ASSOCIATION for RESEARCH in PERSONALITY

ASSOCIATION for RESEARCH in PERSONALITY
2nd Biennial Conference / Riverside, California / June 16-18, 2011


Featured posters
Poster 1.02
"Regional stereotypes do not reflect personality traits of real people"
Martina Hřebíčková / Institute of Psychology Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic


Poster 1.05
"Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together? A Differential Approach to Similarity Effects in the Association Between Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction in Intimate Relationships"
Katrin Furler & Veronica Gomez / University of Basel
In the past years personality psychology started to shift from a focus on the individual to a dyadic approach emphasizing the importance of the social context. In this vein, expressions such as 'birds of a feather flock together' have received special empirical attention in studies investigating whether romantic partners have similar personalities and whether personality similarity in couples is associated with higher levels of well-being.
The aim of this contribution is to generate knowledge on similarity effects in couples' personality. We adopt Furr's (2010) differential approach in the study of profile similarity effects and compute three similarity indices, i.e., shape, elevation, and scatter similarity, to test how profile similarity indices are related to life satisfaction of both partners. Additionally, we examine the association between personality similarity on a trait level and life satisfaction of both partners. Data came from the last wave of the Swiss Household Panel, which contains measures of the Big Five and life satisfaction for 1,608 couples living in the same household.


Poster 2.06
"Personality similarity between self, partner and parents"
Dick P. H. Barelds & Pieternel Dijkstra / University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Personality characteristics and similarity with regard to personality characteristics have been found to be important factors in both forming and maintaining intimate relationships.
As a result of sexual imprinting, it can be expected that individuals tend to select mates that, with regard to their personality, resemble their opposite sex parent. This study examines this issue by studying similarity with regard to personality (in terms of the Five-Factor Model of personality) of individuals, their partners, their fathers, and their mothers. Ratings are currently available from 354 participants. Preliminary analyses show several significant positive relations for self-partner similarity, selfmother and self-father similarity (regardless of participant sex), and partner-mother and partner-father similarity (also regardless of participant sex). Our study suggests that previous study's findings on the tendency to search for a similar partner are not only the result of a need for harmony (as assumed by, for instance, the similarity attraction hypothesis), but may also be attributed to sexual imprinting. Parent and partner self-ratings are currently being processed, and will be used to examine the effects of potential biases in the ratings, and the childparent relationship.


Poster 2.46
"Goal Complementarity in Intimate Relationships: Is Couples' Perception of Acting in Concert Positively Related to Subjective Well-Being?"
Karin Stadler & Veronica Gomez / University of Basel
Previous evidence suggests that goal similarity in intimate relationships is positively related to relationship outcomes. However, little is known on the association between goal complementarity (i.e., the subjective perception of having goals that are in congruence with the partner's goals) and subjective well-being. We address this issue with data from 153 couples within the ongoing 'Co-Development in Personality Across the Life Span' study. Preliminary results suggest a positive association between goal complementarity and relationship as well as life satisfaction. We will further analyze these associations from a dyadic perspective and present results based on Actor-Partner Interdependence Models in order to elucidate actor and partner effects of goal complementarity on subjective well-being of both partners.


Poster 2.56
"The Relations Between Actual and Perceived Similarity in Personality"
Jessica Wortan1 & Dustin Wood2 / 1Michigan State University 2Wake Forest University
Similarity has been frequently studied in psychology, especially in how it relates to various outcomes (e.g., Levinger & Breedlove, 1966). The purpose of this project is to better understand perceptions of similarity to another person and its links to personality similarity. What does it mean when two people say they perceive themselves as similar? We used several measures of mathematical similarity in personality (Furr, 2008, 2010; Wood, 2008). Overall similarity in self-ratings was related to perceptions of similarity, but having self-perceptions that were more similar than chance showed only negligible associations with perceived similarity. There were strong relationships between perceived similarity and similarity in how individuals rated their own characteristics and the characteristics of a target, particularly for the trait of extraversion.
Raters perceived targets as more similar when they rated that target as more average. Finally, it was demonstrated that the normative and desirable profile were strongly correlated. This suggests that what is most important to feelings of similarity is not having similarity in selfratings, but perceiving the other person as having desirable characteristics. Perceptions of similarity do seem to be predicted by personality, but only a small portion of this prediction is based on actual similarity in personality.


Do you see how Latest Research in Theories of Romantic Relationships Development shows: compatibility is all about a high level on personality* similarity* between prospective mates for long term mating with commitment?
*personality measured with a normative test.
*similarity: there are different ways to calculate similarity, it depends on how mathematically is defined.

Also Personality Based Recommender Systems are the next generation of recommender systems because they perform FAR better than Behavioural ones (past actions and pattern of personal preferences)
That is the only way to improve recommender systems, to include the personality traits
of their users and they need to calculate personality similarity between them.


WorldWide, there are 5,000 -over five thousand- online dating sites
 but no one
is using the 16PF5 to assess personality of its members!
 but no one
calculates similarity with a quantized pattern comparison method!
 but no one
can show Compatibility Distribution Curves to each and every of its members!
 but no one
is scientifically proven!