Wendy Johnson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3659178 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wendy Johnson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wendy |
| FAMILY NAME | Johnson |
| SIGNATURE | JOHNSON W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7309-1447 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1929 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Does a Small Country Have Meaningful Regional Personality Differences? The Case of Estonia
BACKGROUND: Regional differences in the Big Five personality domains have been observed in several countries at different geographical granularities, often correlating with regional political, economic, social, and health (PESH) indicators. OBJECTIVE: We examined the extent of regional personality differences in Estonia and whether these differences were meaningfully correlated with PESH indicators. METHODS: Using data from the Estonian Biobank (…
The ways of the world? Cross-sample replicability of personality trait-life outcome associations
Across three culturally diverse samples, lower order traits out-predicted multiple life outcomes than broad traits, such as domains. • Predictive accuracy of all levels was stronger in the English-speaking sample. • Narrow traits showed stronger predictive accuracy even when predicting outcomes from culturally different sample – suggesting a degree of universality to findings. • Individual trait associations were slightly more replicable for doma…
Joint Consideration of Means and Variances Might Change the Understanding of Etiology
Twin and adoption studies compare the similarities of people with differing degrees of relatedness to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to trait population variance. The analytic workhorse of these kinds of variance-focused designs is the intraclass correlation, which estimates similarity between pairs of individuals. Group means, by contrast, play no overt role in estimating genetic and environmental influences. Although this focu…
The finer details? The predictability of life outcomes from Big Five domains, facets, and nuances
Associations between personality traits and life outcomes are usually studied using the Big Five domains and, occasionally, their facets. But recent research suggests these associations may be driven by the items (reflecting personality nuances) chosen to measure these traits. Using a large dataset ( N = 6126), we examined associations with 53 self‐reported outcomes using domains, facets and items (markers for nuances), training and validating mo…
Relative deprivation and social anxiety among Chinese migrant children: Testing a moderated mediation model of perceived control and belief in a just world
To examine the relationship between relative deprivation and social anxiety, which affects mental health, and investigate the mediating role of perceived control and the moderating role of belief in a just world (BJW) in an understudied population in Asia, we surveyed 1573 rural-to-urban migrant children (48% female; Mage = 12.3, SD = 1.7) in southeast China. Relative deprivation was positively correlated with social anxiety; perceived control pa…
“I Expect It to Be Great . . . but Will It Be?” An Investigation of Outcomes, Processes, and Mediators of a School-Based Mentoring Program
Despite their growing popularity, quantitative studies of school-based mentoring (SBM) programs for youth have showed considerable variation in mentoring benefits, including negative effects of mentoring. We investigated the initial 3 months of one school’s SBM program, delivered by teachers and compulsory for all first- and second-year high school students ( N = 103). Students who reported higher quality of mentoring environment (QME) tended to …
Attained SES as a moderator of adult cognitive performance: Testing gene–environment interaction in various cognitive domains
We examined whether attained socioeconomic status (SES) moderated genetic and environmental sources of individual differences in cognitive performance using pooled data from 9 adult twin studies. Prior work concerning SES moderation of cognitive performance has focused on rearing SES. The current adult sample of 12,196 individuals (aged 27-98 years) allowed for the examination of common sources of individual differences between attained SES and c…
Integrating Personality Structure, Personality Process, and Personality Development
In this target article, we argue that personality processes, personality structure, and personality development have to be understood and investigated in integrated ways in order to provide comprehensive responses to the key questions of personality psychology. The psychological processes and mechanisms that explain concrete behaviour in concrete situations should provide explanation for patterns of variation across situations and individuals, fo…
Have Standard Formulas Correcting Correlations for Range Restriction Been Adequately Tested: Minor Sampling Distribution Quirks Distort Them
Most study samples show less variability in key variables than do their source populations due most often to indirect selection into study participation associated with a wide range of personal and circumstantial characteristics. Formulas exist to correct the distortions of population-level correlations created. Formula accuracy has been tested using simulated normally distributed data, but empirical data are rarely available for testing. We did …
Pathways of Intergenerational Transmission of Advantages during Adolescence: Social Background, Cognitive Ability, and Educational Attainment
Disentangling wording and substantive factors in the Spiritual Well-Being Scale
We evaluated the extent to which the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) may help to meet the need for multidimensional, psychometrically sophisticated measures of spiritual and religious traits. Although the various forms of validity of the scale have, for the most part, been supported by psychometric studies, conflicting evidence surrounding its dimensionality has called into question its structural validity. Specifically, numerous authors have s…
