Jule Specht
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3864007 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Jule Specht |
| NOMBRES | Jule |
| APELLIDO | Specht |
| FIRMA | SPECHT J |
| AFILIACIONES | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2840-697X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 121 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2011 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Value orientations and social cohesion in organizational discourses
Against the backdrop of political polarization and societal fragmentation, liberal democracy, more than ever, rests on social cohesion. Civil-society organizations (CSOs) are pivotal in fostering this cohesion by building social capital and serving as catalysts of social change. However, civil society is also a space of ambivalence where conflicting values and priorities are negotiated and, at times, contested. Integrating insights from social ps…
Who Gets Involved in a Crisis? The Role of the Big Five Personality Traits and Empathy in Benevolent and Activist Engagement
Civic engagement is essential for responding to societal crises, yet only some people take action. This study investigates how personality is connected to who engages during a crisis and how they engage. We analyzed the reactions of German civil society to the war in Ukraine to examine how the Big Five traits and empathy relate to benevolent (e.g., volunteering or donating) and activist (e.g., protesting) engagement. To test the robustness of our…
Social media sampling is an effective way to access hard to survey populations and low prevalence groups
Non-probability samples have become increasingly popular despite some criticism. This paper examines social media sampling as a tool for accessing hard-to-survey populations. Our study targeted individuals in Germany using ads on Facebook and X, yielding 4,590 respondents. We compared these samples with high-quality probability samples (SOEP, ESS) through measurement equivalence analysis of shared measures between samples. Results show that our s…
Empathy During Crises
OBJECTIVE: In times of societal crises, it is pivotal to understand and share others' feelings. Yet, the role of empathy in fostering prosocial responses during societal crises has not gained enough attention. Our study uses the onset of Russia's war on Ukraine to examine three key questions: (1) Is empathy related to attitudes toward pro-refugee policies? (2) Does empathy correlate with a higher tolerance for diverse opinions on refugee policies…
The Big Five Personality Traits and Social Support During the Covid ‐19 Pandemic
Social support can benefit its recipients and even its providers and is especially important in times of crisis. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, support from society and personal networks became particularly crucial but individuals greatly differed in their support reception and provision. The Big Five personality traits may be key to explaining these interindividual differences: In this study, we investigated their impact on the support provided, …
Climbing the Career Ladder Does Not Make You Happy
Subjective well-being tends to be higher in leaders vs. non-leaders. However, do these differences come from selection effects (e.g., because higher subjective well-being predisposes for occupational success) or from within-person well-being changes before and after becoming a leader? This question remains largely unresolved. Previous research suggests that becoming a leader might be a double-edged sword and affect subjective well-being positivel…
Longitudinal bidirectional associations between personality and becoming a leader
OBJECTIVE: Leaders differ in their personalities from non-leaders. However, when do these differences emerge? Are leaders "born to be leaders" or does their personality change in preparation for a leadership role and due to increasing leadership experience? METHOD: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we examined personality differences between leaders (N = 2683 leaders, women: n = 967; 36.04%) and non-leaders (N = 33,663) as we…
Working life as a double-edged sword
The work role is crucial for one's identity and subjective well-being. From a role enhancement perspective, subjective well-being might increase after the transition to work and decrease after retirement. From a role strain perspective, the opposite might be true. Thus, entering and leaving working life might have benefits and costs, leading to improvements in some but impairments in other well-being indicators. To test these assumptions, we exam…
Baby bliss
These findings suggest that set-point theory also applies to different facets of affective well-being across the transition to parenthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
How social capital matters for receiving social support
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a widespread need for social support. Similar to previous crises, we can observe activation in society to meet these needs: citizens have offered practical, emotional, and financial support, often within their social networks, but also to strangers and civil society organizations. In this paper, we examine the role of social capital in receiving social support during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany using unique …
The Rhetoric of Solidarity
Scholars have called to study how social cohesion is discursively negotiated and produced in communication behavior. However, empirical evidence remains scarce. In this study, we investigate to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs), part of the backbone of social integration in modern democracies, make references to social cohesion in their public self-portrayals. We develop a standardized measure for content analyzing the manife…
Rethink funding by putting the lottery first
Changes in happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger around romantic relationship events
Most people agree that romantic relationships greatly affect how we feel. For example, we typically feel happier when getting married but sadder when breaking up. However, previous research primarily focused on changes in cognitive but less so affective well-being around positive and negative relationship events. Set-point theory suggests that subjective well-being might change shortly around such experiences but bounce back in the long run. Usin…
Long-Term Dynamics of Voluntary Engagement
