Context effects on the personality network-Exploring differences between East and West Germans

Recent advances in network modeling provide a methodological toolbox for modeling personality as a dynamic system, characterized by the complex interplay of its components. Although theoretical notions suggest that personality networks are open systems that dynamically interact with sociocultural context, context effects on the personality network remain poorly understood. This study compared Big Five personality networks from 1,897 East and 5,051 West Germans who grew up under different contextual conditions in the former German Democratic Republic and Federal Republic of Germany, respectively. Employing network modeling, we explored context effects over time, distinguishing within-person dynamics from between-person associations. Our findings revealed mostly similarities in the personality networks of East and West Germans, especially in within-person contemporaneous networks that reflect within-person associations in a given assessment wave. However, we also found notable differences, especially in temporal within-person networks, representing associations between personality components over time. These findings indicate that temporal within-person dynamics were more susceptible to context effects than between-person effects were. Differences in the personality networks did not generalize to East and West Germans born in the first 10 years after the reunification. The present study underscores the importance of network modeling in exploring cross-cultural variations in personality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).