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Leadership and strategic choice play an important role in organizations (Ali et al., 2022). How leaders make decisions to exploit and expand the resources of the firm to create and maintain a strategic advantage is one of the most important resources a firm possesses (Quigley & Graffin, 2017). Given that not all leaders are effective in developing and implementing strategy (Wang et al., 2016), there is a need to identify the factors that lead to these differences in performance. Prior research has examined leadership behaviors that focus on the observable behaviors of leaders that lead to effective form performance (Yukl, 2008). In addition to this, studies have found that a leader’s effectiveness influences the organization’s culture (Akdere & Egan, 2020). However, less is known about why leaders engage in leadership roles in the first place. Past research has looked at the distal and proximal antecedents of leader motivation which has led to confusion and mixed results (Chan & Drasgow, 2001). This calls the measurement scale into question as to its content validity. There are two constructs related to the process of leader emergence (Kennedy et al., 2021), intentions and motivation, and both are distinct constructs that should be measured as separately. In this study, exploratory factor analysis is used to determine the dimensionality and structure of leadership motivation to move research towards a theory of leader motivation. This study contributes by developing a new measure to determine the dimensionality and structure of leadership motivation and intentions to lead.

The present study utilized Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis in order to examine the lived experiences of young adult, cisgender women and the development of internalized sexism. Eight participants completed semi–structured interviews focused on their relationships with other women and subsequent views of womanhood. Themes found were (a) womanhood is taught by women throughout the lifespan, (b) women are sexually responsible for men, (c) women are emotional caregivers, (d) there are biological bases of womanhood, (e) women are expected to “do it all,” (f) expectations of women are fueled by media portrayal, (g) traditional femininity is seen as oppositional to the feminist movement, and (h) womanhood is a community. The results of the study found that young adult women hold similar beliefs and attitudes surrounding what it means to be a woman. Additionally, young adult women’s perceptions of womanhood are similarly influenced by common external factors that stem from society’s sexism and misogyny and lead to behaviors of internalized sexism. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a mental disorder characterized by an intense fear of abandonment, impulsivity, and pervasive patterns of instability across several aspects of an individual’s life including their interpersonal relationships, self-esteem, and affect. Individuals with this disorder are prone to engaging in suicidal and self-injurious behaviors that can result in lethal consequences (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Research has examined genetic vulnerabilities and childhood traumatic experiences that can lead to the development of this disorder and dysfunctional methods of attaching to others. Studies have repeatedly implicated that individuals with BPD possess insecure attachment styles. However, there have been inconsistent results regarding which insecure attachment style is most prevalent in this population. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there would be differences in insecure attachment styles among individuals diagnosed with BPD and whether there is a relationship between BPD symptom severity and specific insecure attachment styles.This study was exploratory with a correlational design and used self-report measures to determine the most common attachment styles among individuals in this population and their levels of BPD symptomatology. Descriptive statistics and measures of central tendency were used to describe and present the results from this sample. After collecting data from 64 participants (N = 64), their responses to the Zanarini Rating Scale for BPD (ZAN-BPD) and Relationship Structures (ECR-RS) instruments were evaluated to determine their severity of BPD symptoms and attachment styles towards two attachment figures, respectively. One-Way ANOVAs were conducted to determine whether there were differences in the mean number of BPD symptoms between attachment styles with respect to a primary caregiver and significant other (or close friend) to the participants. After completing One-Way ANOVAs, Post-Hoc Tukey HSD tests were conducted to determine which groups demonstrated significant differences in the mean number of BPD symptoms.The data found that there were differences in insecure attachment styles with respect to both interpersonal targets. Participants with fearful-disorganized and avoidant-dismissing attachment styles towards a primary caregiver reported significantly higher levels of BPD symptoms than participants with a secure attachment towards their primary caregiver. Participants with a preoccupied-anxious attachment towards a significant other also demonstrated significantly higher rates of BPD symptoms than individuals with a dismissive-avoidant attachment towards a significant other. This study examined attachment styles among individuals with BPD to advance knowledge among clinicians about the disorder and to implement more effective therapeutic approaches in the future.

The management of dementia is a difficult task in all healthcare settings. Behavioraland psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) affect 90% of individuals with dementia.One-third of older individuals living with dementia are regularly prescribed antipsychoticmedications to handle dementia-related behaviors. For six decades the FDA has beenaware that antipsychotics were being used in nursing homes to sedate residents for BPSD,without dementia being an approved diagnosis. The serious side effects and increased riskof death have led to changes in nursing home policy and regulation. The Centers forMedicare and Medicaid (CMS) teamed up with Federal and State agencies and proposeddementia care planning that involves assessing BPSD and utilizing non-pharmacologicinterventions. The primary objective of this project is to determine if educating staff in non-pharmacological management of BPSD will reduce antipsychotic medication use.MethodThis evidence-based quality improvement (QI) project is based on Lewin’s ChangeTheory of unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. Using the PDSA method to move the processforward, a team was established, and a plan of action was developed to reduce theadministration of antipsychotics by educating staff in non-pharmacological interventions. Sixteen nursing staff (n-16) were trained over four days in nonpharmacologic dementiacare management. A pre-and-post-assessment questionnaire was conducted. Twenty-two resident participant’s medications were reviewed by the Psychiatric Mental Health NursePractitioner (PMHNP), and gradual drug reductions (GDRs) were ordered. GDRs are a CMScompliance requirement for nursing homes conducted as standard practice based on thepharmacist recommendations and an important recommendation by CMS in antipsychoticreduction are conducted and documented by the consulting PMHNP. Nursing responses topatients with GDRs who presented with behaviors and antipsychotic dose reductions werereviewed for 30 consecutive days with no new participants and no additional GDRs beingconducted.FindingsThe study found that creating an educational training program significantlyincreased staff knowledge in assessing dementia triggers, and using nonpharmacologicinterventions for BPSD. The post-assessment questionnaire demonstrated that 100% ofthe staff felt they had increased their knowledge, understanding, and comfortability inusing non-pharmacological interventions. Out of the 20 resident participants, only oneresident did not respond to non-pharmacological strategies as the first line of therapy,requiring a return to the pre-GDR dosing. This demonstrated a 95% reduction inantipsychotic medication dosages in dementia residents exceeding the goal of 50%.Except for the one failed GDR, no new antipsychotic prescriptions were ordered, exceedingthe goal of a 45% reduction in antipsychotic prescriptions written.ConclusionNumerous studies have examined the impact of antipsychotic medications on thehealth of nursing home residents with dementia. The consensus among researchers is thatadministering antipsychotics to dementia patients increases their risk of morbidity andmortality. Nursing staff have traditionally called on physicians and psychiatric providers toprescribe antipsychotic medication because they lack the resources and training tomanage BPSD. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have tightened theirrequirements related to antipsychotic medication use in nursing homes, making thisproject critical to the need for change. This facility expressed appreciation for this projectand have already begun to implement changes based on federal requirements of gradualdrug reductions and recommendations to use nonpharmacologic interventions as theprimary measure of intervention for BPSD.The results of this project emphasize the importance of educating and trainingnursing staff on nonpharmacological interventions. All staff reported an increase inknowledge and comfortability in implementing nonpharmacologic interventions. Optionsfor staff training and education are being explored by this facility as the interventions usedduring this project align with the facility’s goal of reducing antipsychotic medications,having staff prepared to manage dementia residents by choosing nonpharmacologicintervention as the first line of therapy, and developing new practice guidelines. Theseguidelines will inform staff in decision-making when caring for residents experiencingdementia-related behaviors.

Personality psychology is well established in business and organization theory and praxis, so it would seem to require no introduction. Whereas personality psychology is established in these areas, there is benefit from interrogating how it has been situated. A textual analysis of the introduction section of the top 50 most-relevant, academic papers identified using the keywords personality and business provided a basis for generating insights and implications as to how personality psychology has been “introduced” within business contexts, as examined academically. This mixed-methods, textual analysis produced words of merit, bigrams of merit, and AFINN-based sentiment scores. Among the results, the words stress and conflict, and the bi-grams of unintended consequences and whistle blowing stood out as topics of focus. The results suggest no statistically significant difference in sentiment between articles frequently referencing the business-related terms and those frequently referencing students, with each group having a slightly positive, average sentiment. Combining the bigrams and words of merit with the sentiment analysis facilitated the identification of common themes that informed understanding and suggested action. These insights and implications suggest a need for further collaboration in this area with a focus on enacting positive change to organizational practices.