Prior research has suggested three explanations why levels of voluntary engagement rise and fall over time within societies. A social structural explanation considers individual resources crucial for engagement and argues that a redistribution of those resources may bring about changes in engagement. A cohort-based explanation considers socialisation and experiences in formative years as crucial for the uptake of engagement. Finally, a period-bas…
Personality maturation and personality relaxation
OBJECTIVE: At work, people are confronted with clear behavioral expectations. In line with the Social Investment Principle, the beginning and ending of working life might thus promote changes in personality traits that are relevant at work (e.g., Conscientiousness). METHOD: Based on the data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we examined nuanced differences of the Big Five personality traits in the years around the beginning and ending o…
Till death do us part
OBJECTIVE: Although losing one's spouse is one of the worst experiences that can occur in life, it has not been resolved yet how this experience relates to personality development. METHOD: In the German Socio-Economic Panel study, information on the death of a spouse was assessed yearly from 1985 to 2017 and personality was measured repeatedly in 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017 with a short version of the Big Five Inventory. We used multilevel analyse…
Taking the ups and downs at the rollercoaster of love
Personality predicts how we interact with others, what partners we have, and how happy and lasting our romantic relationships are. At the same time, our experiences in these relationships may affect our personality. Who experiences specific major relationship events, and how do these events relate to personality development? We examined this issue based on data from a nationally representative household panel study from Germany (N = 49,932). In t…
Long‐Term Effects of an Extensive Cognitive Training on Personality Development
Previous research found that cognitive training increases the Big Five personality trait Openness to Experience during and some weeks after the intervention. The present study investigated whether long‐term changes happen in Openness to Experience and other personality traits after an extensive cognitive training of memory and perceptual speed. The intervention group consisted of 204 adults (20–31 years and 65–80 years; 50% female) who received d…
Personality Trait Development During the Transition to Parenthood
Social investment theory (SIT) proposes that the transition to parenthood triggers positive personality trait change in early adulthood. Using data from a representative sample of first-time parents compared to nonparents, the results of rigorous tests do not support the propositions of SIT. Specifically, we found no evidence for the proposition that parents show more pronounced mean-level increases in emotional stability, agreeableness, and cons…
Personality development in old age relates to physical health and cognitive performance
Developmental Tasks as a Framework to Study Personality Development in Adulthood and Old Age
Research consistently shows that personality development is a lifelong phenomenon, with mean–level and rank–order changes occurring in all life phases. What happens during specific life phases that can explain these developmental patterns? In the present paper, we review literature linking personality development in different phases of adulthood to developmental tasks associated with these phases. Building on previous work, we describe several ca…
What Drives Adult Personality Development? A Comparison of Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Evidence
Increasing numbers of empirical studies provide compelling evidence that personality traits change across the entire lifespan. What initiates this continuing personality development and how does this development proceed? In this paper, we compare six theoretical perspectives that offer testable predictions about why personality develops the way it does and identify limitations and potentials of these perspectives by reviewing how they hold up aga…
Studying Changes in Life Circumstances and Personality
Most theories of personality development posit that changes in life circumstances (e.g. due to major life events) can lead to changes in personality, but few studies have examined the exact time course of these changes. In this article, we argue that time needs to be considered explicitly in theories and empirical studies on personality development. We discuss six notions on the role of time in personality development. First, people can differ be…
On the consistency of personality types across adulthood
Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from 2 nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16-82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15-79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition analyses revealed 4 main findings: First, solution…
Examining Mechanisms of Personality Maturation
Individuals are expected to mature with increasing age, but it is not yet fully understood which factors contribute to this maturation process. Using data of a representative sample of Germans ( N = 14,718) who gave information about their Big Five personality traits twice over a period of 4 years, the authors identified satisfaction with life, which was reported yearly, as an important variable for explaining mechanisms and interindividual diffe…
Stability and change of personality across the life course
Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean l…
Everything under control? The effects of age, gender, and education on trajectories of perceived control in a nationally representative German sample
Perceived control is an important variable for various demands involved in successful aging. However, perceived control is not set in stone but rather changes throughout the life course. The aim of this study was to identify cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal mean-level changes as well as rank-order changes in perceived control with respect to gender and education. Furthermore, changes in income and health were analyzed to explain t…
On the consistency of personality types across adulthood
Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from 2 nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16-82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15-79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition analyses revealed 4 main findings: First, solution…
Taking the ups and downs at the rollercoaster of love
Personality predicts how we interact with others, what partners we have, and how happy and lasting our romantic relationships are. At the same time, our experiences in these relationships may affect our personality. Who experiences specific major relationship events, and how do these events relate to personality development? We examined this issue based on data from a nationally representative household panel study from Germany (N = 49,932). In t…
