Sociogenomic Personality Psychology
Open accessAbstract
ABSTRACT In this article, we address a number of issues surrounding biological models of personality traits. Most traditional and many contemporary biological models of personality traits assume that biological systems underlying personality traits are causal and immutable. In contrast, sociogenomic biology, which we introduce to readers in this article, directly contradicts the widely held assumption that something that is biological, heritable, or temperamental, is unchangeable. We provide examples of how seemingly unchanging biological systems, such as DNA, are both dependent on environments for elicitation and can be modified by environmental changes. Finally, we synthesize sociogenomic biology with personality psychology in a model of personality traits that integrates this more modern perspective on biology, physiology, and environment that we term sociogenomic personality psychology. We end the article with a discussion of the future directions of sociogenomic personality psychology.
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Life events most likely affect personality traits in a bottom-up fashion through prolonged effects on an individual's personality-relevant states.
“According to this model, life events most likely affect personality traits in a bottom-up fashion through prolonged effects on an individual's personality-relevant states.”
From Life Events and Personality Trait Change. (2018) · cites this paper as Roberts & Jackson, 2008
Changes in response to life events likely unfold in a slow and incremental way over relatively long periods of time.
“Specifically, changes in response to life events likely unfold in a slow and incremental way over relatively long periods of time”
From Life Events and Personality Trait Change. (2018) · cites this paper as Roberts & Jackson, 2008
Traits can be understood as the average of states over time or as the result of repeated state experiences.
“Moreover, traits can be understood as the average of states over time (Fleeson, 2001) or as the result of repeated state experiences (Roberts & Jackson, 2008)”
From Cultural norm fulfillment, interpersonal belonging, or getting ahead? A large-scale cross-cultural test of three perspectives on the function of self-esteem. (2015) · cites this paper as Roberts & Jackson, 2008
The sociogenomic model of Roberts and Jackson [2008] also considers the dynamics of personality formation.
“The”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Roberts and Jackson [2008]
Situations may change over time as a function of past actions, past situations, investment, information, and the like.
“As emphasized by Mischel and Shoda [1995] and Roberts and Jackson [2008], situations may change over time as a function of past actions, past situations, investment, information, and the like.”
From Personality Psychology and Economics (2011) · cites this paper as Roberts and Jackson [2008]
The Sociogenomic Biology section discusses how environments affect thoughts, feelings, behavior, and personality over time, but does not say that situations change because of past actions, past situations, investment, or information. Searches for those terms and for people changing their environments did not locate a passage establishing the attributed claim; page numbers were unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.69)
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- Authors
- Roberts, B. W., & Jackson, J. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Corresponding author
- Roberts, Brent W.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2008-10-29
- Volume
- 76
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1523-1544
- ISSN
- 0022-3506 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-6494
- PMC
- PMC2699676
- OpenAlex
- W1747340182
- Cited by
- 392
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 63 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 25 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 10.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Personality (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (AG21178, R56AG021178, R01AG021178)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- personality traits, heritability, environmental influences on gene expression, epigenetics, gene-environment interaction, personality change, biological plasticity
- MeSH terms
- Environment, Humans, Models, Biological, Models, Psychological, Personality, Psychological Theory, Sociology, Medical, Gene Expression
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