Loss to Follow-Up Among HIV-Exposed Children in an HIV Clinic in Beira, Mozambique
Loss to follow-up contributes to the low coverage of HIV care interventions among HIV-exposed infants in Beira, Mozambique. This qualitative study explores the perceptions of HIV-infected women and their health care providers regarding the main obstacles preventing women from attending follow-up visits for HIV care, and factors influencing women’s decisions about newborn care. Fifty-two in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions were con…
Developing Difference
Linear and nonlinear associations between general intelligence and personality in Project Talent
Research on the relations of personality traits to intelligence has primarily been concerned with linear associations. Yet, there are no a priori reasons why linear relations should be expected over nonlinear ones, which represent a much larger set of all possible associations. Using 2 techniques, quadratic and generalized additive models, we tested for linear and nonlinear associations of general intelligence (g) with 10 personality scales from …
Beyond the heritability of life satisfaction – The roles of personality and twin-specific influences
Correlates of personality trait levels and their changes in very old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Losing One's Grip: A Bivariate Growth Curve Model of Grip Strength and Nonverbal Reasoning From Age 79 to 87 Years in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Physical and mental "grips" declined in the ninth decade of life. Their levels were significantly correlated; their slopes were not. There was no evidence for reciprocal dynamic influences nor for shared associations
The big none: No evidence for a general factor of personality in chimpanzees, orangutans, or rhesus macaques
Genetic and Environmental Links Between Cognitive and Physical Functions in Old Age
In old age, cognitive and physical functions are correlated. Knowing the correlations between genetic and environmental influences underlying this correlation can help to clarify the reasons for the observable (phenotypic) correlation. We estimated these correlations in a sample of 1,053 pairs of twins from the Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins. Cognitive function was measured using forward and backward digit span, immediate and delayed me…
Parental monitoring, personality, and delinquency: Further support for a reconceptualization of monitoring
School performance and genetic and environmental variance in antisocial behavior at the transition from adolescence to adulthood
Antisocial behavior increases in adolescence, particularly among those who perform poorly in school. As adolescents move into adulthood, both educational attainment and the extent to which antisocial behavior continues have implications for adolescents' abilities to take on constructive social roles. The authors used a population-representative longitudinal twin study to explore how links among genetic and environmental influences at ages 17 and …
Heritability of fluctuating asymmetry in a human twin sample: The effect of trait aggregation
Fluctuating asymmetry is thought to reflect developmental instability, which may in turn indicate genetically influenced fitness. Controversy surrounding these claims has centered on the extent to which fluctuating asymmetry is heritable. Most studies have estimated its heritability to be very low using single‐trait measures. This study uses data from a human twin sample to demonstrate that the heritability estimate resulting from the aggregation…
Personality in Germany and Minnesota: An IRT‐Based Comparison of MPQ Self‐Reports
We compared personality across cultures to explore the extent of cultural differences. This study used samples matched on gender and age from Germany and Minnesota to compare traditional scale scores and IRT‐based parameters for Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire scales. Because the samples consisted of twins, we were able to replicate the findings from the subsamples consisting of one member of each pair with the subsam…
The Heritability of Personality Is Not Always 50: Gene‐Environment Interactions and Correlations Between Personality and Parenting
Twin studies of personality are consistent in attributing approximately half of the variance in personality to genetic effects, with the remaining variance attributed to environments that make people within the same families different. Such conclusions, however, are based on quantitative models of human individual differences that estimate genetic and environmental contributions as constants for entire populations. Recent advances in statistical …
Strengthening Health Systems in Poor Countries: A Code of Conduct for Nongovernmental Organizations
The challenges facing efforts in Africa to increase access to antiretroviral HIV treatment underscore the urgent need to strengthen national health systems across the continent. However, donor aid to developing countries continues to be disproportionately channeled to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) rather than to ministries of health. The rapid proliferation of NGOs has provoked “brain drain” from the public sector by luring w…
How money buys happiness: Genetic and environmental processes linking finances and life satisfaction
Measures of wealth such as income and assets are commonly considered to be objective measures of environmental circumstances, making direct contributions to life satisfaction. Here, the authors explored the accuracy of this assumption. Using a nationwide sample of 719 twin pairs from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, the authors first noted the relative independence of most perceptions about financial status from me…
Genetic and environmental influences on academic achievement trajectories during adolescence
Most studies have considered the effects of particular characteristics on academic achievement individually, which means that little is known about how they function together. Using the population-based Minnesota Twin Family Study, the authors investigated the effects of child academic engagement (interest, involvement, effort), IQ, depression, externalizing behavior, and family environmental risk on academic achievement (reported school grades) …