Long-Term Dynamics of Voluntary Engagement
Prior research has suggested three explanations why levels of voluntary engagement rise and fall over time within societies. A social structural explanation considers individual resources crucial for engagement and argues that a redistribution of those resources may bring about changes in engagement. A cohort-based explanation considers socialisation and experiences in formative years as crucial for the uptake of engagement. Finally, a period-bas…
Personality development in old age relates to physical health and cognitive performance
The Rhetoric of Solidarity
Scholars have called to study how social cohesion is discursively negotiated and produced in communication behavior. However, empirical evidence remains scarce. In this study, we investigate to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs), part of the backbone of social integration in modern democracies, make references to social cohesion in their public self-portrayals. We develop a standardized measure for content analyzing the manife…
How social capital matters for receiving social support
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a widespread need for social support. Similar to previous crises, we can observe activation in society to meet these needs: citizens have offered practical, emotional, and financial support, often within their social networks, but also to strangers and civil society organizations. In this paper, we examine the role of social capital in receiving social support during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany using unique …
The Benefits of Believing in Chance or Fate
The death of a spouse is an extremely stressful life event that consequently causes a large drop in life satisfaction. Reactivity to the loss, however, varies markedly, a phenomenon that is currently not well understood. Because lack of controllability essentially contributes to the stressful nature of this incident, the authors analyzed whether individual differences in belief in external control influence the coping process. To examine this iss…
Stability and change of personality across the life course
Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean l…
Examining Mechanisms of Personality Maturation
Individuals are expected to mature with increasing age, but it is not yet fully understood which factors contribute to this maturation process. Using data of a representative sample of Germans ( N = 14,718) who gave information about their Big Five personality traits twice over a period of 4 years, the authors identified satisfaction with life, which was reported yearly, as an important variable for explaining mechanisms and interindividual diffe…
Everything under control? The effects of age, gender, and education on trajectories of perceived control in a nationally representative German sample
Perceived control is an important variable for various demands involved in successful aging. However, perceived control is not set in stone but rather changes throughout the life course. The aim of this study was to identify cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal mean-level changes as well as rank-order changes in perceived control with respect to gender and education. Furthermore, changes in income and health were analyzed to explain t…
Developmental Tasks as a Framework to Study Personality Development in Adulthood and Old Age
Research consistently shows that personality development is a lifelong phenomenon, with mean–level and rank–order changes occurring in all life phases. What happens during specific life phases that can explain these developmental patterns? In the present paper, we review literature linking personality development in different phases of adulthood to developmental tasks associated with these phases. Building on previous work, we describe several ca…
What Drives Adult Personality Development? A Comparison of Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Evidence
Increasing numbers of empirical studies provide compelling evidence that personality traits change across the entire lifespan. What initiates this continuing personality development and how does this development proceed? In this paper, we compare six theoretical perspectives that offer testable predictions about why personality develops the way it does and identify limitations and potentials of these perspectives by reviewing how they hold up aga…
Studying Changes in Life Circumstances and Personality
Most theories of personality development posit that changes in life circumstances (e.g. due to major life events) can lead to changes in personality, but few studies have examined the exact time course of these changes. In this article, we argue that time needs to be considered explicitly in theories and empirical studies on personality development. We discuss six notions on the role of time in personality development. First, people can differ be…
On the consistency of personality types across adulthood
Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from 2 nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16-82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15-79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition analyses revealed 4 main findings: First, solution…
Personality Trait Development During the Transition to Parenthood
Social investment theory (SIT) proposes that the transition to parenthood triggers positive personality trait change in early adulthood. Using data from a representative sample of first-time parents compared to nonparents, the results of rigorous tests do not support the propositions of SIT. Specifically, we found no evidence for the proposition that parents show more pronounced mean-level increases in emotional stability, agreeableness, and cons…
Personality development in old age relates to physical health and cognitive performance
Long‐Term Effects of an Extensive Cognitive Training on Personality Development
Previous research found that cognitive training increases the Big Five personality trait Openness to Experience during and some weeks after the intervention. The present study investigated whether long‐term changes happen in Openness to Experience and other personality traits after an extensive cognitive training of memory and perceptual speed. The intervention group consisted of 204 adults (20–31 years and 65–80 years; 50% female) who received d…
Till death do us part
