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

Unobtrusive Recognition of Personality Traits with Health Impact: A Literature Review with a Focus on Conscientiousness and Neuroticism

Non communicable diseases (NCDs) impose the greatest burden on global health. Any technology that helps making treatment more effective or efficient can potentially benefit humanity at a grand scale. Health information technology (HIT) has been identified as offering such potential, and indeed, existing HIT-based interventions are targeting NCD-related specific diseases such as diabetes, asthma, or mental illness. Rather generic determinants impacting health outcomes are the personality traits conscientiousness and neuroticism. We argue in this article that HIT-based interventions can benefit from an unobtrusive recognition of conscientiousness and neuroticism, both for tailoring interventions and for the adaptation of these traits. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify relevant behavioral features representing conscientiousness and neuroticism. Overall, 17 out of 262 articles have been found to be relevant for this purpose. We found that for conscientiousness, features relating to media consumption (video) and creation (photo) were highly relevant, as well as features related to communication style (use of negations), and features relating to the behavior of social contacts and variety of balancedness of relationships. For neuroticism, we found that features relating to the use of words of certain classes (religion, hearing) were particularly relevant, as well as variation in message length across contacts, and communication style (use of exclamation marks). This work concludes with an outlook on future research

Leveraging The Potential Of Personality Traits For Digital Health Interventions : A Literature Review On Digital Markers For Conscientiousness And Neurotism

Digital health interventions (DHIs) are designed to help individuals manage their disease, such as asthma, diabetes, or major depression. While there is a broad body of literature on how to design evidence- based DHIs with respect to behavioral theories, behavior change techniques or various design features, targeting personality traits has been neglected so far in DHI designs, although there is evidence of their impact on health. In particular, conscientiousness, which is related to therapy adherence, and neuroticism, which impacts long-term health of chronic patients, are two personality traits with an impact on health. Sensing these traits via digital markers from online and smartphone data sources and providing corresponding personality change interventions, i.e. to increase conscientiousness and to reduce neuroticism, may be an important active and generic ingredient for various DHIs. As a first step towards this novel class of personality change DHIs, we conducted a systematic literature review on relevant digital markers related to conscientiousness and neuroticism. Overall, 344 articles were reviewed and 21 were selected for further analysis. We found various digital markers for conscientiousness and neuroticism and discuss them with respect to future work, i.e. the design and evaluation of personality change DHIs

The Effects of Health Care Chatbot Personas With Different Social Roles on the Client-Chatbot Bond and Usage Intentions: Development of a Design Codebook and Web-Based Study

Background The working alliance refers to an important relationship quality between health professionals and clients that robustly links to treatment success. Recent research shows that clients can develop an affective bond with chatbots. However, few research studies have investigated whether this perceived relationship is affected by the social roles of differing closeness a chatbot can impersonate and by allowing users to choose the social role of a chatbot. Objective This study aimed at understanding how the social role of a chatbot can be expressed using a set of interpersonal closeness cues and examining how these social roles affect clients’ experiences and the development of an affective bond with the chatbot, depending on clients’ characteristics (ie, age and gender) and whether they can freely choose a chatbot’s social role. Methods Informed by the social role theory and the social response theory, we developed a design codebook for chatbots with different social roles along an interpersonal closeness continuum. Based on this codebook, we manipulated a fictitious health care chatbot to impersonate one of four distinct social roles common in health care settings—institution, expert, peer, and dialogical self—and examined effects on perceived affective bond and usage intentions in a web-based lab study. The study included a total of 251 participants, whose mean age was 41.15 (SD 13.87) years; 57.0% (143/251) of the participants were female. Participants were either randomly assigned to one of the chatbot conditions (no choice: n=202, 80.5%) or could freely choose to interact with one of these chatbot personas (free choice: n=49, 19.5%). Separate multivariate analyses of variance were performed to analyze differences (1) between the chatbot personas within the no-choice group and (2) between the no-choice and the free-choice groups. Results While the main effect of the chatbot persona on affective bond and usage intentions was insignificant (P=.87), we found differences based on participants’ demographic profiles: main effects for gender (P=.04, ηp2=0.115) and age (P<.001, ηp2=0.192) and a significant interaction effect of persona and age (P=.01, ηp2=0.102). Participants younger than 40 years reported higher scores for affective bond and usage intentions for the interpersonally more distant expert and institution chatbots; participants 40 years or older reported higher outcomes for the closer peer and dialogical-self chatbots. The option to freely choose a persona significantly benefited perceptions of the peer chatbot further (eg, free-choice group affective bond: mean 5.28, SD 0.89; no-choice group affective bond: mean 4.54, SD 1.10; P=.003, ηp2=0.117). Conclusions Manipulating a chatbot’s social role is a possible avenue for health care chatbot designers to tailor clients’ chatbot experiences using user-specific demographic factors and to improve clients’ perceptions and behavioral intentions toward the chatbot. Our results also emphasize the benefits of letting clients freely choose between chatbots

