Assessing Validity and Bias of Within-Person Variability in Affect and Personality

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Personality Science
• Well-being Research

Background:

• Within-person variability in affect and personality is linked to psychological well-being.
• Existing measures of variability include self-reports and calculated standard deviations from repeated assessments.
• Discrepancies exist between these measures, impacting their relationship with well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the convergent validity of different measures of within-person variability.
• To investigate the influence of response styles on repeated personality and affect ratings.
• To examine the relationship between variability measures and well-being outcomes.

Main Methods:

• A 7-day study with 399 participants, involving up to five daily measurements.
• Assessed within-person variability in affect (e.g., Neuroticism) and personality traits.
• Included variability measures for a theoretically unrelated construct (image features) to test for specificity.

Main Results:

• Measures of within-person variability demonstrated poor convergent validity, indicating they are not interchangeable.
• Only one significant correlation was found between variability in personality/affect ratings and variability in image feature ratings.
• Little evidence supported the hypothesis that response styles bias repeated ratings of personality and affect.

Conclusions:

• Current methods for measuring within-person variability in psychological constructs are not sufficiently consistent.
• Researchers should exercise caution when interpreting findings related to psychological variability and well-being.
• Further research is needed to develop reliable and valid measures of psychological variability.