Can exposure to arguments pro and contra extraversion affect self-reports of the trait and the attitude toward it?

Journal of Personality. 2022. Vol. 90. No. 4. P. 513–526.

Щебетенко С. А., Мишкевич А. М.

Objective

Changeability of personality over short-term intervals has increasingly become a focus of research. However, the role played by argumentation interventions in short-term variations has scarcely been examined. 

Methods

In two experiments (Ns = 363 and 320), we investigated how processing positive and negative argumentation regarding extraversion (Study 1: watching a lecture; Study 2: elaborating self-invented arguments) affects self-reports on this trait and attitude towards it. The experiments included three waves of measurements with argument manipulation (in favour of or against extraversion) immediately prior to Time 2 (Study 2 also included a control group). 

Results

Mean-level changes in extraversion across time moments, measured with the longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis, were consistently negligible. Conversely, there were some indications that argumentation about extraversion could have immediate short-term effects on attitudes towards this trait. The random-intercept cross-lagged model showed that rank-order consistency stemmed from a trait-like intercept, which was particularly large for trait extraversion compared to the attitude. The autoregressive and cross-lagged effects of residual within-person variation were consistently small and mostly non-significant. 

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that extraversion and the attitude towards it maintained their temporal continuity within three months, even under a single exposure to arguments pro and contra this trait.

Ключевые слова: аргументация, экстраверсия, argumentation, extraversion, attitude change, динамика установок, изменчивость черт личности, personality changes