Trajectories in life satisfaction before and during COVID-19 with respect to perceived valence and self-efficacy

Actions taken by governments to counteract the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to profound restrictions in daily lives, especially for adolescents and young adults, with closed schools and universities, travel restrictions, and reduction in social contacts. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the development of life satisfaction with assessments before and during the pandemic, including separate measurement occasions during a strict lockdown and when the implemented restrictions were relaxed again. Data are based on the German Personality Panel (GePP) with 1,920 young adults, assessed on four measurement occasions over a period of three years. Using latent change score modeling, we investigate the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to its perception as a critical life event over time. Further, we examine the influence of self-efficacy on change in life-satisfaction, as the belief in one’s innate abilities has been shown to promote health related behavior and buffers against effects of negatively perceived critical life events. While average life satisfaction remained stable across time, we found a main effect of perceived positive valence and self-efficacy on latent change in life satisfaction at the within person level. Expressions of self-efficacy did not moderate the influence of the perception of the pandemic on self-reported life satisfaction. This study provides an important contribution to the recent COVID-19 literature as well as to the debate on stability and change of self-reported life satisfaction

Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood—How the Perception of Life Events and Mindset Affect Personality Trait Change

Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of experiencing two major life events: graduating from school and moving away from home. Thereby, we examined the occurrence of the two life events per se and the subjective perception of the critical life event in terms of valence. In addition, we postulate a moderation effect of the construct of mindset, which emphasizes that beliefs over the malleability of global attributes can be seen as predictors of resilience to challenges. This suggests that mindset acts as a buffer for these two distinct events. In a large longitudinal sample of 1,243 people entering adulthood, we applied latent structural equation modeling to assess mean-level changes in the Big Five, the influence of life events per se, the subjective perception of life events, and a moderating role of mindset. In line with maturity processes, results showed significant mean-level changes in all Big Five traits. While no changes in the Big Five dimensions were noted when the mere occurrence of an event is assessed, results indicated a greater increase in extraversion and diminished increase in emotional stability when we accounted for the individual's (positive/negative) perception of the critical life event. In case of extraversion, this also holds true for the moderator mindset. Our findings contribute valuable insights into the relevance of subjective appraisals to life events and the importance of underlying processes to these events

The development of trait greed during young adulthood: A simultaneous investigation of environmental effects and negative core beliefs

This publication is with permission of the rights owner (Sage) freely accessible.Recent models of personality development have emphasized the role of the environment in terms of selection and socialization effects and their interaction. Our study provides partial evidence for these models and, crucially, extends these models by adding a person variable: Core beliefs, which are defined as mental representations of experiences that individuals have while pursuing need-fulfilling goals. Specifically, we report results from a longitudinal investigation of the development of trait greed across time. Based on data from the German Personality Panel, we analyzed data on 1,965 young adults on up to 4 occasions, spanning a period of more than 3 years. According to our results, negative core beliefs that have so far been proposed only in the clinical literature (e.g., being unloved or being insecure) contributed to the development of trait greed, indicating that striving for material goals might be a substitute for unmet needs in the past. Additionally, greedy individuals more often self-selected themselves into business-related environments, which presumably allow them to fulfill their greed-related need to earn a lot of money. Our results expose important mechanisms for trait greed development. Regarding personality development in general, core beliefs were identified as an important variable for future theory building.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschafthttps://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Peer Reviewe

The Influence of Critical Life Events on Life Trajectories – An Investigation of Personality Development, Well-Being, and Core Beliefs

Much has been achieved with regard to how critical life events influence trajectories in life. Theories on the development of personality and well-being emphasize that people differ in the rate, timing, and direction life events influence certain personality traits and key indicators of well-being such as life satisfaction. However, there has been an urgent call for longitudinal studies exploring processes that underlie individual differences of the appraisal and reaction to critical life events. This dissertation seeks to meet this plea by investigating the influence of specific and non-specific critical life events on personality development and life satisfaction, taking into account one’s subjective perception of these events. Since core beliefs can alter mental representations of life events, the present dissertation explores a possible moderating role of mindset and self-efficacy. Moreover, this dissertation places particular focus on the assessment of life events and implications for the critical age periods of adolescence and emerging adulthood. While the first longitudinal study (N = 1,243) focusses on the influence of two specific life events, school graduation and moving away from the childhood home, on trait changes in the Big Five, the second study (N = 1,477) explores personality development below the domain level in trait intellect, a facet of openness, with regard to predominantly non-specific life events. The third study (N = 1,920) expands the scope of the current thesis by considering the impact of a collective experienced life event, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the development of life satisfaction over four measurement occasions. Across the three studies, I investigate individual differences by considering the moderating role of the core beliefs of mindset or self-efficacy. Although none of the studies suggest that these critical life events have an influence in and of themselves, results reveal significant personality changes (Study 1) and changes in life satisfaction (Study 3) when taking into account subjective perceptions of the critical life events. Further, the results of studies 1 and 2 indicate personality development in traits that are associated with mature functioning. While a moderating role of mindset was found in study 1 regarding the influence of the perception of the life event graduation on levels in extraversion and neuroticism, results indicated no moderating effects of self-efficacy in the studies 2 and 3. However, the present results reveal selection and socialization effects of self- efficacy with respect to the development of intellect (Study 2), and significant effects of self-efficacy on life satisfaction before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 3). All in all, the present findings contribute to a deeper understanding on the processing of life events, but further longitudinal studies are needed to observe individual life trajectories in young adulthood with respect to different event characteristics and implicit beliefs. In the conclusion, limitations of this dissertation, future research ideas, as well as practical implications for adolescents and emerging adults are discussed

