A Mega-Analysis of Personality Prediction: Robustness and Boundary Conditions

Abstract

Objective measures of community mobility are advantageous for capturing life-space activity. In contrast to subjective, self-reported approaches, GPS-derived objective measures leverage passive, real-time data collection techniques to mitigate recall bias and minimize participant burden. We present methods to quantify community mobility among a sample of 164 community-dwelling older adults (Mean age=77.3±6.5) from a physical therapy intervention aimed at improving walking ability. We characterized community mobility using activity space metrics (e.g., standard deviation ellipse (SDE) area), timing (e.g., time outside home), and shape (e.g., SDE compactness). We will discuss challenges and solutions to generating these metrics as well as their associations with physical and cognitive performance. Time outside of home and SDE area, but not SDE compactness, were correlated with better performance on the 6-Minute Walking Test and Trail-Making Test (Part B) (ρ=.20-.23, p’s<.05). These findings will aid in understanding which community mobility measures are associated with functional capacity.

Searching high and low for meaningful and replicable morphometric correlates of personality.

“…Personality traits can be defined as characteristic patterns of emotions, thoughts, motivations, and behaviors. In addition to providing a vocabulary for describing oneself and others, they are reliably linked to important psychosocial outcomes such as mental health, occupational performance, and social functioning (e.g., Beck & Jackson, in press; Roberts et al, 2007; Soto, 2019). Consistent with field-wide efforts to identify neurobiological underpinnings of psychological phenomenon (e.g., Research Domain Criteria; Insel et al, 2010), there has been a recent surge of work investigating the morphometric (i.e., brain structural) correlates of personality traits.…”

Childhood temperament and adulthood personality differentially predict life outcomes

“…If childhood and adult personality traits equivalently predict future life outcomes, this would suggest the mechanisms linking traits measured at distinct points of individuals' lives operate similarly and, ultimately, yield equal predictions of future outcomes. In support of this perspective, both childhood and adulthood personality assessments predict similar outcomes 5,6,8,11 .…”

Personalized Prediction of Behaviors and Experiences: An Idiographic Person–Situation Test

“…Whereas there are between-person individual differences in future loneliness, procrastination, and studying, there was also within-person variability in terms of how and when people demonstrated these behaviors and experiences. Typical prediction models within psychology have largely focused on which between-person features predict life outcomes or other aggregated behaviors (e.g., Beck & Jackson, 2022a; Joel et al, 2020; Puterman et al, 2020). Here, in alignment with a growing emphasis on precision medicine approaches to improving physical health, well-being, and productivity, we demonstrate that within-person features are also predictable by psychological and situation features.…”

“…Despite this persisting emphasis, accurately predicting future socioemotional behaviors and experiences remains elusive. Indeed, most of the existent research on prediction examines broad life outcomes (e.g., Beck & Jackson, 2022a;Joel et al, 2020). Whereas such broad life outcomes result from accumulating behaviors and experiences (e.g., Hampson et al, 2007), how predictable those behaviors are is unknown.We argue that the elusiveness of accurate predictions of future behaviors stems from an almost exclusive focus of a between-person perspective.…”