How Is Variety in Daily Life Related to the Expression of Personality States? An Ambulatory Assessment Study

People differ in the way they live their daily lives. For some people, daily life is characterized by multiple and diverse experiences, while others have more stability and routine in their lives. However, little is known about how variety in daily life relates to the expression of personality states. The present study examined within-person associations between variety in social partners, places, and activities with state expression. Data came from an ambulatory assessment study (N = 962, Mage = 25.49) with four assessments per day over a period of six consecutive days. The results of the multilevel modeling analyses suggest that variety in daily life is associated with some, but not all, state expressions. For instance, on days when participants experienced a greater variety in activities, they reported being less neurotic and conscientious, but also more agreeable. In addition, the links between all social partners, places, and activities with the expression of the state were examined simultaneously to obtain more detailed information on the multifaceted nature of situation-state expression links. We conclude that variety in daily life has both theoretical and empirical relevance for the expression of personality states

Personality change through a digital-coaching intervention: Using measurement invariance testing to distinguish between trait domain, facet, and nuance change

Recent intervention research has shown that personality traits can be modified through psychological interventions. However, it is unclear whether reported effects represent changes in the trait domain or only some facets or items. Using data ( N = 552) from a recent intervention trial, the present study examined the effects of a digital-coaching intervention on self- and observer-reported personality facets and items. We focused on participants who wanted to decrease in Negative Emotionality, increase in Conscientiousness or increase in Extraversion. We used measurement invariance testing to examine which level of the trait domain hierarchy changed during the intervention. For the self-reports, we found some heterogeneity in the effects on all three trait domains, but most notably Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Specifically, participants reported to increase strongly on sociability (Extraversion), and moderately on productiveness and organization (Conscientiousness), but not on the other facets of these trait domains. Observers generally reported small but non-significant changes, with no scalar invariance violations except for Extraversion. Overall, this suggests considerable heterogeneity in intervention-related personality change that can be overlooked if only focusing on the trait domain level. We discuss the relevance of measurement invariance testing and measurement approaches for personality development and intervention research

Personality change through a digital-coaching intervention: Using measurement invariance testing to distinguish between trait domain, facet, and nuance change

Recent intervention research has shown that personality traits can be modified through psychological interventions. However, it is unclear whether reported effects represent changes in the trait domain or only some facets or items. Using data ( N = 552) from a recent intervention trial, the present study examined the effects of a digital-coaching intervention on self- and observer-reported personality facets and items. We focused on participants who wanted to decrease in Negative Emotionality, increase in Conscientiousness or increase in Extraversion. We used measurement invariance testing to examine which level of the trait domain hierarchy changed during the intervention. For the self-reports, we found some heterogeneity in the effects on all three trait domains, but most notably Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Specifically, participants reported to increase strongly on sociability (Extraversion), and moderately on productiveness and organization (Conscientiousness), but not on the other facets of these trait domains. Observers generally reported small but non-significant changes, with no scalar invariance violations except for Extraversion. Overall, this suggests considerable heterogeneity in intervention-related personality change that can be overlooked if only focusing on the trait domain level. We discuss the relevance of measurement invariance testing and measurement approaches for personality development and intervention research

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