René Mõttus

Reminder: the 22nd European Conference on Personality, ECP22, Edinburgh, July 2026, is accepting submissions until 07/12. Submit a symposium, talk, or poster! We promise you the best research, many smart discussions, social fun, and a fantastic historic city.
www.ecp22edinburgh.org/submission

Advance Accommodation Information Primarily for Early Career Researchers (PhD, post-doc): If you would like to receive advance information about a limited number of more affordable accommodation options available for the 22nd Europea...

Early career personality researchers coming to the Edinburgh ECP22: If you want to get a link to a slightly more affordable uni accommodation option later this year, leave your email here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Personality change people: does it make sense to think that to change a broader trait domain (neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness) one could consider starting with those facets/nuances that are furthest from the desired levels?
(Most room for change?)

21 to 24 July 2026

Keynote speakers: @tuckerdrob.bsky.social @foswald.bsky.social Ellen Hamaker

Hands-on workshops by:
@tedmond.bsky.social & @ukuvainik.bsky.social (genomic analyses)
@dirkwulff.bsky.social (LLMs in personality research)

www.ecp22edinburgh.org/programme

European Conference on Personality, Edinburgh, 2026

Submissions are now open for 22nd European Conference on Personality (Edinburgh, 2026); deadline 7/12/25.
Keynote speakers and pre-conference workshops have also been confirmed.
www.ecp22edinburgh.org/submission

Rethinking measurement invariance causally Highlights: It is preferable to work with a causal definition of measurement invariance A violation of measurement invariance is a potentially substantively interesting observation Standard tests for measurement invariance rely on strong assumptions Group differences can be thought of as descriptive results

Conceptual graph illustration the central points of the manuscript. A group variable is potentiall connected to a construct of interest which affects items. Measurement invariance is violated if the group variable directly affects the items, for example by modifying the loadings from the construct to the items, or by directly affecting an item

To make this less abstract, consider a scenario where students take an exam, R, meant to capture some ability, T, and then are admitted to a program, V, depending on their exam results: R → V. This is sufficient to result in a violation of the statistical definition of measurement invariance. Exam results and admission are not independent given ability because exam results have a direct effect on admission. Even if we know somebody’s ability (e.g., we know it’s very high), learning about their admission status (e.g., they were not admitted) can tell us something about their exam result (e.g., it may have been worse than expected). According to the causal definition, this in itself does not constitute measurement bias, which seems a sensible conclusion here. After all, the scenario does not involve any reason to believe that the measurement process varied systematically by admission status. Admission happens after the exams took place, it cannot retroactively influence the measurement process (and, for example, lead to unfair treatment depending on admission status).

New paper out with @boryslaw.bsky.social 🥳 In which we sketch out how to rethink measurement invariance causally for applied researchers. And provide a causal definition of measurement invariance!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I once proposed a simple tool to understand and visualise correlations, TACT.
doi.org/10.5964/ps.7...

This app makes it even easier to use: apps.psych.ut.ee/TACT/

Since otherwise the stability is confounded with test-specific variance (e.g., facets/nuances, stable item interpretations etc).

It's like people define latent traits as the shared variance of multiple indicators cross-sectionally -- here we extend to longitudinal data.

I suppose yes, this makes them real in some sense.
My follow-up question is: if these "real" Big Five exist independently of their tests, then to study the "real" rank-order stability of the Big Five, we should assess them with different tests at different time-points.

Personality folks, is there an argument to be made for latent Big Five traits that exist independently of the particular test we happen to use to assess them?
(If yes, I will have a follow-up question)

Now published in Current Opinion, we show why personality research should embrace multi-rater studies and how this can be achieved in practice, even at scale. Often, this is the most realistic way to avoid (reliably) invalid conclusions.
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

What I really enjoy about Bluesky is how you can serendipitously learn so much stuff. You’ve probably heard of Dunbar’s number — the idea that humans can only maintain X stable social relationships, because *gestures vaguely* brain? Here’s a deconstruction of it.>

Good thing there is a reference for why this (or any such) number makes no sense.

Folks, it's time to submit your papers to PCI Psychology. Here is our invitation to you, taken from our editorial osf.io/preprints/ps...

What is the best public domain occupational interest test currently available (still relevant for the current job market)?

And how that difference plays out in other demographic trends (see number of kids 👀). Personality is up next 😁

New preprint: One of the largest studies (N = 67,000) on how sexual desire varies with age, sexual orientation, education, job, number of children, recent birth, and relationship satisfaction, and how the trends differ by gender.
doi.org/10.21203/rs....

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Sorry.

Ah, correct link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Would you recognise your friend from their personality trait profile?
Photos can be instructive: portraits of 5×5px (Big Five), 30×30px (NEO facets), or 100×100px (more facets/nuances). You decide.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

This was a fun conversation with Kensy, the host of the @manymindspod.bsky.social

With a PhD in personality research and interested in teaching? Consider applying for a fixed-term teaching job at the University of Edinburgh.
elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

This may be one of the largest personality research projects ever.

Both personality traits and satisfaction may vary with these ...

Job: Typische Persönlichkeitsprofile für 263 Berufe In vielen Berufen haben die Menschen mindestens ein besonderes charakterliches Merkmal

German coverage of our work on occupational personality profiles.
www.spektrum.de/news/persoen...

Episode alert 🚨 Anat Bardi and Laura Parks-Leduc discuss their research on values. They delve into definitions and research approaches, changes in values, and associations with personality traits. They also highlights established evidence about values and areas unexplored.

Some really interesting contrasts in our new "assumption-free heritability" preprint: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

How do life satisfaction and job satisfaction vary among hundreds of jobs? (Doing a religion job looks good, if you are considering a career change.)
New preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...