In the present work I validate the Specific Emotion Experience Questionnaire (SEEQ) and use it to test the explanatory power of specific emotions on well-being. In three studies using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, I support my claim that the specific emotions measured in the SEEQ more powerfully relate to critical outcomes—including life satisfaction, social connection, and daily experiences of stress —than positive and negative affect. First, I tested the psychometric reliability of the full SEEQ and the SEEQ-20, a shorter 20-item measure. Then, in study 1, the SEEQ-20 explained up to 10 percentage points more variance in critical outcomes (e.g., loneliness and life satisfaction) than the predominant measure of positive and negative affect, the PANAS. Furthermore, using a statistical test of non-nested models, the SEEQ-20 was significantly better at explaining many of these outcomes. In study 2, a longitudinal sample comprised of 4,008 daily reports from 296 individuals, SEEQ-20 elation (high-arousal positive emotion), contentment (low-arousal positive emotion), gratitude (prosocial positive emotion), and sexual desire (an oft-neglected emotion) all uniquely corresponded to important, real-world experiences of daily life satisfaction, social connection, and stress. Study 3 replicated the SEEQ-20’s explanatory power over the PANAS on three (life satisfaction, loneliness, and positive relationships) of four (depression) pre-registered hypotheses. Furthermore, I replicated the psychometric reliability of the SEEQ and explored how other emotion constructs (e.g., contempt and elevation) fit with the SEEQ’s items. In summary, the SEEQ’s specific emotional experiences provide a foundation for a more comprehensive study of emotion in well-being, daily life, and potentially other domains such as culture.

This theoretical paper posits that racial oppression ensues in part due to a lack of social interest, manifested by excessive self-interest in the projection of negative white attributions onto people of color. Excessive white self-interest not only divides whites and Black people but within people groups and among individuals; all are negatively impacted by racism, and to believe otherwise is to succumb to the dangerous falsity of zero-sum thinking. Furthermore, a scholarly case is made for the amplification of social interest by a lowering of white defenses and a reclamation of one’s authentic parts of self. Specifically, one must acknowledge, claim, and examine internalized white power structures, which denote ways of thinking, feeling, and being that uphold white superiority and nullify relationships of equity which welcome all parts of the self. In examining one’s defenses and the vulnerability behind them, one can hope to re-engage in a more wholesome and healthy way that prioritizes shared power relationships instead of power over relationships (Hill, 2022). This process is often ambiguous, nonlinear, personal, and subjective; it is a personal kind of learning.social interest, feelings of inferiority, racism, the gaze, dysconsciousness, decolonization of psychology

The definition of a word helps us understand its context and how it is meant to be used in daily life or research. When a word lacks a universal definition, it is hard to know how to use it. “Resilience” is that type of word. The resilience community in psychological research does not have a concrete, universal definition for this word. It takes on whatever characteristics are useful to the investigator. This study began with seeking a universal definition for the domain known as resilience. This study used a convergent parallel design with adults aged 60 and older living independently to seek out their personal definitions of resilience, then employed a well validated measure—the Conner-Davidson-25 (CD-RISC-25)—to test this population’s resiliency and how they felt the measure addressed to domain of resilience. The findings of the study demonstrated that resilience is a complex and nuanced domain and a broad scope, making it challenging to develop a universal definition.

Images have become prominent means of communication online through social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Selfies are the most common type of photo that is shared on social media, taken by a person captured within the photo. Social media platforms allow people to obtain social rewards, through the responses it receives, which leaves the question regarding “Could an individual be negatively affected by posting Selfies?”. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of uploading Selfies on self-esteem. In addition, this study aimed to explore the impact of how their Selfie is received by their peers after uploaded. Social support and anxiety are useful in understanding the impacts of posting Selfies. A quantitative study was designed to test the effects of uploading Selfies has on self- esteem, social support, and emotional well-being. The study was conducted online with volunteers. Data were gathered using a survey form, as well as the following instruments: State- Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Self-Conscious Scale- Revised (SCS-R), and the Social Support- Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL). The frequency of uploading Selfies did not demonstrate any effects on the aforementioned variables. The results of the data collection indicated that there were statistically significant relationships among enthusiasm for uploading Selfies, increased trait anxiety, and diminished depression. Additionally, there was a statistically significant relationship between Disappointment for uploading Selfies and higher trait anxiety only. This study provided a framework for future explorations of identity construction through Selfies and social media use. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu

•Bullshit is an empty, and misleading form of communication that is a ubiquitous component of our society. Bullshit can be found in many areas including politics, the workplace, advertisements, and social media. Bullshit’s prevalent usage and impact has led to the development of research on bullshit. Previous research has found multiple types of bullshit and has looked to relate it to various things such as cognitive ability, spreading of false news, and personality traits. Expanding upon this research, this present study examines the correlations between participant’s frequency of bullshit transmission and receptivity to bullshit of both types of bullshit to the two (grandiose and vulnerable narcissism) and three-factor model of narcissism (antagonism, agentic extraversion, and narcissistic neuroticism). We hypothesized that those who are higher in narcissistic traits that encourage one to be flashy and impressive will positively associate to transmission of persuasive bullshit and those high in narcistic traits that encourage avoiding criticism will positively associate with transmission of evasive bullshit. Furthermore, we expect narcissist traits that are more skeptical of the world to negatively relate to bullshit receptivity. The findings show a positive association between narcissism antagonism and persuasive and evasive bullshit as well as agentic extraversion and persuasive bullshit. Results also showed narcissistic neuroticism was positively related to both persuasive and evasive bullshit. This study helps provide a base for the association between the types of bullshit and components of narcissism and gives further insight on how bullshit utilization is related to desires and motivations of different personality traits.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-3 (MMPI-3) contains a set of five Interpersonal scales that have either been added or modified as part of the revisions made in the transition from the MMPI-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) to the MMPI-3. The current study aims to investigate the construct validity of each MMPI-3 Interpersonal scale by examining associations between them and various external measures of relevant interpersonal constructs across three separate undergraduate student samples. Hypotheses were first developed regarding associations between each Interpersonal scale and relevant criterion measures, which were then tested using correlational analyses. Associations between each Interpersonal scale and criteriawere further examined using hierarchical regression when unhypothesized, meaningful associations occurred. Discriminant validity was also investigated using a series of dominance analyses. Results indicate that most hypotheses were supported. While some unhypothesized Interpersonal scales incrementally predicted scores on criterion measures, dominance analyses indicated that most scales initially hypothesized to be associated with a criterion also dominated prediction of that criterion over other Interpersonal scales. Implications of these findings and limitations of the current study are discussed.

Researchers have demonstrated that unacquainted observers can reliably ratechildren’s personality traits based on initial impressions, called the thin slice (TS) method(Tackett et al., 2016). Temperament describes characteristics a child is born with andconsists of a child's ability to cope with emotion, activity level, ability to focus, andmood; temperament has been shown to map onto personality traits in reliable ways(Rothbart & Bates 1998). Although TS personality has been correlated with temperamenttraits in a clinical sample of youth (Brandes et al., 2020), it is unclear whether the TSapproach can be applied to temperament traits in adolescents. Because temperament canbe reliably detected early in life (Rothbart & Goldsmith, 1985), the application of TSmethods to temperament may serve as a cost-efficient and reliable tool for the earlydetection of youth at risk for problem behaviors. In addition to serving as a firstinvestigation of TS methods of temperament traits in a community sample of youth, thisstudy aimed to examine the convergent validity of TS temperament with parent-reportedpersonality traits and child psychopathology. Convergence of child psychopathology withTS temperament was tested by examining the relationship between AttentionDeficit/Hyperactivity (ADHD) attention problems and temperament traits. In this study,research participants served as judges. The judges were asked to watch short archivalvideo clips of youth ages 11-17 (targets) performing tasks, and then fill out aquestionnaire about the characteristics (personality and temperament) of that youth (fourjudges per target). Temperament traits largely converged with TS personality traits inexpected ways, but associations with parent-report personality and attention problemswere not detected. This may be due to TS measures demonstrating limited reliability inthe present study. Future work should investigate whether TS temperament reliability canbe improved.

Personality assessments are a valuable tool for selecting employees, as they are reasonably strong predictors of job performance while also demonstrating relatively small subgroup differences. Implementing personality tests in selection systems, however, may risk negative consequences due to the relatively poor applicant reactions they often evoke. Multiple approaches to improving applicant reactions have been studied, such as providing information about the predictive validity of the test or rewording the test to reflect a work frame-of-reference, with mixed success. It may be beneficial to explain the relatively little adverse impact of personality tests to applicants, similar to predictive validity explanations, as well as combining such a non-discrimination explanation with other interventions to produce stronger effects. To test this, participants were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions that represented various combinations of predictive validity explanations, non-discrimination explanations, and test frame-of-reference, completing a personality test in a hypothetical selection scenario. Results suggest that applicant reactions are most favorable when a single explanation is provided for a work frame-of-reference personality test, though providing both explanations was nearly as favorable. Exploratory analyses suggest that these findings may be attributable to both forms of explanations, but not test frame-of-reference, influencing perceptions of information known, thereby introducing redundancy between predictive validity and non-discrimination explanations. Implications of the results, limitations of study, and directions for future research are discussed.

