Looking on the bright side of life: Gratitude and experiences of interpersonal transgressions in adulthood and daily life

OBJECTIVE: Gratitude plays an important role in individual and social well-being. However, less is known about the link between gratitude and experiences of interpersonal stressors. The current research examined the associations between gratitude and interpersonal transgressions. METHOD: One cross-sectional study with a broad age range and two daily diary studies (total N = 2,348; total age range: 18-91) were used to test the associations on the between- and within-person level. RESULTS: A consistent result across all studies was that dispositionally grateful individuals tended to report fewer interpersonal transgressions than less grateful people. In turn, people who generally reported more interpersonal transgressions were less grateful in daily life. Moreover, higher gratitude on one specific day was associated with fewer reported transgressions on the same day. However, the results from the daily diary studies indicated differences between the samples. Whereas gratitude was consistently associated with interpersonal transgressions in one daily diary sample, the findings in the second daily diary sample were less consistent. CONCLUSION: The present findings suggest that grateful people tend to perceive their social exchanges differently and/or actually experience fewer interpersonal transgressions. Future work is needed to test the underlying mechanisms of this negative association

MindHike, a digital coaching application to promote self-control: rationale, content, and study protocol

This protocol describes a study that will test the effectiveness of a 7-week non-clinical digital coaching intervention to promote self-control. The goal of the coaching is to support and guide people who are willing and motivated to improve their self-control with the help of the smartphone application MindHike. The coaching is based on a process model of self-control and aims to target five groups of self-control strategies. The goal of the study is to examine the effectiveness of the digital coaching intervention. A single-arm study design with pre-test, post-test and 2-month follow-up assessments and process assessments will be used to evaluate the 7-week digital coaching intervention. The digital coaching includes 49 daily lessons that are organized along 7 weekly core themes. Study participants will be at least 150 adults aged 18 years and older who are willing and motivated to improve their self-control using the MindHike application. This is the first study testing the effectiveness of a digital coaching intervention to promote self-control. Given that this approach proves effective, it could be easily implemented in various non-clinical settings such as education, health, relationship, and work, and in clinical settings. Due to its digital low-threshold character, it could also reach large numbers of people

How are personality states associated with smartphone data?

Smartphones promise great potential for personality science to study people's everyday life behaviours. Even though personality psychologists have become increasingly interested in the study of personality states, associations between smartphone data and personality states have not yet been investigated. This study provides a first step towards understanding how smartphones may be used for behavioural assessment of personality states. We explored the relationships between Big Five personality states and data from smartphone sensors and usage logs. On the basis of the existing literature, we first compiled a set of behavioural and situational indicators, which are potentially related to personality states. We then applied them on an experience sampling data set containing 5748 personality state responses that are self‐assessments of 30 minutes timeframes and corresponding smartphone data. We used machine learning analyses to investigate the predictability of personality states from the set of indicators. The results showed that only for extraversion, smartphone data (specifically, ambient noise level) were informative beyond what could be predicted based on time and day of the week alone. The results point to continuing challenges in realizing the potential of smartphone data for psychological research

PEACH, a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intentional personality change: study protocol of a randomized, wait-list controlled trial

BACKGROUND: This protocol describes a study that will test the effectiveness of a 10-week non-clinical psychological coaching intervention for intentional personality change using a smartphone application. The goal of the intervention is to coach individuals who are willing and motivated to change some aspects of their personality, i.e., the Big Five personality traits. The intervention is based on empirically derived general change mechanisms from psychotherapy process-outcome research. It uses the smartphone application PEACH (PErsonality coACH) to allow for a scalable assessment and tailored interventions in the everyday life of participants. A conversational agent will be used as a digital coach to support participants to achieve their personality change goals. The goal of the study is to examine the effectiveness of the intervention at post-test assessment and three-month follow-up. METHODS/DESIGN: A 2x2 factorial between-subject randomized, wait-list controlled trial with intensive longitudinal methods will be conducted to examine the effectiveness of the intervention. Participants will be randomized to one of four conditions. One experimental condition includes a conversational agent with high self-awareness to deliver the coaching program. The other experimental condition includes a conversational agent with low self-awareness. Two wait-list conditions refer to the same two experimental conditions, albeit with four weeks without intervention at the beginning of the study. The 10-week intervention includes different types of micro-interventions: (a) individualized implementation intentions, (b) psychoeducation, (c) behavioral activation tasks, (d) self-reflection, (e) resource activation, and (f) individualized progress feedback. Study participants will be at least 900 German-speaking adults (18 years and older) who install the PEACH application on their smartphones, give their informed consent, pass the screening assessment, take part in the pre-test assessment and are motivated to change or modify some aspects of their personality. DISCUSSION: This is the first study testing the effectiveness of a smartphone- and conversational agent-based coaching intervention for intended personality change. Given that this novel intervention approach proves effective, it could be implemented in various non-clinical settings and could reach large numbers of people due to its low-threshold character and technical scalability

Who wants to become more conscientious, more extraverted, or less neurotic with the help of a digital intervention?

Desires to increase in extraversion and conscientiousness as well as to decrease in neuroticism are the three most prevalent personality change goals. This study describes characteristics of people who wanted to change one of these personality traits (total N = 1196) with the help of a digital personality change intervention. The extent to which characteristics predicted the selection of one change goal over the other two was explored using machine learning. Individuals desired to change traits with lower (in case of desires to increase) or higher (in case of desires to decrease) self- and observer-reports and with greater self-other discrepancies. This identification of characteristics of people who desired to change certain personality traits informs future interventions