor of marital dissolution. Low agreeableness predicts marital dissatisfaction and divorce, although this result is less consistent and less powerful than that found for emotional instability and low conscientiousness. One reason for these breakups may be found in another link between personality and social behavior Interestingly, extraversion and dominance are linked with higher levels of sexual promiscuity, although these personality traits are not related to marital satisfaction or breakups. A recent study of 8,206 individuals found that high Openness also predicted relationship breakups. The authors suggest that high Openness may lead to “a wandering eye” more sexual openness to others, and perhaps greater boredom with the relationship. Being married to someone who lacks the personality characteristics that most people desire—dependability, emotional stability, and pleasing disposition—puts one most at risk for breakup. People actively seek mates who are dependable and emotionally stable, and those who fail to choose such mates are more at risk for In summary, personality plays two key roles in mate selection. First, as part of the initial selection process, it determines the mates to whom we are attracted and the mates whom we desire. Second, personality affects satisfaction with one’s mate and therefore determines the selective breakup of couples. Those who fail to select partners who are similar, agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable tend to break up more often than those who succeed in selecting such mates. OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS AND THE SELECTION OF SITUATIONS Other personality traits have been shown to affect selective entry into, or avoidance of, certain situations. Those who are more empathic, for example, are more likely to enter situations such as volunteering for community activities. Those high on psychoticism seem to choose volatile and spontaneous situations more than formal or stable ones. Those high on Machiavellianism prefer face-to-face situations, perhaps because these offer a better chance to ply their social manipulative skills to exploit others. People high on Extraversion tend to select more friends; however, people high on Agreeableness tend to be selected more often by others as friends. High sensation seekers are more likely to volunteer for unusual experiments, such as studies involving drugs or sex. High sensation seekers have been found to more frequently choose to enter risky situations. High school students high in sensation seeking, more than their low sensation-seeking peers, more frequently attend parties where alcohol or marijuana is available to be consumed. They also more often have unwanted sex when drunk. Those who are high in sensation seeking also tend to select social situations characterized by high-risk sexual behavior. Personality, in sum, affects the situations to which people are exposed through their selective entry into, or avoidance of, certain kinds of activities. EVOCATION EVOCATION Once we select others to occupy our social environment, a second class of processes is set into motion—the evocation of reactions from others. Evocation may be defined as the ways in which features of personality elicit reactions from others. AGGRESSION AND THE EVOCATION OF HOSTILITY It is well known that aggressive people evoke hostility from others. People who are aggressive expect that others will be hostile toward them. One study has shown that aggressive people chronically interpret ambiguous behavior from others, such as being bumped into, as intentionally hostile. This is called a hostile attributional bias, the tendency to infer hostile intent on the part of others in the face of ambiguous behavior from them. Because they expect others to be hostile, aggressive people tend to treat others in an aggressive manner. People who are treated in an aggressive manner often aggress back. In this case, the aggressive reactions of others confirm what the aggressive person suspected all along—that others have hostility toward him or her. But what the aggressive person fails to realize is that the hostility from others is a product of their making— the aggressor evokes it from others by treating them aggressively. EVOCATION OF ANGER AND UPSET IN PARTNERS There are at least two ways in which personality can play a role in evoking conflict in close relationships. First, a person can perform actions that cause an emotional response in a partner. A dominant person, for example, might act in a condescending manner, habitually evoking upset in the partner. Or a husband low in conscientiousness might neglect personal grooming and throw clothes on the floor, which might upset his wife. In short, personality characteristics can evoke emotions in others through the actions performed. A second form of evocation occurs when a person elicits actions from another that in turn upset the original elicitor. An aggressive man, for example, might elicit the silent treatment from his mate, which in turn upsets him because she won’t speak to him. A condescending wife might undermine the self-esteem of her husband and then become angry because he lacks self-confidence. In sum, people’s personality characteristics can upset others either directly by influencing how they act toward others or indirectly by eliciting actions from others that are upsetting. EVOCATION OF LIKABILITY, PLEASURE, AND PAIN One of the most important effects a person can have on the social world is the evocation of likability. Being liked by others is linked with higher levels of adjustment, mental health, and even academic performance. Some personality traits consistently evoke likability in others—those linked with agreeableness, the sociable component of extraversion, and the honesty– humility factor. People with these qualities evoke pleasure in others, leading to their