How to measure and model personality traits in everyday life: A qualitative analysis of 300 big five personality items

Abstract

Personality traits are often described with reference to momentary patterns in experiences and behaviors. In this paper, we consider how such personality manifestations can be measured and modeled more directly within intensive-longitudinal research. Specifically, we evaluated 300 items from the international personality item pool with respect to: a) how the described behavior relates to situational factors; and b) which statistic most accurately quantifies the implied pattern. Our results give rise to three critical observations. First, most patterns only occur within certain contexts, rather than being context independent. Second, traits are mostly described as dynamic patterns on differing timescales. Third, the mean of a person across many repeated measures is poorly suited to capture most patterns of personality in daily life.