When Do Personality Traits Predict Personal Goals?
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Transcript of When Do Personality Traits Predict Personal Goals?
Introduction
This study explores the relations between personality traits and personal
goals. The goal measure (Howell et al., 2001) is based on extensive
content sampling of thousands of students’ goals across more than a
decade of research. This Personal Goals Questionnaire incorporates the
breadth and variety of students’ explicit motives.
Previously established trait-goal relationships:
Traits relate to personal project ratings (Little, Lecci, & Watkinson, 1992):
Importance ratings positively correlate to conscientiousness,
extraversion, & agreeableness;
Visibility ratings of interpersonal projects correlate positively to
conscientiousness & extraversion;
High openness and low neuroticism correlate positively to enjoyment
ratings and negatively to stress ratings.
Importance ratings of independence goals relate to introversion and
neuroticism (Stimson et al., 2007)
Correspondence between social traits and goals relates to happiness
(McGregor, McAdams, & Little, 2006)
Predictions:
Goals to alter personal characteristics or attributes will relate to
personality traits. For example, “Be more assertive, self-confident” and
“Stop worrying so much” will be more important to the highly neurotic.
Goals arising from normative roles will relate more weakly to traits. For
example, academic and financial goals may be more socially proscribed
(Cantor, 1990).
MethodParticipants
N = 786 UCR undergraduates Mean age = 19.2 years
62% female
11% other / mixed ethnicities
44% Asian American 24% Hispanic
15% Caucasian 6% African American
Measures
Big Five Inventory (John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991)
A brief measure of the five most essential personality trait domains
44 statements of “I see myself as someone who…” rated 1-5
Personal Goals Questionnaire – 65-item list of goals
Represents all of students’ commonly volunteered personal goals
Participants rate “How important is the goal…”
1 = “This is not one of my goals currently”
to 5 = “Among my most important goals currently”
Procedure
Goal importance ratings were standardized within each participant
Formed twenty parcels of two to six goals each based on semantic
similarity of goal content
Factor analyzed the twenty parcels
Based factor scores on unit weighted means of the parcels from
an oblimin-rotated solution
Correlated factor scores with the Big Five Inventory trait scales
Results & Discussion
95 participants were removed for rating more than 50% of goals as “Among my most important goals currently.” All analyses are based on the
remaining 88% of the original sample (N = 692). Neuroticism related to average goal importance ratings before standardization (r = .21, p < .0001).
A scree test identified three principal factors accounting for 33% of the variance in importance ratings. Standardization forced bipolar loadings. After
oblimin rotation, these factors were retained to represent the most essential tradeoffs students make as they priorit ize one goal domain over another
(Stauner, Stimson, & Ozer, 2009):
Spirituality vs. Finances: Indicates opposing prioritizations of moral and religious growth vs. immediate material needs and rewards.
Intimacy vs. Self-Enablement: Indicates that romantic relationship & family-building goals oppose negative affect management & self-assertion
goals. This suggests personal stability is a prerequisite for seeking emotional intimacy.
Achievement vs. Enjoyment: Represents contrasting motive dispositions toward academic or career achievement and hedonistic affiliation, and
suggests opposition between achievement and social life tasks (Cantor, 1990).
Personality correlates with goals to engage in and change trait-related social and emotional behavior
Extraversion is associated with spiritual, and especially community presence goals, while introversion is associated with an apparently
compensatory interest in being more self-confident and independent.
Neuroticism is associated with apparently compensatory goals to relax, reduce stress and worrying, and be more self-confident and independent,
while emotional stability is associated with recreational sensation-seeking (e.g., participating for fun in hobbies, sports, travel, and thrilling activities).
Openness is associated with enjoyment-seeking.
These results expand the predictive validity of the Big Five personality traits to individual differences in motivation
Suggests underlying deficits in social glibness and emotional stability as motivators of compensatory goals
Indicates a complementary relationship between openness and enjoyment-seeking, and between extraversion and community involvement-seeking.
References
Cantor, N. (1990). From thought to behavior: "Having" and “doing” in the study of
personality and cognition. American Psychologist , 45(6), 735-750.John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L, (1991). The Big Five Inventory: Versions
4a and 54. Technical report, Institute of Personality and Social Research,
University of California, Berkeley, CA.Howell, R. T., Hershey, J. W., Markey, P. M. & Ozer, D. J. (2001). Comparing operant
and respondent measures of personal goals. Poster presented at the 109th annual
convention of the American PsychologicalAssociation, San Francisco, CA.Kaiser, R. T., & Ozer, D. J. (1997). Emotional stability and goal-related stress.
Personality and Individual Differences, 22(3), 371-379.
Little, B. R., Lecci, L., & Watkinson, B. (1992). Personality and personal projects: Linking Big Five and PAC units of analysis. Journal of Personality, 60(2), 501-525.
McGregor, I., McAdams, D. P., & Little, B. R. (2006). Personal projects, life stories,
and happiness: On being true to traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 551–572.
Stimson, T. S., Kaiser, K. M., Kashani, N., Moon, C. M., Pederson, M. B., Rodriguez, J.
E., Sanchez, M., & Ozer, D. J. (2007). Independence goals, college studentpersonality and recollected childhood experiences. Poster presented at the annualconvention of the American PsychologicalAssociation, Kansas City, MO.
Stauner, N., Stimson, T. S., & Ozer, D. J. (2009). The factor structure of personalgoals in an undergraduate population. Poster presented at the 10th annualconvention of the Society for Personality & Social Psychology, Tampa, FL.
Table 1. Correlations Between the Big Five and Personal Goals
Goal Factors / Parcels E A C N O
Spirituality vs. Finances .13 .12 .12 -.11 .08
Religious -.07
Moral .11 .10 -.09
Community .22 .09 .19 -.14 .11
Immediate Finances .07 .07
Intimacy vs. Self-Enablement .21 -.09 .08 -.28 .10
Romantic Relations -.07 .07
Immediate Finances .07 .07
Future Family Concerns -.08
Assert Influence -.31 .06 -.17 .19 -.13
Negative Affect Control -.14 .49 -.07
Achievement vs. Enjoyment .08 -.17
Academic .13 -.10
Future Finances .08 -.07
Peer Relations .10 -.10 .07
Enjoyment-Seeking -.20 .23
Note. Correlations of magnitude ≥ .2 are bolded.
All displayed correlations are significant, p < .1 N = 690 – 691.
Conclusions
Neuroticism motivates compensatory stress-reduction and relaxation goals
Introversion motivates compensatory interpersonal self-assertion goals
Openness motivates enjoyment-seeking goals