Research has consistently shown that some personality traits meaningfully relate to positive aspects of student performance (e.g., McAbee et al., 2014, 2019; Poropat, 2009), and specifically, conscientiousness demonstrates the strongest relationship with student GPA (e.g., McAbee & Oswald, 2013; Poropat, 2009); however, GPA is not the only metric of student success. For instance, Oswald et al. (2004) identified twelve dimensions of student performance based on various college mission statements (e.g., appreciation for diversity). Alternatively, personality traits also are effective in predicting counterproductive student behaviors (CSBs); however, relatively less attention has been paid to this aspect student behavior (Credé & Niehorster, 2009; De Vries et al., 2011). Relating to this, research has primarily investigated personality using a variable-centric approach and there has been a noticeable lack of work in this area that leverages a person-centric (i.e., within-person) design. As such, the current study implements a person-centric approach for understanding personality-performance relations to examine profiles of the HEXACO personality traits. Five distinct profiles are identified in the current dataset, which are then linked to specific (un)successful student outcomes.

A variety of social media postings, across multiple platforms, have presented the syndrome or identity construct they call the empath (Firestone, 2017; Kznaric, 2012). It refers to a group of people that reportedly feel more empathy than others and/or are more capable of reading the emotions of others in absence of other cues. However, there is no scientific data to support the concept. Despite this lack of evidence, it is widely accepted throughout American internet culture (Orloff, 2016, 2017; Partiali, 2019). Because of the lack of empirical support for the empath construct, whether or not this is a distinct ability or set of characteristics, and whether or not those who identify this way have any of the reported special abilities are questions worthy of careful investigation. The current study examined how self- identified empaths self-reported having specific characteristics purportedly associated with “being” an empath, and examined whether these self-identified empaths, and the subset who endorsed our criteria, had evidence of DSM personality disorders, with a focus on two of the cluster B personality disorders, borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. First, 155 participants who identified themselves as empaths responded to our newly created Empath Self-Identification Inventory to separate the overall test population into the high empath group and the low empath group (those who identified as empaths, but endorsed fewer of the statements in the Empath Self-Identification inventory). All participants then completed standardized measures for personality disorders. Results showed that the high empath group scored higher on the Mclean Screening instrument, measuring borderline personality traits, than the self-identified empaths that did not endorse as many characteristics on the initial screening. The high empaths were more likely to exceed the cutoff for clinical diagnosis; however, they did not report more overall borderline personality traits on the PDQ-4, a measure of all 10 DSM personality disorders. Additionally, the high empath group reported more overall pathological narcissism than low empaths on the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI); they also reported significantly more vulnerable narcissistic traits than low empaths. However, low empaths scored significantly higher in grandiose traits than the high empath group. The high empath group did not score significantly higher in clinical levels of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) according to the PDQ-4; this does not, however, nullify or invalidate the results of the PNI; The PDQ-4 only measures grandiose narcissism and not vulnerable narcissism, so it is logical that the high empath group flew under the radar. Interestingly, responses to the PDQ-4 also showed that the high empath group were significantly more likely to meet criteria for schizotypal and avoidant personality disorders, suggesting that identifying as an empath may be a marker for a wide range of personality pathology. The implications of this are broad; based on the data from the Empath Self-Report Inventory, we propose that the empath construct requires both emotional dysregulation and bizarre perceptual experiences to be considered a high empath. A third lesser category, hypersensitivity to environmental stimulus, is also present. These results suggest that the line between the empath identification and cluster b personality disorders is blurred; the empath construct has measurable trait patterns, but more research is required to further understand the empath construct. Future research should seek to validate the empath construct as a whole, including testing reported empath capabilities such as empathic accuracy, before attempting to connect it to known mental illnesses.

Teaching Assistants (TAs) play significant roles in many first-year engineering programs, including interacting with students in the classroom as the students learn engineering fundamentals and navigate their first year of college. An important element of any social interaction is the personality of the people, and the way personality manifests as behaviors may change in different social contexts. Although there have been studies about personality of teachers and students, a Systematic Literature Review provides motivation for investigating the personality behaviors of TAs in first-year engineering classroom contexts specifically. The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality is selected as the theoretical framework because of its rigorous structural validity, the availability of FFM scales online, and previous successful contextualization of FFM scales. The dimensions of personality in the FFM are: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. Two sets of FFM scales (a 50-item version and a 100-item version) are contextualized for TAs teaching in first-year engineering through assessing face validity and content validity to result in one 90-item version (18 items per scale). TAs from four different first-year engineering programs respond to these 90 items to collect data for further validation. Item reduction analysis is conducted to remove 8 items from each scale so that each scale retains a final 10 items. Construct validity and reliability are assessed, and Classical Test Theory (CTT) itemiiianalysis and Item Response Theory (IRT) Rasch analysis are performed to identify items for removal. The final 10-item reduced scales are evaluated again for construct validity, reliability, and criterion validity, and CTT item analysis and IRT Rasch analysis are performed again to evaluate the validity of the final instrument. Overall, the properties of the final 50-item (10 items per personality factor scale) First-Year Engineering Teaching Assistant Personality (FYETAP) instrument meet acceptable validity thresholds and improved after the item reduction analysis. The FYETAP instrument has high enough validity based on thresholds from the literature to be used for future work such as evaluating predictive validity with student outcomes, allowing TAs to reflect on their personality behaviors in the first-year engineering classroom context and how they may or may not differ from a general context, and informing first-year engineering program coordinators and faculty in TA training. The final FYETAP instrument is presented along with instructions for administration and scoring.

Reputation consists of what is said or believed about a person by those who know the person. Our reputation may affect the opportunities available to us and the way others treat us. The current research reports a series of six studies (total N = 2116) used to develop and validate a self-report questionnaire assessing people’s interest in their reputations and their efforts to manage their reputations. The first step in item development relied on open-ended responses to questions relating to reputation interest and management. Using a rational/factor-analytic approach and multiple samples, a two-scale (Concern, Knowledge) Reputation Interest measure and a four-scale (Discretion, Objecting, Masquerading, Support Seeking) Reputation Management measure were produced. Theory-relevant relationships between these multidimensional reputation scales and Big Five personality traits, well-being, and various interpersonal personality characteristics demonstrated validity of the reputation scales. For example, scores on the Masquerading scale (measuring a tendency to present a false appearance of oneself) were positively associated with measures of neuroticism, manipulativeness, approval motivation, and dependency, and negatively associated with a measure of conscientiousness. In the final study, agreement of informant reports and target reports on respective dimensions of reputation interest and management contributed to demonstrating validity of the multidimensional reputation scales. These informant reports also provided information regarding the reputation of target participants. For example, targets who score high on the Knowledge scale (measuring the degree to which one believes to have an awareness of one’s reputation) are reputed by informants to have a higher level of extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and peer acceptance. The value of the reputation scales in providing a broader personological picture is discussed as are other potential benefits of the scales.

There is a plethora of literature linking Extraversion to the experience of positive emotions and Neuroticism to the experience of negative emotions. Further, it has been argued that these relationships have important consequences for well-being. In addition to these main effects of the trait, research on person-situation interactions has shown that individuals have differential reactivity to emotional situations, even identifying some direct causal links using experiments, based on their underlying Extraversion and Neuroticism. However, much less is known about how this differential reactivity might generalize outside of the lab, to naturalistic situations. In Study 1, we test this claim by capitalizing on the natural lockdown that occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking how emotion experience changed due to this lockdown, and whether these changes were moderated by Extraversion, Neuroticism, and the less studied but important trait of Agreeableness. Further, we add an investigation of these potential interactions using facet-level personality. These constructs represent a more specific level of personality analysis than personality traits and have received almost no attention in the literature on the relationships between personality and emotion. However, this increased specificity allows for important clarifying hypotheses about the relationships between personality and emotion to be tested, such as whether the associations between Extraversion and positive emotions are due more to social contact or behavioral activation. In Study 1, we showed that individuals did respond differently to the lockdown based on their underlying Extraversion, Neuroticism and (to a lesser extent) Agreeableness. Further, we showed that the relationship between Extraversion and positive emotions is likely due to behavioral activation more so, or even in place of, social contact. In Study 2, we ask whether these results generalize to a more traditional in lab emotional situation manipulation, using a sad film clip. We capitalize on modern statistical techniques, namely multilevel modelling, to advance the existing work in this area and show that both our results from Study 1, as well as the findings from previous work, which made use of difference scores as dependent variables instead of multilevel models, both generalized well. We discuss the implications of these findings for personality theory, emotion theory, and person by situation interactions, as well as highlight some suggestions for future research.

