بازتاب حالات ابعاد پنج عامل بزرگ شخصیتی

Two studies explored the possibility that the Big Five dimensions, which extensive research has shown underlie most human traits, also provide a structure for transitory states. A confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit between responses on measures of transitory states and the Big Five dimensions. Further, the state measures of the Big Five dimensions had good internal consistency. As one would expect, each Big Five state was more related to the corresponding Big Five trait than to other Big Five traits. As expected on the basis of previous research, higher levels of state surgency were associated with higher levels of state positive mood, and higher levels of state emotional stability were associated with lower levels of state negative mood. Unexpectedly, state conscientiousness was also highly associated with state positive mood. Because one would expect states to be changeable, the second study used an experimental manipulation to attempt to change levels of the Big Five States. All states changed in the expected direction; however, only the changes in state surgency, agreeableness, and openness were statistically significant.

A number of theories of human behavior (Allport, 1961, Buss & Craik, 1983, Costa & McCrae, 1992, Goldberg, 1993 and Wakefield, 1989) emphasize the hierarchical organization of human functioning. According to these theories general and enduring characteristics are at the top of the hierarchy and more specific or passing characteristics are at the bottom of the hierarchy. These characteristics at the bottom of the hierarchy are generally viewed as being less descriptive of an individual and as being prompted by certain situations or cognitive processes. A related conceptualization of human characteristics is their classification into traits or states (e.g. Spielberger & Sydeman, 1994 and Wakefield, 1989). In a hierarchical model, traits are conceptualized as higher-level and enduring characteristics, while states are lower level and less enduring characteristics. Trait anxiety, for instance, disposes individuals to feel chronic anxiety, while state anxiety is a situationally linked experience of anxiety that passes when the situation is no longer present (Spielberger & Sydeman 1994). A similar differentiation can be made between state and trait anger (Spielberger & Sydeman, 1994 and Watson et al., 1988 studied characteristic (general) positive and negative affect and state (momentary) positive and negative mood. As one would expect, ratings of characteristic positive and negative affect were relatively unchanged over the course of an eight-week period, while ratings of momentary positive and negative mood showed some consistency, but more variability than characteristic affect. Similarly, Usala and Hertzog (1991) found that state anxiety was less stable over time than trait anxiety. Thus, one might conclude that these mood-related states are the result of characteristic affect interacting with situational influences. Characteristics such as states, which may be placed at the bottom of a hierarchical conceptualization of functioning, may be related to important outcomes. For example, state anxiety has been found to be associated with performance (Catanzano, 1996 and Menzel & Carrell, 1994) and cognitive dissonance (Menasco & Hawkins, 1978). State mood that has been manipulated on the positive mood dimension has been found to be associated with helping behavior (Isen & Levine, 1972 and Isen & Simmonds, 1978), memory (Teasdale & Barnard, 1993), perception (Forgas & Bower, 1987), and judgement (Forgas, 1995). State anxiety, state anger, and state positive and negative mood have been investigated. However, relatively little research has focused on other types of states. Five dimensions, surgency, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness, seem to underlie many characteristic traits (Goldberg, 1993, John & Srivastava, 1999 and McCrae & Costa, 1999). These Big Five dimensions have been identified in many factor analytic studies (Costa & McCrae, 1992 and Costa & McCrae, 1996; Digman, 1990, John, 1990, John & Srivastava, 1999 and McCrae & Costa, 1999), including cross-cultural studies (McCrae & Costa, 1997a and Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). Typically these studies have found that if individuals rate themselves or others on a wide variety of trait descriptors, five factors emerge. Different researchers have applied somewhat different terms to these factors, e.g. using the term “extraversion” instead of “surgency,” low “neuroticism” instead of “emotional stability,” and “intellect” or “imagination” instead of “openness” (Goldberg, 1992 and Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). The consistent finding that many personality traits group into five dimensions might be in part due to biological predispositions to organize responses into these dimensions. Research showing moderate heritability of the Big Five traits and facets of the Big Five traits (e.g. Isen & Simmonds, 1978 and Loehlin, 1998) supports the possibility of such a biological predisposition. In a review of research on the Big Five dimensions, John and Srivastava (1999) pointed out that as well as being important in understanding the organization of human functioning, the Big Five dimensions are related to important life outcomes. For example, research with adolescents has found that low agreeableness and low conscientiousness predict juvenile