OBJECTIVE: Although losing one's spouse is one of the worst experiences that can occur in life, it has not been resolved yet how this experience relates to personality development. METHOD: In the German Socio-Economic Panel study, information on the death of a spouse was assessed yearly from 1985 to 2017 and personality was measured repeatedly in 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017 with a short version of the Big Five Inventory. We used multilevel analyse…
Taking the ups and downs at the rollercoaster of love
Personality predicts how we interact with others, what partners we have, and how happy and lasting our romantic relationships are. At the same time, our experiences in these relationships may affect our personality. Who experiences specific major relationship events, and how do these events relate to personality development? We examined this issue based on data from a nationally representative household panel study from Germany (N = 49,932). In t…
Personality maturation and personality relaxation
OBJECTIVE: At work, people are confronted with clear behavioral expectations. In line with the Social Investment Principle, the beginning and ending of working life might thus promote changes in personality traits that are relevant at work (e.g., Conscientiousness). METHOD: Based on the data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we examined nuanced differences of the Big Five personality traits in the years around the beginning and ending o…
Changes in happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger around romantic relationship events
Most people agree that romantic relationships greatly affect how we feel. For example, we typically feel happier when getting married but sadder when breaking up. However, previous research primarily focused on changes in cognitive but less so affective well-being around positive and negative relationship events. Set-point theory suggests that subjective well-being might change shortly around such experiences but bounce back in the long run. Usin…
Long-Term Dynamics of Voluntary Engagement
Prior research has suggested three explanations why levels of voluntary engagement rise and fall over time within societies. A social structural explanation considers individual resources crucial for engagement and argues that a redistribution of those resources may bring about changes in engagement. A cohort-based explanation considers socialisation and experiences in formative years as crucial for the uptake of engagement. Finally, a period-bas…
Climbing the Career Ladder Does Not Make You Happy
Subjective well-being tends to be higher in leaders vs. non-leaders. However, do these differences come from selection effects (e.g., because higher subjective well-being predisposes for occupational success) or from within-person well-being changes before and after becoming a leader? This question remains largely unresolved. Previous research suggests that becoming a leader might be a double-edged sword and affect subjective well-being positivel…
Longitudinal bidirectional associations between personality and becoming a leader
OBJECTIVE: Leaders differ in their personalities from non-leaders. However, when do these differences emerge? Are leaders "born to be leaders" or does their personality change in preparation for a leadership role and due to increasing leadership experience? METHOD: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we examined personality differences between leaders (N = 2683 leaders, women: n = 967; 36.04%) and non-leaders (N = 33,663) as we…
Working life as a double-edged sword
The work role is crucial for one's identity and subjective well-being. From a role enhancement perspective, subjective well-being might increase after the transition to work and decrease after retirement. From a role strain perspective, the opposite might be true. Thus, entering and leaving working life might have benefits and costs, leading to improvements in some but impairments in other well-being indicators. To test these assumptions, we exam…
Baby bliss
These findings suggest that set-point theory also applies to different facets of affective well-being across the transition to parenthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
How social capital matters for receiving social support
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a widespread need for social support. Similar to previous crises, we can observe activation in society to meet these needs: citizens have offered practical, emotional, and financial support, often within their social networks, but also to strangers and civil society organizations. In this paper, we examine the role of social capital in receiving social support during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany using unique …
The Rhetoric of Solidarity
Scholars have called to study how social cohesion is discursively negotiated and produced in communication behavior. However, empirical evidence remains scarce. In this study, we investigate to what extent and how civil society organizations (CSOs), part of the backbone of social integration in modern democracies, make references to social cohesion in their public self-portrayals. We develop a standardized measure for content analyzing the manife…
Rethink funding by putting the lottery first
The Big Five Personality Traits and Social Support During the Covid ‐19 Pandemic
Social support can benefit its recipients and even its providers and is especially important in times of crisis. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, support from society and personal networks became particularly crucial but individuals greatly differed in their support reception and provision. The Big Five personality traits may be key to explaining these interindividual differences: In this study, we investigated their impact on the support provided, …
Social media sampling is an effective way to access hard to survey populations and low prevalence groups
Non-probability samples have become increasingly popular despite some criticism. This paper examines social media sampling as a tool for accessing hard-to-survey populations. Our study targeted individuals in Germany using ads on Facebook and X, yielding 4,590 respondents. We compared these samples with high-quality probability samples (SOEP, ESS) through measurement equivalence analysis of shared measures between samples. Results show that our s…
Psychology (24 obras) · Social Psychology (23 obras) · Developmental psychology (17 obras) · Big Five personality traits (15 obras) · Personality (15 obras) · Personality Traits and Psychology (14 obras) · Extraversion and introversion (9 obras) · Conscientiousness (8 obras) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (8 obras) · Social Psychology (8 obras)