Collaborative problem-solving (CPS) is recognized as an essential skill when entering the workforce. One personality trait that may impact CPS skills but has not received much attention is Need for Cognition (NFC). NFC is linked to cognitive attributes (e.g., curiosity, creativity, and planning) and social attributes (e.g., asking questions, monitoring others’ understanding). In conceptualizing NFC, Cacioppo and Petty posit that effortful thinking elicits positive affect for high NFC individuals. This study explored if it is precisely the expressed positive affect that influences the use of CPS behaviors. Aim 1: identify if a direct relationship exists between NFC and observed social and cognitive CPS skills, measured as separate dimensions. Aim 2: determine if positive and negative affect mediate the relation between NFC and social or cognitive CPS skills. 505 incoming students at a large southwestern university were randomly assigned to a CPS activity. Data collected included self-reported NFC, positive and negative affect measured by automated text analysis, and CPS skills coded by trained research assistants. NFC was a positive, statistically significant predictor of both social and cognitive CPS skills. However, no support was found for hypothesized mediation effects. We conclude with a discussion of the methodological considerations that may explain results inconsistent with past research.

In 2015, then-Higher Education Minister Rodolfo Alarcon said in response to many Cubans’ inability to communicate in the international language, English fluency would be required by students as a university exit requirement (“Mastering English,” 2015).The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to understand the experiences of Cuban university English instructors, who encountered these curricular changes. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews with six university instructors and emailed responses from another six. The participants included both current and former faculty members who left the teaching profession for more lucrative careers in private tutoring or tourism. Motivational Systems Theory (Ford, 1992), various aspects of social identity (Gray & Morton, 2018) and my own experience as an EFL instructor guided the study in understanding the instructors’ social identity, motivation, and self-agency. The data were analyzed using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The findings showed differing experiences among men and women and urban and rural instructors. Faculty expressed both positive and negative teaching experiences, and, as a result of some unfavorable experiences, some instructors left the field of teaching altogether and applied their talents to the growing tourism and private business sectors.In addition to understanding the experiences of the study’s participants, the investigation also provides valuable insight into the evolution of English teaching in Cuban higher education, the consequences of educational borrowing and the complexity of conducting research within an authoritarian regime.

Can an individual's personal goals impact a state's foreign policy? Grandiose narcissism provides a pathway to understanding how personality can impact a leader's preferences, decision-making, and foreign policy behavior. More narcissistic leaders will focus their efforts on maintaining their inflated self-image rather than on furthering their political survival prospects or state interests. I argue that to maintain their inflated self-image, narcissistic leaders will act-out opposite their political circle's reputation in foreign policy, behave dramatically during international conflicts, and engage in more Great Power conflict. This dissertation evaluates these claims by using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. Survey experiments with a general population sample are used to find micro-foundational support for hypotheses. Case studies and statistical analysis are used to investigate grandiose narcissism's impact on United States presidents' foreign policy decision-making and behavior from 1897-2008. Analysis finds that grandiose narcissism, a dispositional leader-level variable, is related to the frequency of international conflict, behavior during international conflict, and the targets of international conflict.

This study investigated individuals falling along the Extraversion-Introversion continuum, with ambiverts falling in the center, and how they are adapting mentally to technological advancement and virtual living (e.g., increasing online access to products, education, socialization, virtual events, and entertainment), which are being made necessary by the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in both the United States and Japan, recruited using social media posts, voluntarily completed: the Flourishing Scale; Satisfaction with Life Scale; General Well-Being Schedule; Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised-Short Form; NERIS Type Explorer; Media and Technology Usage and Attitudes Scale; and a series of open-ended experiential questions on technology usage. The main hypothesis of the study was that true ambiverts (as close to the center of the EI continuum as possible) will be the ultimate adapters—in both Japan and the United States— leading them to exhibit higher wellbeing and coping abilities. That ambiverts might be the best adjusted is related to the notions that with increased technological advancement and convenience comes increased physical isolation, and ambiverts embody the characteristics of both introverts (who thrive when focusing their energy on their internal world) and extraverts (who thrive on the outside world). The findings did not support the main hypothesis concerning potential advantages in favor of ambiverts. It did, however, yield significant findings, which shed light on the general problem of adaptation to current cultural changes. First, the findings revealed two main effects, one for personality and a second for sociocultural context. That is, extraverts exhibit greater wellbeing than introverts and ambiverts. Further, Japanese participants report higher levels of wellbeing than American participants. Second, there was also a significant interaction between personality type and perceived adaptation to technological advancement. That is, introverts who report not adapting well to technological advancement experience the lowest wellbeing, and extraverts who report not adapting well to technological advancement experience the highest wellbeing, relative to the other groups. Although the study did not uncover significant findings with respect to ambiversion, the investigation suggested that routine work should explore EI as a continuum rather than as discreet categories.

Personality measures have been used for decades to predict many important workplace outcomes, however, the literature reveals weak predictive validities (Barrick et al., 2001; Morgeson et al., 2007). This study investigates metaperceptions, or an individual’s belief about how others perceive them (Laing et al., 1966), to determine if they are a more effective predictor of behavioral outcomes than the typical self-report measures used today. Metaperceptions capture a different perspective than classic self-reports and other-reports, and therefore may measure a different source of construct relevant variance. Using a student sample (N = 181), we tested three main hypotheses: (1) combining self-ratings, informant-ratings, and metaperceptions together will result in better prediction of behavioral outcomes than self-ratings alone, (2) there will be evidence of generalized meta-accuracy, meaning the correlation between metaperceptions and informant-reports will be significantly stronger than the correlation between self-reports and informant reports, and (3) metaperceptions will provide significant incremental variance in predicting behavioral outcomes above self-ratings and informant-ratings. Ultimately, we found mixed support for the three hypotheses. However, we found three very important implications from this research. First, metaperceptions can be used to capture a different source of construct-relevant variance than regular self-reports. Second, this study had provided further evidence that a person’s self-concept is different than their metaperception. Third, this study has provided evidence that the effectiveness of self-reports in comparison to metaperceptions may be dependent on the specific trait being measured. We recommend expanding research on metaperceptions in the future.

Self-stigma involves internalized negative evaluation in people with a societally prescribed label (i.e., mental health diagnosis). Thus, measures of self-stigma due to mental illness exclude people without a diagnosis who may negatively evaluate themselves because of their emotions— a process we define as self-invalidation due to emotion. In the current research, I introduced a definition of self-invalidation due to emotion as distinct from self-stigma due to mental illness and emotion invalidation from others. After expert review of the item pool (Study 1), and exploratory (Study 2) and confirmatory factor analysis (Study 3), a 10-item scale for Self-Invalidation Due to Emotion (SIDES) was developed, with subscales of self-invalidation due to high and low emotional experience. A longitudinal study (Study 4) of a college student and community sample replicated and expanded on Study 2 findings, with greater self-invalidation due to high emotional experience predicting greater emotion dysregulation, emotional reactivity and expressivity, and beliefs about emotion uncontrollability. In contrast, greater self-invalidation due to low emotional experience predicted less emotional reactivity and expressivity, and greater beliefs about emotion controllability (Study 4). Finally, in a community sample of people with a history of mental illness (Study 5), greater self-invalidation due to high but not low emotional experience predicted symptoms of borderline personality pathology and distress regardless of self-stigma due to mental illness or perceived emotion invalidation (Study 5). The current research supports the SIDES as a psychometrically sound, more inclusive measure of self-stigma, relevant for predicting distress and maladaptive emotional tendencies in people with and without a mental illness.

MIPs were created so that researchers could study the relationship between mood and behavior (Kenealy, 1986; Lessard, 1993). However, they cannot always be sure that the target mood has been induced because of demand characteristics (Kenealy, 1986). Participants can make it seem like they are in the target mood state by giving a false report or faking behavior. This potentially invalidates study results. Multiple researchers have already suggested ways to counter the effects of demand characteristics (Clark, 1983; Larsen & Sinnett, 1991; Westermann, Spies, Stahl & Hesse, 1996). However, little research has been done to predict demand effects by antecedents, such as personality or cognitive factors, or investigate their influence on participants individually. The main concern of this study was to better understand how demand characteristics relate with aspects of personality in the context of a positive mood induction via the Velten Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP). This study had five objectives. The first was to determine the relationship between demand characteristics and Field Dependence-Independence (FDI), an aspect of cognitive thinking style (Demick, 2014). The second was to investigate the relationship between demand characteristics and Extraversion, one of the five domains of the NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1995). The third was to evaluate the relationship between FDI and Extraversion and determine if they are the same construct. The fourth was to determine whether there was a relationship between Extraversion and baseline positive affect. The fifth was to see if there was convergent validity between the Affective Slider (AS) and the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule – Expanded Form (PANAS-X). Results showed that neither FDI nor Extraversion had a significant relationship with any of the seven demand characteristics variables used in this study. They also showed no significant relationship between FDI and Extraversion. However, they suggested convergent validity between the Joviality subscale of the PANAS-X and the Pleasure subscale of the AS. They also suggested convergent validity between the Arousal subscale of the AS and the Attentiveness and Fatigue subscales of the PANAS-X. Results showed a relationship between Extraversion and positive affect before the VMIP. Exploratory analysis suggested that this relationship is moderated by FDI, although more research is needed to confirm this.