Strengthening Health Systems in Poor Countries: A Code of Conduct for Nongovernmental Organizations
The challenges facing efforts in Africa to increase access to antiretroviral HIV treatment underscore the urgent need to strengthen national health systems across the continent. However, donor aid to developing countries continues to be disproportionately channeled to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) rather than to ministries of health. The rapid proliferation of NGOs has provoked “brain drain” from the public sector by luring w…
Genetic and environmental structure of adjectives describing the domains of the Big Five Model of personality: A nationwide US twin study
Most of the girls are alright, but some aren't: Personality trajectory groups from ages 14 to 24 and some associations with outcomes
Personality traits show normative patterns of development toward maturity during adolescence. Yet individuals follow these normative patterns to differing degrees. This study used growth mixture modeling to characterize personality development patterns and their associations with outcomes in a population-based sample of 1,537 girls aged 14 to 24. The authors used latent class analysis to identify 3 trajectory groups labeled alright (47%), growing…
Marriage and Personality: A Genetic Analysis
There is substantial evidence that married people fare better than their unmarried peers on many life outcome variables. The authors asked whether self-selection might partially explain these benefits through genetic influences on personality contributing to propensity to marry. Using a population-based sample of 4,225 women and 2,869 men that included 2,527 complete twin pairs, the authors investigated the phenotypic associations between persona…
Pathways of Intergenerational Transmission of Advantages during Adolescence: Social Background, Cognitive Ability, and Educational Attainment
Parental monitoring, personality, and delinquency: Further support for a reconceptualization of monitoring
Higher Perceived Life Control Decreases Genetic Variance in Physical Health: Evidence From a National Twin Study
Physical health has been linked consistently with both income and sense of control, and the authors previously demonstrated that genetic variation in physical health measures decreased with increasing income (see W. Johnson & R. F. Krueger, 2004). Using a nationwide sample of 719 twin pairs from the MacArthur Foundation National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, in this study the authors show that genetic variation in physical h…
Effects of mood manipulation and anxiety on performance of an emotional Stroop task
In Study 1 subjects high and low in trait anxiety were asked to identify the colour of anxiety-related, anxiety-matched neutral, happiness-related and happiness-matched neutral words. There were two types of stimulus presentation: blocked trials, where stimuli were blocked with respect to their valence, and mixed trials, where stimuli were mixed with respect to their valence. Subjects high in trait anxiety took longer to identify the colour of an…
Correlates of personality trait levels and their changes in very old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Relative deprivation and social anxiety among Chinese migrant children: Testing a moderated mediation model of perceived control and belief in a just world
To examine the relationship between relative deprivation and social anxiety, which affects mental health, and investigate the mediating role of perceived control and the moderating role of belief in a just world (BJW) in an understudied population in Asia, we surveyed 1573 rural-to-urban migrant children (48% female; Mage = 12.3, SD = 1.7) in southeast China. Relative deprivation was positively correlated with social anxiety; perceived control pa…
Linear and nonlinear associations between general intelligence and personality in Project Talent
Research on the relations of personality traits to intelligence has primarily been concerned with linear associations. Yet, there are no a priori reasons why linear relations should be expected over nonlinear ones, which represent a much larger set of all possible associations. Using 2 techniques, quadratic and generalized additive models, we tested for linear and nonlinear associations of general intelligence (g) with 10 personality scales from …
Losing One's Grip: A Bivariate Growth Curve Model of Grip Strength and Nonverbal Reasoning From Age 79 to 87 Years in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Physical and mental "grips" declined in the ninth decade of life. Their levels were significantly correlated; their slopes were not. There was no evidence for reciprocal dynamic influences nor for shared associations
School performance and genetic and environmental variance in antisocial behavior at the transition from adolescence to adulthood
Antisocial behavior increases in adolescence, particularly among those who perform poorly in school. As adolescents move into adulthood, both educational attainment and the extent to which antisocial behavior continues have implications for adolescents' abilities to take on constructive social roles. The authors used a population-representative longitudinal twin study to explore how links among genetic and environmental influences at ages 17 and …
Attained SES as a moderator of adult cognitive performance: Testing gene–environment interaction in various cognitive domains
We examined whether attained socioeconomic status (SES) moderated genetic and environmental sources of individual differences in cognitive performance using pooled data from 9 adult twin studies. Prior work concerning SES moderation of cognitive performance has focused on rearing SES. The current adult sample of 12,196 individuals (aged 27-98 years) allowed for the examination of common sources of individual differences between attained SES and c…
Adolescent personality moderates genetic and environmental influences on relationships with parents
