Personality Processes and Individual Differences Flux, Pulse, and Spin: Dynamic Additions to the Personality Lexicon

Personality constructs were proposed to describe intraindividual variability in interpersonal behavior. Flux refers to variability about an individual's mean score on an interpersonal dimension and was examined for the 4 poles of the interpersonal circumplex. Pulse and spin refer to variability about an individual's mean extremity and mean angular coordinate on the interpersonal circumplex. These constructs were measured using event-contingent recording. Latent state-trait analyses indicated high stability of flux in submissive, agreeable, and quarrelsome behaviors and some stability in the flux of dominance. Further analyses indicated moderate to high stability in pulse and spin. Neuroticism predicted greater pulse, spin, and submissive behavior flux. Extraversion predicted greater flux in agreeable behavior. In contrast, Agreeableness predicted reduced spin and quarrelsome behavior flux. Social environmental variables predicted greater flux in dominant behavior. Flux, pulse, and spin provide reliable and distinctive additions to the vocabulary for describing individual differences.

[1]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  Extension of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales to include the Big Five dimensions of personality. , 1990 .

[2]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  On the dynamic covariation between interpersonal behavior and affect: prediction from neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness. , 1998, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[3]  Seymour Epstein,et al.  The stability of behavior: I. On predicting most of the people much of the time. , 1979 .

[4]  R. Larsen.  A Process Approach to Personality Psychology: Utilizing Time as a Facet of Data , 1989 .

[5]  John A. Johnson,et al.  Handbook of personality psychology. , 1997 .

[6]  Paul T. Costa,et al.  Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality , 1994 .

[7]  R. Larsen,et al.  Personality and susceptibility to positive and negative emotional states. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[8]  J. Nesselroade,et al.  Replicability Of Factors Derived From Individual P-Technique Analyses. , 1976, Multivariate Behavioral Research.

[9]  Debbie S. Moskowitz,et al.  Cross-situational generality in the laboratory: Dominance and friendliness. , 1988 .

[10]  P. Costa,et al.  The structure of interpersonal traits: Wiggins's circumplex and the five-factor model. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[11]  R. Larsen,et al.  Promises and problems with the circumplex model of emotion. , 1992 .

[12]  W. Mischel,et al.  Intraindividual stability in the organization and patterning of behavior: incorporating psychological situations into the idiographic analysis of personality. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[13]  P. Wall,et al.  Pain mechanisms: a new theory. , 1965, Science.

[14]  Michael Eid,et al.  Intraindividual variability in affect : Reliability, validity, and personality correlates , 1999 .

[15]  R. Larson.  Adolescents' Daily Experience with Family and Friends: Contrasting Opportunity Systems. , 1983 .

[16]  P. Costa,et al.  Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) , 1992 .

[17]  D. Zuroff,et al.  Social rank strategies in hierarchical relationships. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  N. Bolger,et al.  Personality and the problems of everyday life: the role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors. , 1991, Journal of personality.

[19]  M. Gurtman,et al.  Construct validity of interpersonal personality measures : the interpersonal circumplex as a nomological net , 1992 .

[20]  D. Zuroff,et al.  Gender and relationships: Influences on agentic and communal behaviors , 2004 .

[21]  L. Clark,et al.  Extraversion and Its Positive Emotional Core , 1997 .

[22]  D. Zuroff,et al.  The Effect of Tryptophan on Social Interaction in Everyday Life: A Placebo-Controlled Study , 2001, Neuropsychopharmacology.

[23]  D. Moskowitz.  Cross-situational generality and the interpersonal circumplex. , 1994 .

[24]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. , 1979 .

[25]  S. Fiske,et al.  Controlling other people. The impact of power on stereotyping. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[26]  J. Paty,et al.  Individual differences in intraperson variability in mood. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[27]  D. Kiesler.  The 1982 Interpersonal Circle: A taxonomy for complementarity in human transactions. , 1983 .

[28]  Philip D. Harvey,et al.  The affective lability scales: development, reliability, and validity. , 1989, Journal of clinical psychology.

[29]  D. Zuroff,et al.  Dependency, self-criticism, interpersonal behaviour and affect: evolutionary perspectives. , 1999, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[30]  P. Wachtel.  Psychodynamics, behavior therapy, and the implacable experimenter: an inquiry into the consistency of personality. , 1973, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[31]  D. Buss.  Selection, evocation, and manipulation. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[33]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  The mitigation of interpersonal behavior. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  Thomas D. Wickens,et al.  Multiway contingency table analysis for the social sciences. , 1989 .

[35]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  Validity comparison of behavior counts and ratings by knowledgeable informants. , 1982 .

[36]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  Situational influences on gender differences in agency and communion. , 1994, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[37]  J. S. Wiggins,et al.  Agency and communion as conceptual coordinates for the understanding and measurement of interpersonal behavior. , 1991 .

[38]  M. Kernis,et al.  Stability and level of self-esteem as predictors of anger arousal and hostility. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[39]  L. Horowitz,et al.  Inventory of interpersonal problems: psychometric properties and clinical applications. , 1988, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[40]  L. R. Goldberg.  The structure of phenotypic personality traits. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[41]  J. Wright,et al.  Developmental psychopathology and the reciprocal patterning of behavior and environment: distinctive situational and behavioral signatures of internalizing, externalizing, and mixed-syndrome children. , 1999, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[42]  O. John,et al.  Handbook of personality: Theory and research, 2nd ed. , 1999 .

[43]  L. A. Pervin.  Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research , 1992 .

[44]  R. K. Hertel.  Application of stochastic process analyses to the study of psychotherapeutic processes. , 1972, Psychological bulletin.

[45]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  Do interpersonal traits predict affect? A comparison of three models. , 1995 .

[46]  P. Gilbert,et al.  Assertiveness, submissive behaviour and social comparison. , 1994, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[47]  J. Nesselroade,et al.  Intraindividual variability in perceived locus of control in adults: P-technique factor analyses of short-term change , 1986 .

[48]  J. Marshall.  THE SKIN SENSES , 1969 .

[49]  B. Reskin.  Sex segregation in the workplace : trends, explanations, remedies , 1985 .

[50]  D. Buss,et al.  Personality psychology : recent trends and emerging directions , 1989 .

[51]  B. Malle,et al.  Conceptual structure and social functions of behavior explanations: beyond person--situation attributions. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[52]  J W Rowe,et al.  Intraindividual variability in perceived control in an older sample: the MacArthur successful aging studies. , 1997, Psychology and aging.

[53]  Kanti V. Mardia,et al.  Statistics of Directional Data , 1972 .

[54]  Moskowitz Ds.  Does elevated power lead to approach and reduced power to inhibition? Comment on Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson (2003). , 2004 .

[55]  Seymour Epstein,et al.  The stability of behavior: II. Implications for psychological research. , 1980 .

[56]  W. Fleeson.  Toward a structure- and process-integrated view of personality: traits as density distribution of states. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[57]  R. R. Abidin.  Parenting Stress Index: Professional Manual . Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources , 1995 .

[58]  K. Dodge,et al.  Social-information-processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children's peer groups. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[59]  D. Moskowitz,et al.  Dynamic stability of behavior: the rhythms of our interpersonal lives. , 1998, Journal of personality.

[60]  G. Sivanich,et al.  Psychological assessment. , 1965, Progress in neurology and psychiatry.

[61]  C. Harris.  Problems in measuring change , 1965 .

[62]  J. Russell.  A circumplex model of affect. , 1980 .

[63]  W. Graziano,et al.  Agreeableness as a moderator of interpersonal conflict. , 2001, Journal of personality.