Do people habituate faster to positively than to negatively-valenced emotional triggers? We performed 2 studies to examine whether rate of affective habituation is moderated by stimuli valence (manipulated within-subjects) with the hypothesis that habituation would be faster for positive than for negative stimuli. Additionally, we tested whether the hypothesized effect of stimuli valence on habituation was stronger among people higher in anxiety. In the first study, participants (N = 105) were presented with negative and positive images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang et al., 2008). Images were matched ideographically across subjects in their intensity and were presented in random order with 10 repetitions (trials) per image. In the second study which was pre-registered, participants performed a similar task after their state anxiety levels were experimentally manipulated (N experimental group = 103; N control group = 106). Results from both studies indicated that habituation was faster for positive than for negative stimuli and anxiety was positively associated with the magnitude of differences in positive vs. negative habituation rates. This effect was primarily due to differences in positive habituation as people who reported experiencing higher levels of anxiety (chronic and situational) habituated to positively-valenced elicitors significantly faster. Overall, these results suggest that positive habituation, both on its own and vis-à-vis negative habituation might be an important mechanism that underlies emotional functioning and enhancing our understanding of the building blocks of emotional disorders in non-clinical populations.

Narrative identity is an internal and storied representation of the persons’ past, present, and presumed future that represents identity. The narrative identity approach reveals how individuals story experiences within and across identity domains and how narrative themes correspond with psychological outcomes. To study how identity is embedded within larger systems of power, privilege, and oppression, integration of the narrative identity approach and an intersectional framework is needed. In the present dissertation, I used the narrative identity approach and an intersectional framework to examine the content, process, and structure of personal narratives within and across the domains of race/ethnicity, gender, and social class in relation to measures of adjustment and identity. In narrative interviews with 177 emerging adult college students, diverse in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, and social class, narratives of (1) a self-defining memory, (2) racial/ethnic awareness, (3) social class awareness, and (4) intersectional awareness were gathered. Using inductive and deductive methods, eight themes were quantified within narratives including: (1) meaning making, (2) valence, (3) positive resolution, (4) connection to group, presence of (5) race/ethnicity, (6) gender, and (7) social class, and (8) perceived connection of identity domains. Participants also completed an online survey containing established measures of adjustment and identity as well as two novel self-report measures, which I designed to assess intersections between identity domains. Narrative themes related differentially with adjustment and identity based on narrative prompt. For example, greater meaning making related with lower life satisfaction in social class narratives but stronger identification with race/ethnicity and gender in intersectional narratives. In addition, individuals from marginalized groups tended to perceive identity domains as more connected but conflicting and evinced less positive narratives relative to individuals with privileged identities. Overall, results indicate that themes within narratives about a particular domain have implications for one’s understanding of their intersecting identities. This dissertation illustrates that the multi-method assessment of identity within and across domains using a social justice perspective is critical in understanding the experiences of individuals with oppressed and privileged identities. Discussion centers on how the narrative identity approach may be used to organize research on intersecting aspects of identity.

Experiences of daily situations are important for how people think, feel, and behave. Even so, it was not until recently that studies have considered the nature of situational experiences as a whole, as well as how these experiences may vary with culture. With recent developments in tools to assess situational experience, researchers are now poised to better understand it and in turn the processes by which persons and environments interact. The purpose of the present study is to assess the experience of different classes (i.e., types) of situations while considering the cultures of the individuals experiencing them. The first set of analyses identify notable relationships between the cues and characteristics of situations that exist even when one accounts for the participants’ country of residence. The second set of analyses explore similarities and differences in these relationships across cultures, specifically, a deep dive into cultural differences by comparing the experiences of people in the United States and China. Despite some differences across cultures, what was most apparent was how similar the situational experiences were.

Religion is not as popular or widespread in the world as it was decades ago. Despite this ongoing worldwide secularization trend, individual differences in religiosity are still prevalent and associated with a variety of psychological variables. In particular, individual differences in religiosity both predict and are predicted by individual differences in personality. Given the influence religion has on identity, politics, and society, it is important to understand changes over time in religiosity amidst secular declines and how these changes impact personality. This dissertation consists of two chapters. In Chapter 1, I analyzed religiosity development across the lifespan while controlling for ongoing secularization trends using longitudinal data from over 14,000 Dutch participants aged 16 to 101 years. Results from a series of mixed growth curve models indicated that religiosity increases across the lifespan, with no evidence for age-graded decreases in religiosity after controlling for secularization. Increases were most pronounced during middle to late adulthood and moderated by education, such that college-educated individuals were less religious and experienced less pronounced age-graded increases in their religious beliefs. In Chapter 2, I investigated between- and within-person associations between religiosity and the Big Five personality traits in a sample of over 12,000 Dutch individuals across 11 years. Results from random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) at the between-person level indicated religiosity was associated with higher levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, and lower levels of emotional stability, extraversion, and openness. At the within-person level, when people experienced an increase in agreeableness and/or extraversion relative to their usual levels, they tended to subsequently believe more strongly in God than usual, and this effect was bidirectional for agreeableness. Between-person associations were moderated by gender and religious upbringing. Religiosity was negatively associated with extraversion for women and positively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness for men; people who grew up in a religious family had a stronger negative association between religiosity and openness. Taken together, results from both studies show that religion is still pervasive and influential on personality despite worldwide declines in religiosity.

Who is the person who cares about and values social and cultural diversity? From a basic trait perspective, such a person might be curious—to want to learn about groups outside one’s own—and compassionate—to diversity as an opportunity for collaboration rather than competition. Despite curiosity and compassion’s clear mapping to Openness and Agreeableness within the Big Five, past research indicates that these traits are insufficient to account for the breadth of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that arise in intergroup settings. In this dissertation we propose a novel personality trait that describes people’s appreciation, embrace of, and preference for social difference in their environment, which we call Openness to Other (O2), in order to better account for individual differences in valuing social diversity and navigating intergroup interactions.In Chapter 1 we described Openness to Other’s nomological network and demonstrate that it is independent of its parent traits, Agreeableness and Openness. We first develop and validate a brief self- report scale to measure Openness to Other, finding that participants can be ordered along it unidimensionally, respond reliably to it, and do not alter their responses to appear more socially desirable. We then demonstrate that O2 relates most strongly to Openness and Agreeableness, in both self- and peer-reports, but that it remains autonomous from each. In addition, we show that O2 was accurately perceived by knowledgeable peers at levels comparable to the other Big Five. We then examine the broad values that motivate people high and low on O2. We found that low-O2 individuals, like those low on Agreeableness or Openness, valued power and tradition. In contrast, those high on O2 valued equality and tolerance, whereas agreeable individuals valued helping and getting along with others and open individuals valued curiosity, creativity, and personal expression. In the domain of intergroup interactions, people high on O2 were described by peers as calm, seeking out such interactions, working to make sure these interactions go well, and seeking opportunities to learn about different cultures. All of these relationships were independent of Agreeableness and Openness. Finally, in the sociopolitical domain, high-O2 people held more positive views toward immigration in general and toward a central outgroup in the U.S. (Muslims) and, importantly, voted against an anti-immigrant presidential candidate (Donald J. Trump). All of these also held independently of Agreeableness and Openness. In Chapter 2 we applied O2 to an important life domain: racial homophily, or having friends and acquaintances who are the same race as oneself. We found that O2 consistently predicted cross-race friendship. Compared to Agreeableness and Openness, O2 had the stronger and only unique effect, suggesting it is the “active ingredient.” High-O2 individuals had an almost equal 1:1 ratio of same-to- different-race network members, whereas low-O2 individuals had 4:1 same-race. These results held for both college students and middle- aged adults, both friends and new acquaintances in the network, and both networks established before and at a diverse university. Finally, when moving to a more diverse environment, high-O2 individuals seemed to take advantage of the new environmental affordances, adding more different-race members to their networks. Overall, these studies advance understanding of person–environment transactions, showing how personality traits matter to the structure of people’s social networks.

The current study uses a strengths-based framework to identify the process of marriage satisfaction among 1 same-sex African American married couple and 5 heterosexual African American married couples. Six themes emerged through qualitative analysis demonstrating that marriage satisfaction is a co-constructed experience created between couples through a series of interactions cultivating healthy conditions that strengthen relationship functioning and promote well-being. Based on the results the experience of marriage satisfaction is formed by the organizing concepts of connection, intentionality, purpose, sentiments of peace, authentic communication, and well-being. Results are discussed in association with existing research, as well as, Self-Determination, and Relationship Motivation Theories.

