Psychologists use personality traits such as extroversion, neuroticism, and anxiety as a means of characterizing typical patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior that vary from person to person. From this perspective, personality building blocks consist of a relatively stable collection of traits that are hard to change.
However, the assumption that these traits can be routinely measured using questionnaires that identify typical behaviors has been questioned over the past two decades. Behavioral changes are not only frequent, they change from day to day and hour to hour. Someone may be open and bubbly at noon but reluctant and stiff at 2pm. Such variability in everyday emotions and behaviors, designated by the innocuous title of interpersonal variability (IIV), is actually quite large and is measured by interpersonal variability such as extraversion and conscientiousness. match or even exceed differences in personality traits. And one more thing.
The name of this new field emerged in 2004 when Peter CM Molenaar, Emeritus Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Pennsylvania State University, championed IIV. manifest It was titled “Returning this man to scientific psychology, this time forever.” In it, he used a series of mathematics and physical calculations to describe the degree of dynamic flux in personality while mocking standard methods of psychological testing.
This view of the importance of IIV has continued to gain popularity since the publication of Mollenar’s manifesto. It has contributed to a better understanding of personality and has changed some forms of psychotherapy. Researchers found that the diversity of responses to stressful everyday events, from fights with spouses to traffic jams, can yield important insights into people’s long-term emotional and physical health. I found
The research underlying this change can be found in 20 years of research on stress and health. The study also examined daily personality changes in over 3,500 adults. David Almeida, a developmental psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, and his colleagues asked subjects on eight consecutive days (and collected a series of physiological measurements) about their stress levels and emotions over the past 24 hours. bottom). People’s list of stressors included arguments with family members, work deadlines, housework overload, and the continuation of daily chores. Joy, anger, fear, and anxiety were among the many emotions the researchers asked. They also asked about thoughts related to worries and behaviors such as physical activity and sleep. Investigators said he repeated this investigation two more times at 10-year intervals. “Everyday experiences previously thought to be relatively unimportant to health have short- and long-term effects on a range of emotional, physical and cognitive outcomes,” Almeida concluded. says.
Almeida’s team calculated how much of what we commonly think of as personality traits actually are, or can be understood as transitory emotions. I see how moody people are,” he says. “We think, ‘Oh, this is a moody person.’ In fact, half their moodiness is a personality trait and half is due to the person’s day-to-day variability.” People with positive traits such as openness and agreeableness show only 30% differences in traits such as quickness of anger and worry.
Some researchers have dug further, trying to determine how much one’s immediate circumstances affect one’s short-term psychological state. It focuses on the hourly, day-to-day fluctuations of are responses to the situations in which they occur, whether at work, at home, or while spending time. with children or in the clinic. Until recently, high and low emotional variability were considered personality traits in their own right. But Lam says these ups and downs may reflect the comings and goings of different aspects of an individual’s personality throughout her day, as well as her immediate reactions to people and events.
For example, consider individuals participating in a study that collects hourly reports about their emotions. A person with a high IIV may be considered an emotionally unstable person. Alternatively, their emotional fluctuations may indicate that they are going through a series of unpredictable events in their lives, possibly resulting from a chaotic workplace. The emotional reports they receive from people they observe in their studies are probably a combination of several aspects of their environment and elements of their personality. .
The instantaneous stress varies depending on the type of pressure applied. Scientists have learned to measure and evaluate the effects of specific categories of stress. Fights with a spouse often bring more emotional upheaval than work deadlines, and they put more pressure than daily chores like train delays or finding out your dog has pooped on the rug again. .
Researchers usually measure IIV by assessing the same person at short intervals (such as every 24 hours for a week, or five times a day), but psychologist Nadin Beckmann of Durham University, UK, and her A colleague took a different approach. The investigator asked each of her 288 working professionals who participated in the survey a series of questions about their personality (hardworking, contemplative, vulnerable, moody, etc.) Presented to 5 people. of each participant’s family, close friends, or colleagues.