delinquency; neuroticism and low conscientiousness predict internalizing psychopathologies; and conscientiousness and openness are associated with good school performance. Research with adults has shown that conscientiousness predicts good work performance and good health, low agreeableness and high neuroticism are associated with poor health, high agreeableness is associated with helping others, high extraversion predicts leadership, high neuroticism is associated with depression, and high openness is associated with creativity. In a factor analytic study, Borkenau and Ostendorf (1998) explored the relationship between daily states and the Big Five dimensions. In this study participants used adjective checklists to record their states for each day during 90 consecutive days. Two important findings were that there was substantial variability in the day-to-day responding of most participants and that the overall pattern of responding across the 90 days grouped into the Big Five dimensions. Similarly, using an experience sampling methodology, Fleeson (2001) found evidence for within-person variability, which indicated that situation-specific behavior may be grouped into the Big Five dimensions, as well as stable average tendencies for individuals, supporting the existence of stable Big Five traits. Nemanick and Munz (1997) examined the relationship between two Big Five traits and characteristics at different levels in a hierarchical conceptualization of personality. They conceptualized the Big-Five characteristic of extraversion as being at a high level of characteristic personality explanation, characteristic positive affectivity as being on an intermediate level, and affect on a given day as being on a relatively low level. Extraversion was associated more strongly with characteristic positive affectivity than with positive affect on a given day. Characteristic positive affectivity in turn was more strongly related to positive affect on a given day. A similar pattern was found for the relationship between the Big Five factor of neuroticism, conceptualized as being at a high level of explanation; characteristic negative affectivity, an intermediate characteristic; and negative affect on a given day. If personality characteristics group into five dimensions, and if these five dimensions are super-ordinate categories in a hierarchical organization of human functioning, then it is possible that the state level of functioning reflects these five dimensions. The research on daily states by Borkenau and Ostendorf (1998), density distributions of behaviors by Fleeson (2001) and the relationship between trait extraversion and neuroticism and daily mood states by Nemanick and Munz (1997) supports this view. The purpose of the current research was to investigate further whether there might be present states that correspond to the Big Five dimensions, these states' relationship to the Big Five traits and to mood, and whether these states are indeed changeable as one would expect of states. A related purpose was to develop and validate present state measures of each of the Big Five characteristics. Study 1: Development of State Measures of the Big Five, Factor Structure and Internal Consistency of the States, Relationship Between the Big Five States and Traits, and Relationship Between the Big Five States and Positive and Negative State Mood. 1.1. Overview Saucier (1994) developed a short form of the Big-Five trait measure created by Goldberg (1992). We altered this short form to make it into present a state measure of the Big Five dimensions. This measure focused on immediate states. If the Big Five dimensions apply to states as well as to traits, one would expect the factor structure of immediate states to be similar to the factor structure of traits. If there were a hierarchical relationship between traits and states, then one would expect each of the Big Five states to relate more closely to the corresponding Big Five trait than to any other Big Five trait. Further, because Nemanick and Munz (1997) found surgency (extraversion) to be associated with positive affectivity, which in turn was associated with daily positive mood, and neuroticism to be associated with negative affectivity, which in turn was associated with daily negative mood, one would expect a moderate positive relationship between present-state surgency and state positive mood and a moderate negative relationship between present-state emotional stability and state negative mood. 1.2. Method 1.2.1. Development of the present state measures of the big five characteristics Goldberg (1992) created a set of 100 adjectives for use in measuring the big-five dimensions: surgency, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect. Applying factor analysis techniques to hundreds of English trait terms Goldberg, 1982 and Goldberg, 1990 obtained the usual Big Five factor pattern. After exploring the usefulness of bipolar items, Goldberg (1992) developed a 100-item set of unipolar adjectives (e.g. fearful, innovative) to measure the Big Five dimensions. He selected 20 items for each of the five dimensions on the basis of factor analysis results on hundreds of adjectives in prior research (Goldberg, 1982). Goldberg (1992) found that the Big Five dimensions on the Unipolar Marker scale correlated in expected ways with scores on the NEO Personality Inventory, which is a commonly used measure of the Big Five: Surgency correlated most highly with NEO extroversion, Agreeableness most highly with NEO