Discharge planning is a process to develop a care plan for medically stable patients ready to leave an acute-care hospital. A multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals that include physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, social workers, the patient, and their family caregiver collaborates to develop a post-acute plan of care for when the patient. The research literature indicates that patients are dissatisfied with the process because the information is not readily available to guide their decisions about post-acute care. Published research shows that healthcare providers cite insufficient time, resources, low patient health literacy, incomplete and accurate health data sharing obstacles to effective discharge planning. The research gap is that organizational culture is not considered when healthcare leaders identify and implement strategies to improve discharge planning. This exploratory, qualitative study was conducted in the northeastern United States. Based on grounded theory, the study investigated how organizational culture plays a role in the discharge planner’s performance at patient discharge planning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with hospital discharge planners to build a new theory about how organizational culture plays a role in patient discharge planning. Key findings indicated that discharge planners view their role as patient advocates. They are often frustrated with their organization's culture and find it to impede effective patient discharge planning. The discharge planners' frustrations stem from personal and professional values conflict. The conflict and resulting frustration impacts the discharge planners' motivation to perform patient discharge planning effectively.

The global wellness market is the fastest growing market and is comprised of $4.5 trillionin 2021. The wellness industry consists of but is not limited to wellness tourism, physicalactivity, fitness, workplace wellness, spa industry, healthy eating, nutrition, and weightloss. As wellness awareness is getting attention, the hotels that provide wellness serviceshave attracted attention within the hospitality industry. The hotel industry is looking togrow its business and the hotel professionals need to adopt wellness services to be moreprofitable. The wellness need of the hotel customers is an important factor for the hotelsto be successful. To maintain sustained effort of wellbeing throughout the daily lifestyle,individuals are motivated to use wellness services. Consequently, it is important toidentify the individual’s motivation to use wellness services.While several previous studies found that perseverance and passion for long-termgoals to stay physically fit is the antecedent for maintaining wellness, it was also foundthat perseverance and passion can predict wellness behavior. Grit is the psychologicalfactor that is defined as perseverance and passion for completing long-term goals. Thisstudy proposes that grit is one of the psychological traits of the individuals that plays partin engaging in wellness activities during a hotel stay. Grit is the perseverance peopleshow in achieving certain goals such as engaging in physical activity and sustaining it.4This study explores how grit in customers drives them to seek wellness activities duringtravel. Studying grit may help predict future wellness behavioral outcomes of thecustomers in the hospitality industry.While grit is a new construct, it has been proven to be a distinguishing factor inthe transtheoretical model (TTM) stages of physical activity behavior. The purpose ofthis study was to assess different wellness services and amenities in the hospitalityindustry and examine how grit with respect to the TTM stages can lead to customers’using of wellness services and how hotels providing these wellness services can lead tocustomer engagement for the hotel industry. The nature of this study is three-fold: first, todevelop attributes of wellness services in hospitality context as the hotel industrytransitions to “new-normal” after the Coronavirus Pandemic outbreak; second, to explorethe effects of different psychological traits on wellness services; third, to estimate theeffects of wellness services on customer engagement.The current research explores the concept of grit as an important customerpsychological trait when consuming wellness amenities during a hotel stay. An onlinesurvey was utilized for this study. The grit was measured by employing Duckworth andQuinn's (2009) short grit scale. Participants' involvement in the various stages of TTMwas measured by Prochaska and Velicer's (1997) study. The wellness service attributes(“Hospital”ity attributes, physical fitness, and new normal necessities) were adopted fromChi et al. (2019), Comptton (2020), Calvey (2020), Hilton (2019), Mueller andKaufmann (2001), and Suess and Mody (2017). Customer engagement behavior items(i.e., visit intention, electronic word of mouth, and willingness to pay a premium) were5adopted from Chi et al., (2019), Choi and Kandampully (2019), and Risitano et al.,(2017).An IRB approval was received for this study. The survey was sent to 491prescreened respondents and 347 people took the survey, with a 71% response rate. Outof 347 recorded responses through the Qualtrics survey platform, a total of 337completed responses were used to analyze the data. This study was funded by the PattonCollege of Education Graduate Study and Educational Research Fund. The data wasanalyzed by SPSS and Amos analytical software. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) wasconducted to determine the adequacy, convergent, and discriminant validity of the data.Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to check the model and data fit. Astructural equation model (SEM) was employed to test the relationship among thevariables.Grit was found to be a significant antecedent of using all the wellness servicesexcept the new normal necessities. The intention of using wellness services was foundsignificant to the intention to visit a hotel that provides wellness services, willingness topay a premium, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM), except the physical fitnesswellness services were not significant to predict the eWOM behavior. Grit was alsosignificantly and positively related to the stages of TTM. Grit was found to have apositive effect on customers’ visit intention to the hotels that offer wellness services,customers’ willingness to pay a premium for the hotels that offer wellness services, andeWOM.6To the best of our knowledge, this study was the first study to assess therelationship between grit and customer engagement in hotel wellness services. Therefore,the study findings enrich the wellness hospitality literature. This study contributes to thefield of wellness hospitality and psychological trait grit. The study results help theprofessionals and researchers to discover new wellness factors within the hospitalityindustry.

Adult adoptees may be blocked from feeling securely attached to their romantic partners and they may not even know it or what to do about it. The literature shows adult adoptees being overrepresented in insecure attachment styles, and not enough attention has been paid to the effect this has had on adoptees in their romantic relationships. In fact, no known study, to date, has provided an attachment-based psychoeducational approach for this marginalized population. The purpose of this introductory qualitative study was to explore the experiences and meaning-making of attachment, specifically related to adoption, for the adult adoptee and their romantic partner once they had attended a Hold Me Tight program (based on the principles of emotionally focused therapy). Semistructured dyadic interviews of three couples who identified as one partner being adopted were analyzed by using experiential thematic analysis. Results of this study demonstrated the need for the adult adoptee to vulnerably share their experiences of adoption-related attachment injuries with their partner. This sharing created new understandings, awareness, and a deeper connection for the couples. Themes included sharing adoption-related attachment burden with their partner, finding the reason for adoption-related attachment injuries, attachment in the adoptive parent relationship and transitions from birthmother to adoptive parents, adoption-related attachment injury of social stigma, and the adoptee’s negative view-of-self. These themes point to the need to promote attachment security for these unique couples through attachment-related education programs such as the one used in the study. One important finding was that avoidantly attached adult adoptees could lean into more securely attached behavior with their romantic partners after learning about their attachment through the HMT. The results of this study highlight a need for researchers, mental health professionals, families, and society to understand there may be a significant link between these couples and adoption-related attachment injury and support them in research, therapy, and understanding.

The present study was designed to assess the construct validity of the Cleveland Adaptive Personality Questionnaire (CAP-Q, Poreh 2012). One-hundred-ten participants were administered the CAPQ in addition to the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), a popular measure for the assessment of personality. CAP-Q scales were found to correlate with those measuring similar constructs of the PAI, showing convergent and discriminant validity. Additionally, the PAI subscales were associated with CAP-Q clinical scales to determine what traits the scales are measuring. The consistency of significant scale elevations was examined and revealed both measures produced similar profiles. A principle components analysis using a two-factor solution identified subscales for each of the CAP-Q clinical scales. Overall, this study shows the CAP-Q demonstrates satisfactory construct validity and suggests this new, brief alternative may be a valid measure used in place of some of the lengthier existing personality measures. Further research regarding the construct validation of the CAP-Q is proposed.

We frequently encounter other people’s emotions, and how we respond to them should have important implications for the quality of our relationships. Individuals who value emotion control (i.e., think emotions should be controlled versus expressed) may respond more negatively to others’ emotional expressions, and in turn, experience lower-quality relationships. We tested this proposition across six samples using multi-method designs. Valuing emotion control was associated with lower relationship quality in three diverse samples: US undergraduates, US community adults, and US Chinese-American adolescents (Study 1; N total=780). Furthermore, valuing emotion control was associated with more negative judgments of romantic partners’ emotions during a laboratory conflict conversation (Study 2; N=376; 187 couples), and more negative responses to a friend’s or romantic partner’s emotions, which in turn accounted for lower relationship quality (Studies 3a, 3b; Ns = 226, 353). In sum, these results suggest that valuing emotion control is linked with crucial drawbacks for people’s relationships.