The development of the personality trait intellect at the transition from school to vocation

Intellect is an important personality trait, especially with regards to the prediction and explanation of intellectual performance, such as occupational or academic success. However, much less is known about the development of intellect. The goal of this study is to investigate changes in intellect during a critical period: The transition from school to vocation. The study is conducted in cooperation with the provider of a career counseling test, which provided the opportunity for recruiting a large and heterogeneous sample in a longitudinal design across two years, with the first measuring time before graduation. We are focusing on both, selection and socialization effects with regards to a number of different characteristics, including subjective and objective attributes of the education and profession; attitudes regarding the malleability of personality traits; as well as personality traits beyond intellect, especially including the Big Five and intelligence

Verbindingskracht & combinatievermogen : een empirisch onderzoek naar kennisallianties tussen beroepsonderwijs (ROC) en bedrijfsleven

De grote rol van kennis in de huidige samenleving heeft gevolgen voor het onderwijs. Zo wordt er maatschappelijk een appél gedaan op het beroepsonderwijs om een brug te slaan tussen het veranderende werkveld en de benodigde nieuwe competenties van werknemers. Daartoe is in 1998 en 2004 de taakstelling van de Regionale Opleidingen Centra voor middelbaar beroepsonderwijs (ROC’s) bijgesteld; de publieke taak is verruimd en een private taakstelling is toegevoegd. De bijstelling houdt onder andere in dat het scholingsaanbod meer moet aansluiten bij de innovatievragen uit het regionale bedrijfsleven. De consequentie van deze nieuwe taakstelling is dat ROC’s veel nauwer en op andere manieren met het bedrijfsleven moeten samenwerken dan ze gewend waren. Scholen en bedrijven moeten samen kennisinnovaties vormgeven en nieuwe combinaties vinden van Leren&Werken. ROC’s worstelen met deze taakuitbreiding, die uitermate complex is en diep ingrijpt op de organisatie. Ze hebben nog niet echt een antwoord op dit innovatievraagstuk. Dat wordt geïllustreerd met het gegeven dat het urgentiebesef van goede samenwerking en effectieve kennisinnovatie groot is, maar het succes van kennisallianties nog moeilijk zichtbaar te maken is. Hoe het antwoord op de vraagstukken van kennisinnovatie wordt geformuleerd, hangt voor een groot deel af van de wijze waarop vorm wordt gegeven aan de samenwerkingsrelatie ROC-bedrijfsleven. Men mag verwachten dat een goede samenwerkingsrelatie tussen ROC’s en bedrijven de kans vergroot op een succesvolle kennisinnovatie. .... Zie: Samenvatting.

Cognitive Investment: Practical Implications of Investment Traits and Underlying Processes

This project includes the presentations of a submitted symposium to the ECP20, presented at 13th July 2022 in Madrid

Personality Development in Emerging Adulthood - How the Perception of Life Events and Mindset Affect Personality Trait Change

Personality changes throughout the life course and change is often caused by environmental influences, such as critical life events. In the present study, we investigate personality trait development in emerging adulthood as a result of experiencing two major life events: graduating from school and moving away from home. Thereby, we examined the occurrence of the two life events per se and the subjective perception of the critical life event in terms of valence. In addition, we postulate a moderation effect of the construct of mindset, which emphasizes that beliefs over the malleability of global attributes can be seen as predictors of resilience to challenges. This suggests that mindset acts as a buffer for these two distinct events. In a large longitudinal sample of 1,243 people entering adulthood, we applied latent structural equation modeling to assess mean-level changes in the Big Five, the influence of life events per se, the subjective perception of life events, and a moderating role of mindset. In line with maturity processes, results showed significant mean-level changes in all Big Five traits. While no changes in the Big Five dimensions were noted when the mere occurrence of an event is assessed, results indicated a greater increase in extraversion and diminished increase in emotional stability when we accounted for the individual’s (positive/ negative) perception of the critical life event. In case of extraversion, this also holds true for the moderator mindset. Our findings contribute valuable insights into the relevance of subjective appraisals to life events and the importance of underlying processes to these events