agreeableness, Conscientiousness most highly with NEO conscientiousness, Emotional Stability most highly with low NEO neuroticism, and Intellect most highly with NEO openness. Saucier (1994) shortened the 100-item Unipolar Marker measure to 40 items, with eight items representing each dimension. He used the following criteria for item selection: (a) high factor loadings on the relevant dimension, (b) that an item be easily understood, and (c) high correlation with the full set of items for the dimension. We adapted the 40-item Unipolar Marker measure to a state measure of the Big-Five dimensions. On the original and brief Unipolar Marker measures of the Big-Five traits, respondents rate themselves as they are generally or characteristically. We modified these instructions to ask respondents to rate themselves at the present moment. The instructions were: “Describe yourself as you feel right now, that is, at the present moment. Describe yourself as you see yourself at the present time, not as you wish to be in the future or as you were in the past.” As was done on the original version of the measure, respondents then rated themselves on 40 adjectives using a 9-point scale on which “1” means extremely inaccurate and “9” means extremely accurate. The adjectives comprise five subscales, each of which represents one of the Big-Five characteristics. Examples of adjectives from each of the subscales are as follows, surgency: “bold;” agreeableness: “kind;” conscientiousness: “efficient;” emotional stability: “relaxed;” and openness: “creative.” 1.2.2. Participants A sample of 189 participants was recruited from a university in the southeastern United States and from community settings, such as sports centers and workplaces, in the southeastern United States. Participants' average age was 23.26, SD=7.00; 132 were women and 57 were men. All participated on a voluntary basis and none were paid for their participation. 1.2.3. Procedure All participants completed the present-state measure of the Big Five dimensions. Sixty-eight of the participants also completed the Big-Five Trait Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), which has evidence of good reliability and validity. Items are in phrase form and individuals rate themselves on how well they fit the description given in each item; a typical example of an item is “helpful and unselfish with others” for the agreeableness scale. The other 121 participants completed the state version of the Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS; Watson & Clark, 1997 and Watson et al., 1988), which assesses positive and negative mood states as independent dimensions and which has evidence of good reliability and validity. Items on these scales are in adjective form and typical items are “enthusiastic” for positive affect and “distressed” for negative affect. 1.3. Results 1.3.1. Descriptive statistics The average scores and standard deviations on the Big Five state measures were as follows: surgency, M=47.84, SD=11.22; agreeableness, M=54.41, SD=10.02; conscientiousness, M=51.29, SD=10.75; openness, M=50.73, SD=10.51; emotional stability, M=44.33, SD=11.38. Average scores on the Big-Five Trait Inventory were as follows: extraversion, M=27.46, SD=6.38; agreeableness, M=35.87, SD=5.16; conscientiousness, M=35.12, SD=5.79; openness, M=37.06; SD=6.80, neuroticism, M=26.71, SD=6.82. The average scores and standard deviations for mood were M=31.80, SD=10.38 for positive mood and M=16.29, SD=7.15 for negative mood. 1.3.2. Confirmatory factor analysis The Big Five present state measures are theoretically separate factors, although they may intercorrelate to some degree as do Big Five trait measures. In order to test whether the items on the Big Five state measures actually load on the Big Five dimensions, we performed a maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. Following the guidelines set out by Floyd and Widaman (1995), we created two parcels of four items for each hypothesized state factor. This reduces the instability associated with the use of individual items (see Floyd & Widaman, 1995). Following the suggestions of Kishton and Widaman (1994), we randomly assigned four scale items to each parcel. Fig. 1 shows the model. To avoid nonidentifiability of the model, we followed the suggestions of Arbuckle and Wothke (1995) and constrained to unity the path from every latent error variable to its measured variable (parcel) and the path from each latent construct (e.g. surgency) to its first measured variable (parcel). In the initial testing of the model, the solution indicated that agreeableness parcel 2 had negative variance. This common problem in structural equation modeling can be eliminated by setting the variance for that variable to 0 (Loehlin, 1998). Using Amos software, we followed the suggestions of Arbuckle (personal communication), who created the software, and set the variance for that parcel to 0.000001 to be as close to 0 as the software allows. Setting that parameter had no appreciable effect on the fit indicators. The model was evaluated with the chi-square statistic, which is a test of absolute fit that is difficult to pass in analyses based on large samples or in models with many observed variables (Floyd & Widaman, 1995); three relative fit statistics, the Bollen incremental fit index (IFI), the Tucker Lewis index (TLI), and the Bentler comparative fit index (CFI); and one measure based on population discrepancies, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA).