The Social Consequences of Personality: Six Suggestions for Future Research

Abstract

Historically, personality psychology has not focused on the social realm, and social psychology has mostly neglected the influence of individual differences. This has, however, begun to change in the past two decades. Recent years have brought an explosion in creative research programmes on the social consequences of personality. In this paper, we offer a (highly subjective) view on how research on the social consequences of personality should move forward. We note that the existing literature is focused heavily on: traits (at the expense of other personality characteristics), a narrow set of social outcomes (e.g. romantic relationship satisfaction) and effects of personality on one's own outcomes (rather than taking a dyadic/interpersonal perspective). In addition, little attention has been paid to the complex dynamic processes that might account for the links between personality and social outcomes. Based on this, we outline six suggestions for future research on the social consequences of personality: (1) examine a wide range of personality variables and integrate findings across domains; (2) take a broader and more integrative view on social outcomes, including different relationship types, phases and transitions; (3) analyse personality effects on social outcomes from different social perspectives (e.g. self, other and dyad); (4) search for processes that explain the associations between personality and social outcomes; (5) collect rich, multi-method, longitudinal, behavioural datasets with large samples and (6) carefully evaluate the implications of personality effects on social outcomes. We invite researchers to embrace a more collaborative and slower scientific approach to answer the many open questions about the social consequences of personality.

On friendship development and the Big Five personality traits

“…Karney & Bradbury, 1995). In addition, personality traits predict outcomes in a wide range of personal and interpersonal domains, including occupational success, health, longevity, and social outcomes (Back & Vazire, 2015;Ozer & Benet-Martinez, 2006;Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007).…”

Are fluctuations in personality states more than fluctuations in affect?

“…In addition, social-cognitive theory suggests that situations play an important role, triggering affective processes that mediate the influence of situations on behavioral responses (e.g., Downey & Feldman, 1996;Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998;Downey, Mougios, Ayduk, London, & Shoda, 2004). Future research using intensive longitudinal data is needed to reach firm conclusions regarding the direction and flow of these complex processes (Back & Vazire, 2015;Vater & Schröder-Abé, 2015;.…”

Do Narcissism and Emotional Intelligence Win Us Friends? Modeling Dynamics of Peer Popularity Using Inferential Network Analysis

“…When studying the role of node attributes (e.g., narcissism or EI of group members) in shaping network structures, it is necessary to consider self-organizing forces such as the tendency to reciprocate another's liking or the observation that two persons who are both befriended with a third person become befriended with each other (transitivity). Otherwise conclusions might be biased (Back & Vazire, 2015;Cranmer, Leifeld, McClurg, & Rolfe, 2016;Lusher, Koskinen & Robins, 2013;Nestler, Grimm, & Schönbrodt, 2015). Accordingly, it is necessary to include self-organizing forces in the model when estimating the effects of exogenous factors, such as personality traits or abilities, for popularity.…”