Beckman explains that momentary states reflect how certain personality traits manifest as a person responds to different situations. We intuitively know that we don’t think, feel, or act the same way at home as we do at work or socializing with friends. Beckman’s results show that intrapersonal variability varies systematically with context, regardless of who is assessing it. A person may be seen as more conscientious at work than at home and more outgoing with friends than with colleagues.
As researchers learned to quantify this kind of hourly variability, they began to assess what variability meant in devising a larger picture of personality. They say it might be possible to measure hourly fluctuations in a person’s mood relative to monthly fluctuations in self-esteem. If a person’s mood changes significantly but self-esteem remains relatively constant, one interpretation is that self-esteem levels are less affected by temporary highs and lows that may be experienced by compliments or contempt. He can be considered one.
Recently, Michelle Newman, a research psychologist and cognitive-behavioral therapist at Pennsylvania State University, has found IIV invaluable both in conducting research and devising new ways to treat patients. In the pre-smartphone era, treatment patients and study participants filled out questionnaires about their beliefs about themselves, she says. They were asked to record their emotions over time with pen and paper or an electronic note-taking device such as the PalmPilot. Finding these tasks tedious, they waited until the end of the day to record their thoughts and feelings. What is the resulting data? “Mottainai!” says Newman.
By creating apps specifically for smartphones, psychologists have been able to monitor people’s emotions and experiences several times a day to get a more nuanced reflection of their psychological state. In studying the fluctuations of people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Newman used this detailed record of their thoughts and feelings to provide insight into what causes the constant worrying that is the main symptom of GAD. Early theories based on summaries of people’s emotions posited that individuals were anxious to suppress negative emotions. was
Newman’s research suggests the opposite: constant worry works to sustain negative emotions. Or shortly after, they monitored 83 people with GAD for eight days.On average, the scientists found that people with GAD generally felt better after these social interactions. did. she said that worried people the following Social encounters were preceded by feelings such as anxiety and sadness.who worried more Before the encounter, I felt happier or more satisfied afterward.
The study found that anxious people were more likely to feel happy and optimistic if they were worried about a bad outcome (even if it was unlikely) and that something terrible had happened to them afterward. Confirmed Newman’s theory that he believed he would not experience abdominal pain. They feel relief when nothing bad happens, she says, and it strengthens their belief that worry protects them. This study would have missed such an insight.
Frequently collected data also helps therapists formulate personalized treatments. Many people may not know or remember the cause of their anxiety, but therapists can pinpoint this by associating higher anxiety levels with events in the moment. You can be encouraged to adopt specific strategies previously learned in therapy to combat anxiety. You can realize that your worries are unfounded in comparison to the events.
Anxious people don’t just have negative emotions, but they tend to neglect positive emotions. “We don’t just want to reduce negative emotions,” Newman says. “You also need to boost positive emotions.”
To strengthen these good feelings, Newman’s colleague Lucas Lafrenière, a psychologist at Skidmore College, said: I created a phone app called SkillJoy. At random intervals several times a day, the app encourages anxious people to focus on something pleasant in the present, such as seeing a friend, making someone laugh, or listening to a great song, and asks what they are thinking. Encourage them to truly “taste.” 1-2 minutes. A recent study found that after 7 days, SkillJoy users were less worried than they were before using the app.
This understanding of how emotions flow throughout the day has led researchers to ask whether higher levels of IIV work in a person’s favor or disadvantage. Newman’s position on this debate is clear. “Variability is a good thing,” she says. Others in this area are less certain. Some studies link high variability with neuroticism, but some studies do not. According to Lamb, people with high IIV may be well adapted to a turbulent life, while those with low IIV may live predictable, routine lives and actually It may be stricter.
According to recent research by academics such as Lisbeth Benson, a researcher at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, we have a wider range of emotions, ranging from enthusiasm and determination to sadness and fear. Barcelona is thought to help people adapt to different situations throughout her day. “The coolest thing we’ve shown is that for those who experience high levels of negative emotions, those with more types of negative emotions tend to have better health outcomes. is.
For therapists and patients, acknowledging daily emotional ups and downs means that some emotions are bad, some are very good, some are very good, and some are even worse. . Learn to live with that knowledge and find ways to become who we want to be.
