Daily and Trait personality Assessments’ relationship with Daily experiences of stress risk and resilience factors

Abstract

Personality predicts individual differences in stress risk and resilience factors, but these associations are often examined via global trait measures, which may not capture how associations unfold in daily life, especially for older adults whose global ratings may not be weighted towards their current experiences. The current study used intensive measurements in a sample of older adults to investigate how daily and trait measures of extraversion and neuroticism related to daily occurrences of a stress risk (stressors) and resilience (social interactions. Participants (N = 201; ages 70–93) completed a trait personality measure and then a 16-day ecological momentary assessment period during which they reported on the occurrence of stressors and social interactions and completed daily assessments of extraversion and neuroticism. Multilevel model results showed that Social Interactions were predicted positively by Daily Extraversion at the within- and between-person levels, and negatively by Daily Neuroticism at the within-person level, but that global measures of these traits did not show significant relationships. Conversely, Stressors were predicted negatively at the within-person level by Daily Extraversion and positively at the within-person level by Daily Neuroticism. Although Trait Extraversion did not significantly relate to Stressors, Trait Neuroticism showed a significant positive relationship with Stressors at the between-person level. Results illustrate how fluctuation in the manifestation of personality as measured with daily assessments relates meaningfully to daily experiences of stress risk and resilience factors, and may not always be captured by global measures in older adults.