In contrast with early theories of socialization that emphasized the role of parents in shaping their children's personalities, recent empirical evidence suggests an evocative relationship between adolescent personality traits and the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship. Research using behavior genetic methods suggests that the association between personality and parenting is genetically mediated, such that the genetic effects on adoles…
Does a Small Country Have Meaningful Regional Personality Differences? The Case of Estonia
BACKGROUND: Regional differences in the Big Five personality domains have been observed in several countries at different geographical granularities, often correlating with regional political, economic, social, and health (PESH) indicators. OBJECTIVE: We examined the extent of regional personality differences in Estonia and whether these differences were meaningfully correlated with PESH indicators. METHODS: Using data from the Estonian Biobank (…
Beyond the heritability of life satisfaction – The roles of personality and twin-specific influences
The big none: No evidence for a general factor of personality in chimpanzees, orangutans, or rhesus macaques
Endemic Goiter in Louisville and Jefferson County Schools: With Evidence of Family History, Defective Teeth, Tonsils, Chest Expansion, and Use of Iodized Salt
Endemic Goiter in Louisville and Jefferson County Schools With Evidence of Family History, Defective Teeth, Tonsils, Chest Expansion, and Use of Iodized Salt W. O. Johnson CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.19.10.1090 Published Online: August 29, 2011
Effects of mood manipulation and anxiety on performance of an emotional Stroop task
In Study 1 subjects high and low in trait anxiety were asked to identify the colour of anxiety-related, anxiety-matched neutral, happiness-related and happiness-matched neutral words. There were two types of stimulus presentation: blocked trials, where stimuli were blocked with respect to their valence, and mixed trials, where stimuli were mixed with respect to their valence. Subjects high in trait anxiety took longer to identify the colour of an…
Genetic and environmental structure of adjectives describing the domains of the Big Five Model of personality: A nationwide US twin study
Marriage and Personality: A Genetic Analysis
There is substantial evidence that married people fare better than their unmarried peers on many life outcome variables. The authors asked whether self-selection might partially explain these benefits through genetic influences on personality contributing to propensity to marry. Using a population-based sample of 4,225 women and 2,869 men that included 2,527 complete twin pairs, the authors investigated the phenotypic associations between persona…
Personality Stability in Late Adulthood: A Behavioral Genetic Analysis
A sample of 833 twins from the Minnesota Twin Study of Adult Development and Aging completed the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982 ) twice, averaging 59.4 ( sd =9.7) years of age at first and 64.4 ( sd =10.2) years of age at second testing (average retest interval 5.0 years, sd =2.36, range 1.0–10.4 years). Both means and standard deviations of scale scores were extremely stable from first to second testing. In addit…
Predictors of Physical Health: Toward an Integrated Model of Genetic and Environmental Antecedents
People in higher-income groups tend to experience better physical health, yet this does not appear to be the direct result of access to medical care. This has prompted a search for psychological factors more likely to be present in high-income environments that might help to explain the relationship. Physical health has been associated with a number of such psychological measures including positive affect and well-being, negative affect and neuro…
Higher Perceived Life Control Decreases Genetic Variance in Physical Health: Evidence From a National Twin Study
Physical health has been linked consistently with both income and sense of control, and the authors previously demonstrated that genetic variation in physical health measures decreased with increasing income (see W. Johnson & R. F. Krueger, 2004). Using a nationwide sample of 719 twin pairs from the MacArthur Foundation National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, in this study the authors show that genetic variation in physical h…
Genetic and environmental influences on academic achievement trajectories during adolescence
Most studies have considered the effects of particular characteristics on academic achievement individually, which means that little is known about how they function together. Using the population-based Minnesota Twin Family Study, the authors investigated the effects of child academic engagement (interest, involvement, effort), IQ, depression, externalizing behavior, and family environmental risk on academic achievement (reported school grades) …
How money buys happiness: Genetic and environmental processes linking finances and life satisfaction
Measures of wealth such as income and assets are commonly considered to be objective measures of environmental circumstances, making direct contributions to life satisfaction. Here, the authors explored the accuracy of this assumption. Using a nationwide sample of 719 twin pairs from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, the authors first noted the relative independence of most perceptions about financial status from me…
Most of the girls are alright, but some aren't: Personality trajectory groups from ages 14 to 24 and some associations with outcomes
Personality traits show normative patterns of development toward maturity during adolescence. Yet individuals follow these normative patterns to differing degrees. This study used growth mixture modeling to characterize personality development patterns and their associations with outcomes in a population-based sample of 1,537 girls aged 14 to 24. The authors used latent class analysis to identify 3 trajectory groups labeled alright (47%), growing…
