Background: The co-morbidity between social phobia and alcohol disorder is well established. Aims: This study investigated the nature of the relationship between traits associated with these disorders. Method: A total of 157 undergraduate drinkers (112 women; 45 men) completed measures tapping aspects of social phobia (i.e., the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale and the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation scale) and drinking behavior (i.e., the Drinking Motives Questionnaire -Revised, quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption, and the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index). Results: Correlational analyses (controlling for gender) revealed that: (i) social avoidance and distress was significantly negatively related to drinking frequency; (ii) fear of negative evaluation and social avoidance and distress were both significantly positively related to drinking to cope with negative emotions and to conform to peer pressure; and (iii) fear of negative evaluation was also significantly positively related to drinking to socialize and to drinking problems. The relationship between fear of negative evaluation and drinking problems was mediated by coping and conformity drinking motives. Conclusions: Implications for developing effective integrated treatments for co-occurring social anxiety and alcohol problems are discussed, as are preventative implications.

The authors examine the within-individual dynamics of Big-5 personality states over time in people's daily lives. They focus on the magnitude of this within-individual variability, and the associations between personality states, short-term goals, and subjective well-being states. A total of 101 undergraduate students participated in a 10-day interval-contingent diary study. The authors' findings, based on multilevel procedures, establish a considerable amount of within-individual variability that is both (a) equal or larger than that observed between individuals and (b) larger or similar to other constructs assessed with a state approach (e.g., self-esteem and mood). In addition, both neuroticism and extraversion states are systematically related to the short-term pursuit of approach-avoidance goals. Finally, support was obtained for the mediating role of both neuroticism and extraversion states of the association between goals and subjective well-being. In sum, the authors' findings testify to the importance and utility of studying within-individual variability in personality states over time.

The article reports the findings from a Monte Carlo investigation examining the impact of faking on the criterion-related validity of Conscientiousness for predicting supervisory ratings of job performance. Based on a review of faking literature, 6 parameters were manipulated in order to model 4,500 distinct faking conditions (5 [magnitude] x 5 [proportion] x 4 [variability] x 3 [faking-Conscientiousness relationship] x 3 [faking-performance relationship] x 5 [selection ratio]). Overall, the results indicated that validity change is significantly affected by all 6 faking parameters, with the relationship between faking and performance, the proportion of fakers in the sample, and the magnitude of faking having the strongest effect on validity change. Additionally, the association between several of the parameters and changes in criterion-related validity was conditional on the faking-performance relationship. The results are discussed in terms of their practical and theoretical implications for using personality testing for employee selection.

We describe our ongoing program of research related to the assessment of contextualized personality, focusing on social roles and cultural cues as contextual factors. First, we present our research employing the traditional assessment approach, wherein participants are asked to rate explicitly their personality across several different roles. We argue that this hypothetical approach is potentially susceptible to the influence of stereotypes, social desirability, and demand characteristics. We therefore describe the development of three novel and subtle assessment procedures that are based on obtaining online self-representations that are activated while occupying a specific context. Finally, the strengths and limitations of all four approaches, as well as directions for future research in the study of contextualized personality, are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of imposing a time constraint on respondents completing the Big Five personality Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999) based on a self-regulatory model of response distortion. A completely crossed 2 × 2 experimental design was used in which instructions (neutral standard instruction or a job applicant instruction) and speed (with or without a time limit) were manipulated. While speeding personality tests reduced socially desirable responding, consistent with resource allocation theory (Ackerman, 1986), this effect was only seen in low cognitive ability individuals. Speeding was not perceived negatively by participants. This study is the first to find any evidence of a possible influence of speed on impression management and suggests that manipulating time limits for completing personality measures in selection is not advised at the present time as it is likely to have the unintended effect of removing applicants with high cognitive ability from the applicant pool.