Longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of Australians were used to evaluate mean-level differences and rank-order stability in personality traits assessed twice over a 4-year time span (n = 13,134). Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness declined over the life span, whereas Agreeableness increased among young cohorts, was stable among middle-aged cohorts, and declined among the oldest old. Cross-sectional analyses suggested an increase in Conscientiousness throughout the life span, though longitudinal analyses suggested a slight decline in late life. There was an inverted U-shaped pattern for rank-order stability, with peak stability occurring in middle age. For three of the Big Five domains (Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), age-related differences appeared to be somewhat more pronounced before age 30 than after age 30.

The university participant pool is a key resource for behavioral research, and data quality is believed to vary over the course of the academic semester. This crowdsourced project examined time of semester variation in 10 known effects, 10 individual differences, and 3 data quality indicators over the course of the academic semester in 20 participant pools (N = 2,696) and with an online sample (N = 737). Weak time of semester effects were observed on data quality indicators, participant sex, and a few individual differences-conscientiousness, mood, and stress. However, there was little evidence for time of semester qualifying experimental or correlational effects. The generality of this evidence is unknown because only a subset of the tested effects demonstrated evidence for the original result in the whole sample. Mean characteristics of pool samples change slightly during the semester, but these data suggest that those changes are mostly irrelevant for detecting effects. Word count = 151Keywords: social psychology; cognitive psychology; replication; participant pool; individual differences; sampling effects; situational effects 4 Many Labs 3: Evaluating participant pool quality across the academic semester via replication University participant pools provide access to participants for a great deal of published behavioral research. The typical participant pool consists of undergraduates enrolled in introductory psychology courses that require students to complete some number of experiments over the course of the academic semester. Common variations might include using other courses to recruit participants or making study participation an option for extra credit rather than a pedagogical requirement. Research-intensive universities often have a highly organized participant pool with a participant management system for signing up for studies and assigning credit. Smaller or teaching-oriented institutions often have more informal participant pools that are organized ad hoc each semester or for an individual class.To avoid selection bias based on study content, most participant pools have procedures to avoid disclosing the content or purpose of individual studies during the sign-up process.However, students are usually free to choose the time during the semester that they sign up to complete the studies. This may introduce a selection bias in which data collection on different dates occurs with different kinds of participants, or in different situational circumstances (e.g., the carefree semester beginning versus the exam-stressed semester end).If participant characteristics differ across time during the academic semester, then the results of studies may be moderated by the time at which data collection occurs. Indeed, among behavioral researchers there are widespread intuitions, superstitions, and anecdotes about the "best" time to collect data in order to minimize error and maximize power. It is common, for example, to hear stories of an effect being obtained in the first part of the semester that then "d...

Many Labs 3 is a crowdsourced project that systematically evaluated time-of-semester effects across many participant pools. See the Wiki for a table of contents of files and to download the manuscript.

We report the results of three high-powered, independent replications of Study 2 from Williams and Bargh (2008) . Participants evaluated hot or cold instant therapeutic packs before choosing a reward for participation that was framed as a prosocial (i.e., treat for a friend) or self-interested reward (i.e., treat for the self). Williams and Bargh predicted that evaluating the hot pack would lead to a higher probability of making a prosocial choice compared to evaluating the cold pack. We did not replicate the effect in any individual laboratory or when considering the results of the three replications together (total N = 861). We conclude that there is no evidence that brief exposure to warm therapeutic packs induces greater prosocial responding than exposure to cold therapeutic packs.

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