The Big Five personality traits were discovered through factor analyses of cross-sectional associations among personality items. Yet, cross-sectional factor structures are a weighted blend of between- and within-person factor structures. Thus, the Big Five might not represent the underlying factors on the within-person level or on the between-person level. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the Big Five factor structure holds on the between- and within-person level of personality trait measures. I fit common and unique trait-state (CUTS) models (Hamaker, Schuurman, & Zijlmans, 2017) to 11 years of longitudinal data from a Dutch household panel study (N = 12,901; Mage at Time 1 = 41.71; 54.34% women). The results indicated that the Big Five factor structure held across both between- and within-person levels. The findings lend support to past research that did not distinguish between the two levels when measuring the Big Five. The results furthermore suggest that latent dimensions rather than a network of interconnected components underly the common variance of Big Five trait measures.

The construct of fame in self-determination theory is very similar to the construct of social status in Anderson, Hildreth, and Howland’s (2015) status-as-fundamental-motive perspective. Both fame and social status are characterized by admiration and (admiring) respect by other people. Yet, while desiring fame is believed to distract or interfere with the fulfillment of basic needs (e.g., Ryan et al., 1999), desiring social status is believed to be very much equivalent to a basic need (Anderson et al., 2015). Inspired by these two theoretical standpoints, we tested opposing hypotheses in a pre-registered secondary data analysis of prospective longitudinal data spanning 10 years (N = 4,625; Mage at T1 = 19.60). Specifically, we tested whether or not desire for fame among early adults is related to their (a) concurrent subjective well-being, self-esteem, and health, (b) subsequent subjective well-being, self-esteem, and health, and (c) subsequent changes in subjective well-being, self-esteem, and health. Furthermore, we investigated (d) whether changes in desire for fame are related to contemporaneous changes in subjective well-being, self-esteem, and health. In line with self-determination theory, we found several positive correlations between desire for fame and the negative affect subscale of the PANAS, low self-esteem, and self-reported health complaints. In line with the status-as-fundamental-motive perspective, we found almost no substantial negative correlations between desire for fame and life satisfaction, the positive affect subscale of the PANAS, and self-rated health status. Thus, our results did not support either of the two positions unequivocally, indicating the need for further theoretical refinement.