The goal of this study is to explore the relationship between narcissism and psychological mindedness using a multimethod assessment, including self-report measures, informant-report measures, a typical performance task, and several maximum performance tasks. Using a sample of college students, participants completed a series of self-report questionnaires and performance tasks and invited people who knew them well to rate them using two informant-report measures. Eight hypotheses were formulated and tested, five of which were supported. According to the findings that supported the hypotheses, first, there was a strong relationship between different maximum performance tasks assessing manifestations of psychological mindedness. Second, there was an association between self-reported psychological mindedness and self-reported personal intelligence. Third, self- and informant correlations were stronger for more observable than less observable scales of narcissism and psychological mindedness. Fourth, two aggrandizing facets of self-reported narcissism, entitlement and self-importance, predicted poorer performance on a maximum performance measure of psychological mindedness. Fifth, individuals with self-reported narcissistic grandiosity overestimated their psychological mindedness as measured by the difference between their estimated and actual performance on a maximum performance task. Of the findings that did not support the hypotheses, first, informant-reported narcissism did not predict narcissistic interpersonal behavior as assessed during a typical performance task. Second, a composite score of maximum performance tasks that assess facets of psychological mindedness did not moderate the convergence between self-ratings and informant ratings. Third, a typical performance measure of narcissism did not predict overreporting success on a maximum performance measure of psychological mindedness. Results expanded a growing nomological network of findings related to narcissism and psychological mindedness, by method of assessment, providing a foundation for testing the clinical and socio-personality models of narcissism. One limitation to this study is that there were multiple steps in this study, with attrition from one step to the next, which potentially could have biased the sample. Future studies can build off this research by determining if the informants’ psychological mindedness or narcissism influence their degree of agreement with self-reports, and by continuing to document the differential strengths and limitations of each method for assessing these constructs.

Persons who exhibit high rates of sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS), known as Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs), tend to be very sensitive both to negative environmental exposures, including adversity, trauma, or disaster, and to positive environmental exposures including relational care. Studies suggest as many as 20-30% of a population rates “highly sensitive.” Researchers have come to identify HSPs metaphorically as “orchids;” persons who rate moderately sensitive as “tulips;” and persons who rate minimally sensitive as “dandelions.” Thus, when a population is impacted by disaster, as many as 20-30% of the population (i.e., orchids) might either be at high risk for struggling with posttraumatic stress or exhibiting strong adaptability. This study used six scales – a brief parent style questionnaire (PSQ12), Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL), Context Sensitivity Index (CSI), Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) scale, Life Events Checklist (LEC) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL), and Brief Resiliency Coping scale (BRC) – to explore participants’ responses following natural disasters and the extent to which SPS correlated with either high rates of post-traumatic stress or adaptability. Participants were invited to be surveyed through email, and respondents represented regions of South Santa Barbara County: Carpinteria (n=17), Montecito (n=16), and Santa Barbara (n=68). The income of participants ranged from less than $50,000 to over $250,000, with approximately 60% of participants identifying themselves as female, and approximately 60% of participants identifying themselves as White. About 10% of participants identified themselves as mixed-ethnicity, and the remaining 30% of participants identified themselves as Hispanic, Latino/a, and Asian. Results reveal both high rates of struggling with post-traumatic stress (M=24.75, SD=2.685) and adaptability to adversity (M=15.84, SD=2.638) among participants (N=101). This study found interpersonal support strongly factored into rates of post-traumatic stress and adaptability among HSPs. This dissertation also explored through a literature review how HSPs may particularly benefit from positive environmental community-based exposures in the aftermath of disaster, and it discusses how the understanding of SPS may be utilized in determining community wellness practices in response to collective trauma or disaster. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, (https://aura.antioch.edu/) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu/).

Many measures of affect exist, but they are used inconsistently in psychological studies (Weidman, Steckler, & Tracy, 2016). The present aimed to create a short affect measure that reconciles different views of emotion. The aim was a measure that represents all four quadrants of the affective circumplex, reduces redundancy, and retains good measurement properties. A list of items was created from previous measures and studies of affect, then refined manually. In Study 1a, participants described emotional episodes, then recalled the extent to which they felt each of the 354 feelings. In Study 1b, research assistants answered questions about each of the feeling items, rating them on a series of dimensions including pleasantness and arousal. These ratings were used to sort words into the four quadrants of the affective circumplex. An exploratory factor analysis on the data from Study 1a revealed two factors. The 20 highest-loading items from each quadrant were included in Study 2. After eliminating redundant items and adding theoretically important items, 76 items were included in Study 2. Study 2 was used to further narrow down items using an EFA, as well as other indices such as study frequency, Google Ngram frequency, and reliability. Using these metrics, three items from each quadrant were chosen for the final 12 item scale, called the brief affect measure (BAM). The scale revealed high convergent validity with other affect scales, good discriminant validity, and high internal consistency reliability. Future studies are needed to further validate this measure in a new sample.

Waiting for important news is a stressful experience that is often accompanied by poor well-being and attempts to cope. Across three studies, I examined the correlates and consequences of flow states (i.e., being so immersed in an activity that a person experiences loss of self-awareness) and mindfulness (i.e., full awareness of the self while maintaining non-judgmental acceptance of one’s internal and external present experience) and in Study 3 the effects of a flow and mindfulness intervention. I assessed flow and mindfulness, emotion, worry, and subjective coping leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election (Study 1), as law graduates waited for their bar exam results (Study 2), and as people waited to hear their results of a fictitious toxin risk assessment (Study 3). My findings suggest that flow and mindfulness predict well-being while waiting, with flow reliably predicting greater positive emotion and less negative emotion and mindfulness reliably predicting less negative emotion and worry and better subjective coping across the three waiting periods. I also found that state flow experienced during the wait did not reliably predict well-being following news. Although mindfulness reported during the wait also did not predict well-being following good news, people did report less positive emotion, more negative emotion, and poorer subjective coping following bad news. I also conducted an in-lab intervention study to examine the effects of a flow-inducing activity (playing a game) and mindfulness practice (guided meditation). Although people in the mindfulness condition reported greater mindfulness condition compared to the others, the flow intervention was not effective at promoting flow. Results from this experiment revealed that after engaging in a mindfulness meditation practice during the wait, people reported less negative emotion compared to engaging in a flow activity or doing nothing. Further, after receiving bad news, people in the flow and mindfulness conditions reported less negative emotion compared to doing nothing. In conclusion, findings suggest that flow and mindfulness are related to well-being during uncertain waiting periods and mindfulness may increase awareness of one’s poorer well-being following bad news or, in addition to engaging in a flow activity, may buffer the effects of bad news on negative emotions.

Previous research has indicated that the personality characteristics of individuals, as measured by the “Big Five” personality traits, are often spatially distributed within a population in non-random fashion. Although this phenomenon has been observed at between-country and sub-country (regional) scales of analysis, I advance this field of inquiry by investigating the presence of “personality regions” at a significantly smaller scale, specifically within the county of Santa Barbara, California. Through analysis of survey data collected from over 500 residents of the county, I determine that the county is regionalized non-randomly in terms of the Big Five trait openness. In addition, I find that the political attitudes individuals express, correlated to some extent with openness, are also distributed within the county in a non-random manner. I make novel use of an “a posteriori” approach in conjunction with regional optimization methods to identify and map meaningful, empirically derived regions across the county. The most notable regional division is between a higher openness/more politically liberal southeast and a lower openness/less politically liberal northwest (often referred to colloquially in the county as a South County/North County divide). This distinction is valid even when controlling for a range of socio-demographic variables. Living in more heavily urbanized areas is associated with greater neuroticism and political liberalism, but while this explains part of the major regional divide in the county, it does not explain all or even most of it. Using residential history data, I also test to see whether residents are more likely to “fit” regional personality and attitudinal norms with greater length of time spent living in the region, which would be indicative of an acculturation effect. However, I determine that length of time as a regional resident has no bearing on conformity to the norm, suggesting acculturation does not play a role in forming or maintaining a regional average personality. Finally, I find that being a political liberal is associated with a greater sense of identification with and attachment to Santa Barbara County, even when controlling for covariates. This suggests that individuals in the political majority are more likely to feel connected to the places in which they live.

With an aging global population, it is critically important to understand the consequences of everyday behavior for late-life personality development. Internet use is becoming increasingly embedded into older adults’ lives, and researchers have hypothesized that it may buffer older adults from age-graded declines in healthy personality traits. This dissertation contains two pre-registered studies. In the first, I tested the co-development between three factor-analytically derived clusters of internet use (instrumental, social, and media) and three aspects of psychological adjustment (loneliness, satisfaction with life, and depressiveness) among a representative sample of 2,922 Dutch adults aged 65 and older. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that internet use was largely unrelated to psychological adjustment, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Furthermore, cross-lagged analyses indicated that change in internet use did not predict future change in psychological adjustment, and vice-versa. In the second study, I examined co-development between instrumental, social, and media internet use and two aspects of cognitive engagement (openness to experience and need for cognition) using the same sample. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that older adults who were more cognitively engaged used the internet more frequently, especially for instrumental purposes like search and email. Those who increased in their use of online media over time declined less in need for cognition than their peers. I contrasted these findings against null associations between cognitive engagement and TV/radio use. Associations between internet use and cognitive engagement remained constant from 2008 to 2017 even as internet use became much more common. Overall, results of these two studies suggest that internet use in older adulthood is mostly unrelated to psychological adjustment but highly relevant to cognitive engagement.