liking. Being extraverted increases likability even on online social networks. In contrast, people low on agreeableness and honesty–humility evoke pain in others. They cause others to be offended, annoyed, irritated, and even frightened and intimidated. Personality, in short, creates a footprint on one’s social world by evoking liking, pleasure, or pain in other people. EVOCATION THROUGH EXPECTANCY CONFIRMATION Expectancy confirmation is a phenomenon whereby people’s beliefs about the personality characteristics of others cause them to evoke in others actions that are consistent with the initial beliefs. The phenomenon of expectancy confirmation has also been called self-fulfilling prophecy. Can mere beliefs have such a powerful role in evoking behavior from others? In a study of expectancy confirmation, Snyder and Swann (1978) led individuals to believe that they would be dealing with a hostile and aggressive individual and then introduced the two individuals. They found that people’s beliefs led them to act in an aggressive manner toward the unsuspecting target. Then the behavior of the unsuspecting target was examined. The intriguing finding was that the unsuspecting target actually acted in a more hostile manner, behavior that was evoked by the person who was led to expect hostility. In this example, beliefs about the personality of the other actually created the behavior that confirmed those initial beliefs. Expectancies about personality may have widespread evocation effects in everyday life. After all, we often hear information about a person’s reputation prior to, or following, actual encounters with the person. We hear that a person is smart, socially skilled, egocentric, a player, or manipulative. These beliefs about the personality characteristics of others may have far- reaching effects on evoking behavior that confirm our initial beliefs. It is sometimes said that, in order to change your personality, you must move to a place where people don’t already know you. Through the process of expectancy confirmation, people who already know you may unwittingly evoke in you behavior that confirms their beliefs, thereby constraining your ability to change.  MANIPULATION: SOCIAL INFLUENCE TACTICS  MANIPULATION: SOCIAL INFLUENCE TACTICS Manipulation, or social influence, includes all the ways in which people intentionally try to change the behavior of others. No malicious intent need be implied by the term manipulation, although such intent is not excluded either. A parent might influence a child not to cross between parked cars, but we would not call this behavior malicious. Indeed, part of social living is that we influence others all the time. Thus, the term manipulation is used here descriptively, with no negative connotation. From an evolutionary perspective natural selection favors people who successfully manipulate objects in their environment. Some manipulable objects are inanimate, such as the raw materials used to build shelters, tools, clothing, and weapons. Other manipulable objects are alive, including predators and prey of different species and mates, parents, children, rivals, and allies of the same species. The manipulation of other people can be summarized as the various means by which we influence the psychology and behavior of other people. SEX DIFFERENCES IN TACTICS OF MANIPULATION Do men and women differ in their usage of tactics of manipulations? Buss (1992) found that, by and large, the answer is no. Women and men equally performed almost all of the tactics of social influence. There was only one small exception: the regression tactic. In samples of dating couples and married couples, the women more than the men reported more frequent use of the regression tactic, including crying, whining, pouting, and sulking to get their way. The difference, however, was quite small, supporting the overall conclusion that men and women, in general, are similar in their performance of tactics of manipulation. Parents also use somewhat different tactics of manipulation with regard to the mate choices of their sons and daughters. They are more likely to monitor their daughters, control the clothing choices of their daughters, and outright prevent their daughters from seeing a potential mate the parents do not like PERSONALITY PREDICTORS OF TACTICS OF MANIPULATION The next interesting question is whether people with certain personality traits are more likely to use certain tactics of manipulation. A sample of more than 200 participants (Buss, 1992) rated each act of influence on the degree to which they used it in each of four relationships: spouse, friend, mother, and father. Then, correlations were computed between the personality traits of the participants and their use of each tactic of manipulation. Those scoring relatively high in dominance (extraversion) tended to use coercion, such as demanding, threatening, cursing, and criticizing, in order to get their way. Highly dominant people also tended to use responsibility invocation, getting others to commit to a course of action and saying that it was their duty to do it. Those scoring low in dominance (relatively submissive individuals) used the self-abasement tactic as a means of influencing others. They lowered themselves, for example, or tried to look sickly to get others to do what they wanted. Interestingly, these submissive individuals also tended to use the hardball tactic—deception, lying, degradation, and even violence—more often than their dominant counterparts. The two primary tactics of influence used by highly agreeable people are pleasure induction and reason. Agreeable individuals tell and show others how enjoyable the activity will be, explain the rationale for wanting others to engage in particular behaviors, and point out all the good things that will come from doing them. A study of how children manipulate their parents regarding