Heritability of fluctuating asymmetry in a human twin sample: The effect of trait aggregation
Fluctuating asymmetry is thought to reflect developmental instability, which may in turn indicate genetically influenced fitness. Controversy surrounding these claims has centered on the extent to which fluctuating asymmetry is heritable. Most studies have estimated its heritability to be very low using single‐trait measures. This study uses data from a human twin sample to demonstrate that the heritability estimate resulting from the aggregation…
Personality in Germany and Minnesota: An IRT‐Based Comparison of MPQ Self‐Reports
We compared personality across cultures to explore the extent of cultural differences. This study used samples matched on gender and age from Germany and Minnesota to compare traditional scale scores and IRT‐based parameters for Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire scales. Because the samples consisted of twins, we were able to replicate the findings from the subsamples consisting of one member of each pair with the subsam…
The Heritability of Personality Is Not Always 50: Gene‐Environment Interactions and Correlations Between Personality and Parenting
Twin studies of personality are consistent in attributing approximately half of the variance in personality to genetic effects, with the remaining variance attributed to environments that make people within the same families different. Such conclusions, however, are based on quantitative models of human individual differences that estimate genetic and environmental contributions as constants for entire populations. Recent advances in statistical …
Strengthening Health Systems in Poor Countries: A Code of Conduct for Nongovernmental Organizations
The challenges facing efforts in Africa to increase access to antiretroviral HIV treatment underscore the urgent need to strengthen national health systems across the continent. However, donor aid to developing countries continues to be disproportionately channeled to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) rather than to ministries of health. The rapid proliferation of NGOs has provoked “brain drain” from the public sector by luring w…
Adolescent personality moderates genetic and environmental influences on relationships with parents
In contrast with early theories of socialization that emphasized the role of parents in shaping their children's personalities, recent empirical evidence suggests an evocative relationship between adolescent personality traits and the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship. Research using behavior genetic methods suggests that the association between personality and parenting is genetically mediated, such that the genetic effects on adoles…
Genetic and Environmental Links Between Cognitive and Physical Functions in Old Age
In old age, cognitive and physical functions are correlated. Knowing the correlations between genetic and environmental influences underlying this correlation can help to clarify the reasons for the observable (phenotypic) correlation. We estimated these correlations in a sample of 1,053 pairs of twins from the Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins. Cognitive function was measured using forward and backward digit span, immediate and delayed me…
Parental monitoring, personality, and delinquency: Further support for a reconceptualization of monitoring
School performance and genetic and environmental variance in antisocial behavior at the transition from adolescence to adulthood
Antisocial behavior increases in adolescence, particularly among those who perform poorly in school. As adolescents move into adulthood, both educational attainment and the extent to which antisocial behavior continues have implications for adolescents' abilities to take on constructive social roles. The authors used a population-representative longitudinal twin study to explore how links among genetic and environmental influences at ages 17 and …
Losing One's Grip: A Bivariate Growth Curve Model of Grip Strength and Nonverbal Reasoning From Age 79 to 87 Years in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Physical and mental "grips" declined in the ninth decade of life. Their levels were significantly correlated; their slopes were not. There was no evidence for reciprocal dynamic influences nor for shared associations
The big none: No evidence for a general factor of personality in chimpanzees, orangutans, or rhesus macaques
Correlates of personality trait levels and their changes in very old age: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921
Beyond the heritability of life satisfaction – The roles of personality and twin-specific influences
Developing Difference
Linear and nonlinear associations between general intelligence and personality in Project Talent
Research on the relations of personality traits to intelligence has primarily been concerned with linear associations. Yet, there are no a priori reasons why linear relations should be expected over nonlinear ones, which represent a much larger set of all possible associations. Using 2 techniques, quadratic and generalized additive models, we tested for linear and nonlinear associations of general intelligence (g) with 10 personality scales from …
Disentangling wording and substantive factors in the Spiritual Well-Being Scale
We evaluated the extent to which the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS) may help to meet the need for multidimensional, psychometrically sophisticated measures of spiritual and religious traits. Although the various forms of validity of the scale have, for the most part, been supported by psychometric studies, conflicting evidence surrounding its dimensionality has called into question its structural validity. Specifically, numerous authors have s…
Psychology (31 works) · Developmental psychology (27 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Cognitive Abilities and Testing (22 works) · Personality (16 works) · Personality Traits and Psychology (11 works) · Big Five personality traits (10 works) · Demography (9 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Population (9 works)