Through a series of four studies, this research addresses two specific questions: what is the most accurate facet structure of Conscientiousness and, given that previous research indicates self-control should most likely be considered a facet of the trait, can a measure be created that captures a multidimensional assessment of self-control? Data were collected from a total of 827 undergraduate students at the University of California, Riverside as well as 299 community participants who completed an online survey that measured aspects of their personalities. While this dissertation relied heavily on established Big Five personality inventories, measures of constructs similar to Conscientiousness, including Grit and Determination, were also included. Until now, these were infrequently tested within the Big Five framework. Finally, a new Facets of Control measure is created, refined and tested against established scales. Exploratory factor analytic methods revealed a facet structure of Conscientiousness that included a proactive aspect defined by Grit, Determination, Industriousness and Productiveness. Models also revealed a robust and consistent facet of Order and Organization in all four studies. Finally, an inhibitory aspect of the trait was identified which was captured by Self-Control measures from the Chernyshenko Conscientiousness Scales, Prudence from the HEXACO and Impulse Control from the Facets of Control measure. This specific aspect of the new scale proved useful in establishing the importance of not only adding an inhibitory feature to the understanding of Conscientiousness, but also making a compelling case for including Self-Control within the larger Five Factor Model framework of personality.

Afrofuturism is a cultural and aesthetic movement within the African Diaspora thatdraws on the present and historical experiences of Black people and reimagines a futurefiltered through a Black cultural lens. There has been a growing number of fashioncreatives and enthusiasts throughout the African Diaspora who are adopting this aestheticin order to celebrate Black culture and identity. However, the role of Africa in Afrofuturismcontinues to be debated as many believe the term to be inherently centered on BlackAmerican experiences and cultures and not necessarily on the African experience. Thepurpose of this research is to explore the connection between Afrofuturism, fashion, andcultural identity in the African Diaspora. A qualitative approach using interviews and anarts-based creative online collage exercise was used to uncover the role and signification ofcultural identity in the Afrofuturistic expressions of West Africans in Africa, West Africansliving in America (Diasporic Africans) and African Americans. Because fashion has beenlikened to a form of symbolic language, this study also aims to uncover the “codes” involvedin each group’s communication of their cultural identities. Through the data gathered, a 3-look capsule collection was created to represent a visual summary of the views of eachgroup on Afrofuturistic fashion expressions.

Curmudgeon personality, the extent to which a person dislikes most things, has recently received increased attention from researchers. Existing research has focused on either the relationships between curmudgeon personality and Big Five personality factors (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness) or curmudgeon personality and various workplace outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention). The current research examined whether curmudgeon personality and other personality traits (i.e., extraversion and emotional expressiveness) interact with each other to influence the quality of individuals’ social relationships at work. Analyses using an MTurk dataset (N = 529) showed some evidence of these interaction effects though some directions of these interactive effects were interesting and inconsistent with our predictions. These findings extend the existing literature by examining curmudgeon personality’s interactions with other personality traits and by examining outcome variables not previously examined within the curmudgeon personality literature.

The current study investigated perceptions of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in the context of volunteerism. This study considered individual differences including empathy, openness to experience, and neuroticism. It was proposed that there would be a positive correlation between empathy and reported hours of volunteer work. Findings indicated that there was no significant correlation between empathy and reported frequency of volunteering. Additionally, it was proposed that there would be a positive correlation between empathy and ratings of MBSR perceived attractiveness and helpfulness. Findings from this study provided evidence for a significant positive relationship between empathy and perceptions of MBSR attractiveness and helpfulness. Also hypothesized and detected was a significant positive correlation between openness to experience and perceptions of MBSR attractiveness and helpfulness. A hypothesized relationship between ratings of neuroticism and MBSR perceptions, however, did not emerge. Because MBSR can be an effective training (e.g., Brown & Ryan, 2003; Positive Psychology Program, 2019), understanding which individual differences, including empathy, openness to experience, and neuroticism, correlate with perceptions of MBSR helpfulness and attractiveness is useful for management in volunteer and non-profit organizations.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact unlimited connectivity and unlimited access to voice, text, and video communication as well as multimedia content consumption through mobile social technology has on personality integration. The increased use of mobile social technology has changed how the user engages social relationships. Through mobile social technology, the user places importance in an inanimate object for engagement of social relationships. A reliance on the inanimate object as a social relationship is thought to compromise the ability to internalize integrated object relations and develop stable personality organization. This theoretical research uses hermeneutic analysis of Kernberg’s Object Relations theory, Winnicott’s theory on Transitional Objects, Anthropomorphism, and Kohut’s Self Psychology as it pertains to the relationship with mobile social technology. Through the hermeneutic process of understanding the presented experience of each of these theories the aim is to form a clearer picture of how our relationship with mobile social technology impacts personality functioning. Further research is needed to continue to expand our understanding of the impact of our relationship with social technologies. This Dissertation is available in Open Access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu and OhioLink ETD Center, http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd

The current study investigates several personality characteristics and motivations of college students across different types of institutions, and their relation to the students’ decision-making process when choosing which college to attend. Personality traits and measurements are thoroughly examined, followed by ways that college institutions and their students differ from each other. An online survey assessed personality characteristics and factors involved in the college-decision process from 215 participants who were currently attending or had previously attended undergraduate institutions. Significant differences were found between different groups of students (e.g., students attending public vs private schools, male vs female) in their personality characteristics and the college factors they considered in their college-decision process. Personality traits also predicted how much students considered different factors when deciding which college to attend.

Self-distancing has been linked to reductions in negative emotional experience (i.e., lower anger and sadness) as well as changes in appraisal processes (i.e., more reconstrual/less recounting; more challenge/less threat). We examined whether self-distancing also influences the self-concept, specifically its affective component (i.e., self-esteem). In a series of four experiments (total N = 2301), we investigated how distanced self-talk affects self-esteem relative to immersed self-talk, which involves using non-first versus first-person pronouns, respectively, in reference to the self during introspection. Study 1 employed implicit and explicit measures to test condition differences in self-esteem. Compared with immersed participants, those who distanced demonstrated higher implicit self-esteem but did not differ in explicit measures. Study 2 aimed to replicate the effects on implicit self-esteem and discern whether positive associations with the self were increased or maintained during Study 1. This study did not replicate Study 1, as implicit self-views did not differ by self-talk condition. Studies 3 and 4 addressed limitations in Study 1 that may have contributed to null explicit self-esteem findings, but did not provide evidence that distanced self-talk influences explicit self-views. Finally, a meta-analysis (Study 5) indicated that across all our studies, relative to immersed self-talk, those who distanced did not experience significant changes in self-esteem. Together, these findings indicate that although distanced self-talk may be an effective method for engaging more adaptive evaluations of emotional experiences, this emotion regulation strategy does not influence how one affectively evaluates the self.

The majority of people around the world report wanting “the good life.” But how do they achieve it? Most research in well-being science operationalizes “the good life” as subjective well-being, which is comprised of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. This project uses a nationally representative publicly available dataset from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project (N = 4,378) to investigate predictors of subjective well-being. Importantly, this dataset contains measures of most of the previously identified predictors of subjective well-being. In addition to determining which predictors are stronger than others, this project also explores the utility of machine learning models and propensity score methods. Machine learning models are used in this project to determine the extent to which non-linear and interaction effects predict subjective well-being. I also evaluate the value of a propensity score method for identifying causal effects on subjective well-being. Linear effects accounted for the vast majority of variance in subjective well-being. Machine learning models that could model non-linear and interaction effects predicted subjective well-being approximately as accurately as linear multiple regression models that only allowed for linear effects. Furthermore, linear multiple regression models appeared well-suited to model non-linear and interaction effects via variable transformations. Indeed, these models predicted subjective well-being as accurately or more accurately than machine learning models. Unfortunately, a propensity score method provided little value in identifying causal effects because it failed to eliminate relationships between a predictor of interest and other predictors. The role (or lack thereof) that machine learning and propensity score techniques could play in subjective well-being research is discussed. Replicating previous research, sociability, physical health, disengagement from goals, sex life quality, wealth, and religious activity were among the strongest predictors of subjective well-being. Consistent with previous research in the U.S., demographic factors appeared to be relatively weak predictors of subjective well-being. Finally, control over one’s life—and financial and work matters in particular—was a strong predictor of subjective well-being, an effect that previous research may have downplayed.