Study Alerts

Are Measures of Character and Personality Distinct? Robert E. McGrath, Ashley Hall-Simmonds, and Lewis R. Goldberg Two studies were conducted to investigate redundancy between the character strengths found in the VIA model of character and familiar personality facets. Study 1 used a community sample (N = 606) that completed a measure of character strengths, four […]

The Role of Passion and Persistence in Creativity Magdalena G. Grohman, Paul Silvia, Zorana Ivcevic, and Scott Barry Kaufman We examined the predictive power of 2 different conceptualizations of passion and persistence in relation to creative behavior. Specifically, we examined predictive power of the self-reported grit subscales (defined as a combination of passion/consistency of interests and perseverance) […]

Physiological correlates and emotional specificity of human piloerection Mathias Benedeka & Christian Kaernbachb Piloerection is known as an indicator of strong emotional experiences. However, little is known about the physiological and emotional specificity of this psychophysiological response. In the presented study, piloerection was elicited by audio stimuli taken from music and film episodes. The physiological response […]

If, Why, and When Subjective Well-Being Influences Health, and Future Needed Research Ed Diener, Sarah Pressman, John Hunter, and Desi Chase We review evidence on whether subjective well-being (SWB) can influence health, why it might do so, and what we know about the conditions where this is more or less likely to occur. This review […]

Being Present: Focusing on the Present Predicts Improvements in Life Satisfaction But Not Happiness Peter Felsman, Philippe Verduyn, Ozlem Ayduk, & Ethan Kross Mindfulness theorists suggest that people spend most of their time focusing on the past or future rather than the present. Despite the prevalence of this assumption, no research that we are aware […]

Secular rise in economically valuable personality traits Markus Jokela, Tuomas Pekkarinen, Matti Sarvimäki, Marko Terviö, and Roope Uusitalo The secular rise in intelligence across birth cohorts is one of the most widely documented facts in psychology. This finding is important because intelligence is a key predictor of many outcomes such as education, occupation, and income. Although noncognitive skills may […]

Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey Matthew D. Adlera, Paul Dolanb, Georgios Kavetsosc A large literature documents the determinants of happiness. But is happiness all that people want from life; and if so, what type of happiness matters to them? Or […]

Lying Because We Care: Compassion Increases Prosocial Lying Matthew J. Lupoli, Lily Jampol, and Christopher Oveis  Prosocial lies, or lies intended to benefit others, are ubiquitous behaviors that have important social and economic consequences. Though emotions play a central role in many forms of prosocial behavior, no work has investigated how emotions influence behavior when one has […]

The matter of motivation: Striatal resting-state connectivity is dissociable between grit and growth mindset Chelsea A. Myers, Cheng Wang, Jessica M. Black, Nicolle Bugescu, and Fumiko Hoeft The current study utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how two important non-cognitive skills, grit and growth mindset, are associated with cortico-striatal networks important for […]

Can Personality Traits and Intelligence Compensate for Background Disadvantage? Predicting Status Attainment in Adulthood Rodica Ioana Damian, Rong Su, Michael Shanahan, Ulrich Trautwein, and Brent W. Roberts This study investigated the interplay of family background and individual differences, such as personality traits and intelligence (measured in a large U.S. representative sample of high school students; […]

Personality Stability From Age 14 to Age 77 Years Mathew A. Harris, Caroline E. Brett, Wendy Johnson, Ian J. Deary  There is evidence for differential stability in personality trait differences, even over decades. The authors used data from a sample of the Scottish Mental Survey, 1947 to study personality stability from childhood to older age. The […]