Explaining Everyday Behaviours and Situational Context by Personality Metatraits and Higher–Order Values

Abstract

In the current study, we looked for the relations between broad personality dimensions (metatraits of personality and higher-order values) and everyday behaviours. We asked participants (N = 374; aged 17 to 53, M age = 23.72) about their current behaviour, followed by questions on situational context (company and perceived autonomy) seven times per day for seven consecutive days, using an experience sampling mobile app. This method allowed us to capture a wide range of descriptions of behavioural acts (n = 13 873), which were then empirically categorized. Personality metatraits distinguished within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits (i.e. Stability vs. Disinhibition, Plasticity vs. Passiveness, Integration vs. Disharmony, and Self-Restraint vs. Sensation-Seeking) and values from the refined model of Schwartz et al. (Openness to Change vs. Conservation and Self-Transcendence vs. Self-Enhancement) were measured by self-descriptive questionnaires. Multilevel logistic regressions with multiple predictors, including traits and values simultaneously, revealed significant effects or tendencies for 20 of the 35 categories of activities, five kinds of company, and perceived autonomy. The best predictors of activities and situational context were the higher-order values Openness to Change vs. Conservation. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology

A categorization of behaviors reported in experience sampling studies

“…Depending on the study purpose one can use the categorization with more narrowly defined categories or less broad categories. The reliability and validity of the broad and narrow categories were confirmed in the current study as well as in other work (Skimina et al, 2019;Skimina & Cieciuch, 2020).…”

“…This reduced the 97 categories into 63. The Cohen's kappa for the 97 categories was .81 and for the 63 categories it was .88 (Skimina & Cieciuch, 2020).…”

“…The security-personal item was: "How important was it to you to avoid danger, " which suggests that, in the case of playing with a child, it was not interpreted as security-personal but rather as caring for a child's safety (Skimina et al, 2019). Skimina and Cieciuch (2020) confirmed that narrow categories of behaviors can reveal associations with personality variables that are not observable at a level of broader behavioral categories. They found, for example, that talking with a partner and spending time with a partner are related differently to metatraits of personality.…”

“…Working together, following the instructions, the judges developed 98 categories. This set of narrow categories was used by Skimina and Cieciuch (2020) to code all 13,873 responses collected in Study 6. They found that two of the 98 categories were indistinguishable, so they merged these two categories into one (everyday shopping and shopping into shopping).…”

“…All narrow categories are listed in Table A in the Appendix and descriptions of 63 categories are presented in Table B in the Appendix. The lower levels of the categorization system were validated in studies conducted by Skimina et al (2019) and by Skimina and Cieciuch (2020) who found that narrow categories differ in terms of their associations with value-states, metatraits of personality, and the preferences of higher-order values. For instance, visiting a family member was more strongly related to the benevolence-caring value-state than hosting a family member or meeting a family member in a public place.…”