their choice of a mate revealed that highly agreeable children used the reason tactic, and also convinced their parents to trust them. Those who are disagreeable, in contrast, frequently use coercion and the silent treatment—results also found in a Croatian study (Butkovic & Bratko, 2007). Not only do they threaten, criticize, yell, and scream in order to get their way, they also give the stony silent look and refuse to speak to the other until he or she complies. Low-agreeable individuals are also likely to seek revenge on people who they perceive have wronged them; they use cost-inflicting rather than benefit- bestowing tactics of manipulation. Low-agreeable individuals tend to be more selfish in their use of collective resources, whereas high-agreeable individuals exercise more self-restraint when the group’s resources are scarce or threatened. The personality disposition of conscientiousness is associated with only one tactic of social influence: reason. Conscientious individuals explain why they want the other person to do something, provide logical explanations for wanting it done, and explain the underlying rationale for doing it. One study found that low-conscientious individuals are more likely to use criminal strategies in gaining resources. Emotionally unstable individuals use a wide variety of tactics to manipulate others—hardball and coercion, but also reason and monetary reward. The tactic most commonly used by emotionally unstable people, however, is regression. These people pout, sulk, whine, and cry to get their way. In a sense, this kind of behavior comes close to the core definition of emotional instability—the display of volatile emotions, some positive and some negative. But the fascinating part of these findings is that the emotional volatility is strategically motivated—it is used with the purpose of influencing others to get what they want. What tactics do people high on Intellect–Openness use? Not surprisingly, these smart and perceptive people tend to use reason above all other tactics. They also use pleasure induction and responsibility invocation, however—findings that are not as intuitively obvious. Can you guess which tactic those low on Intellect–Openness use? They tend to use social comparison—saying that everyone else is doing it, comparing the partner with someone else who would do it, and telling others that they will look stupid if they do not do i A recent study examined the links between the “dark triad” personality traits (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) and tactics of social influence (Jonason & Webster, 2012). Those scoring high on these dark traits tended to manipulate others through a wide variety of tactics—coercion, hardball, reciprocity, social comparison, monetary reward, and even charm. High dark triad scorers were especially prone to using the hardball tactic, as illustrated by their tendency to bully other people with whom they are involved socially. In summary, these results provide strong evidence that personality dispositions are not static entities residing passively in the heads of people. They have profound implications for social interaction—in this case, for the tactics people use to manipulate others in their social environment.  AN OVERVIEW OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION AN OVERVIEW OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIALINTERACTION The most important message from this chapter is that personality does not reside passively within individuals, but rather profoundly affects each person’s social environment. The three processes by which personality can influence an individual’s social environment—  selection,  evocation, and  manipulation. These fundamental mechanisms operate in the physical as well as the social environment. Let’s consider selection first. In the physical domain, an introvert is more likely to choose to live in a rural habitat, whereas an extravert is more likely to choose city living with all the opportunities for social interaction city life provides. In the social domain, an extravert is more likely to select a mate who is also extraverted, whereas an introvert is more likely to choose an introverted mate so that they can read books quietly side by side. For the process of evocation, a loud, heavy person who treads heavily is more likely to evoke an avalanche while climbing a snowy mountain. In the social domain, narcissistic people evoke admiration from their followers and contempt from those who dislike their unbridled self-centeredness. For the process of manipulation, personality affects how people mold and modify the rooms in which they live. Conscientious individuals, for example, keep their rooms tidy, neat, and free of clutter. Those low on Conscientiousness have more dirt, clutter, and mess in their rooms. Those high in Intellect–Openness decorate their rooms with stylish and unconventional objects and have many books and CDs that are highly varied in genre. Those low on Intellect– Openness have fewer and more conventional decorations, a narrower range of books, and a more delimited collection of CDs. In the social domain, disagreeable individuals are more likely than stable individuals to use “the silent treatment” as a tactic of manipulation. Those high in Intellect–Openness tend to use reason and rationality to get their way. And narcissists try to transfer blame for their failures onto others. Personality, in short, affects the mates and friends a person chooses as well as the environments a person decides to enter or avoid (selection); the reactions elicited from others and from the physical environment (evocation); and the ways in which one’s physical and social environments are altered once inhabited (manipulation). These three processes are shown. Further research is needed to determine whether the causal arrows in the figure run in both directions.