Stefan C Schmukle
Biographic Data
| ID | 4230539 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stefan C Schmukle |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stefan C |
| FAMILY NAME | Schmukle |
| SIGNATURE | SCHMUKLE S C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leipzig University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6279-9618 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 256 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Ego’s Bodyguard
When faced with self-threat, people often engage in self-protective reactions. Yet not everyone does. The extent to which self-protection occurs, is thought to depend on people’s personality. We put this claim to test by considering multiple personality traits from different content domains. In an experiment, participants ( N = 1744) performed a bogus performance test and received negative versus positive feedback. As an indicator of self-protect…
Using within-person change in three large panel studies to estimate personality age trajectories
How does personality change when people get older? Numerous studies have investigated this question, overall supporting the idea of so-called personality maturation. However, heterogeneous findings have left open questions, such as whether maturation continues in old age and how large the effects are. We suggest that the heterogeneity is partly rooted in methodological issues. First, studies may have failed to recover age effects as they did not …
The development of the rank-order stability of the Big Five across the life span
Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter, we analyzed data from two representative panel studies and investigated how certain methodological d…
The End of a Stereotype
The current research dealt with the stereotype that only children are more narcissistic than people with siblings. We first investigated the prevalence of this stereotype. In an online study (Study 1, N = 556), laypeople rated a typical only child and a typical person with siblings on narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry, the two subdimensions of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire. They ascribed both higher admirati…
Accuracy of Self‐Esteem Judgments at Zero Acquaintance
OBJECTIVE: Perceptions of strangers' self-esteem can have wide-ranging interpersonal consequences. Aiming to reconcile inconsistent results from previous research that had predominantly suggested that self-esteem is a trait that can hardly be accurately judged at zero acquaintance, we examined unaquainted others' accuracy in inferring individuals' actual self-esteem. METHOD: = 23.5 years) were videotaped in a self-introductory situation, and self…
In your eyes only? Discrepancies and agreement between self- and other-reports of personality from age 14 to 29
Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonality Project. Results for self-reported personality showed maturation effects (increases in extravers…
A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior
Does being from a higher social class lead a person to engage in more or less prosocial behavior? Psychological research has recently provided support for a negative effect of social class on prosocial behavior. However, research outside the field of psychology has mainly found evidence for positive or u-shaped relations. In the present research, we therefore thoroughly examined the effect of social class on prosocial behavior. Moreover, we analy…
Accurate Judgments of Neuroticism at Zero Acquaintance
Prior studies have consistently found a surprising inaccuracy of people's neuroticism judgments at zero acquaintance. Based on the Realistic Accuracy Model (Funder, 1995), we hypothesize that this is due to a lack of relevance of the situation in which targets are typically observed. Fifty participants were videotaped in a highly trait-relevant (i.e., socially stressful) situation as well as three less relevant situations. An aggregate of self-re…
Implicit Interpersonal Attraction in Small Groups
The present research investigated the nature and behavioral consequences of interpersonal attraction in small groups. In line with dual-process models of information processing, we studied the influence of implicit and explicit evaluations of interaction partners on actual friendly behavior in two social contexts. In two studies, 247 unacquainted same-sex participants ( N 1 = 139; N 2 = 108)—assigned to groups of four to six members—rated each ot…
Measuring and explaining tax evasion
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 in affective experience across the adult life span
Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a national sample spanning the adult life span, age differences in anger and sadness were explored. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings consistently suggest that the frequency of anger increases during young adulthood, but then shows a steady decrease until old age. By contrast, the frequency of sadness remains stable over most of adulthood and begins to increase in old age. In addition, …
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…
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…
Facebook Profiles Reflect Actual Personality, Not Self-Idealization
Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Decoding the narcissism–popularity link at zero acquaintance
On the basis of a realistic behavioral approach, the authors showed that narcissists are popular at zero acquaintance and aimed to explain why this is the case. In Study 1, a group of psychology freshmen (N = 73) judged each other on the basis of brief self-introductions using a large round-robin design (2,628 dyads). Three main findings were revealed: First, narcissism leads to popularity at first sight. Second, the aspects of narcissism that ar…
Unraveling the three faces of self-esteem
Predicting actual behavior from the explicit and implicit self-concept of personality
The authors present a behavioral process model of personality that specifies explicit and implicit aspects of the self-concept of personality as predictors of actual behavior. An extensive behavioral study (N = 130) including a variety of relevant social situations was conducted. This approach allowed reliable measurement of more than 50 behavioral indicators. A priori assignment of indicators to the Big Five dimensions was conducted on the basis…
Thinking about anxiety moderates the relationship between implicit and explicit anxiety measures
How extraverted is [email protected]? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses
Becoming Friends by Chance
Spontaneous emotion regulation during evaluated speaking tasks
In these studies, the correlates of spontaneously using expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal during stressful speeches were examined. Spontaneous emotion regulation means that there were no instructions of how to regulate emotions during the speech. Instead, participants indicated after the speech to what extent they used self-motivated expressive suppression or reappraisal during the task. The results show that suppression is associa…
Who is late and who is early? Big Five personality factors and punctuality in attending psychological experiments
Facets of Dynamic Positive Affect
This article proposes the differentiation of Joy, Interest, and Activation in the Positive Affect (PA) scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988). Study 1 analyzed the dynamic course of PA before, during, and after an exam and established the differentiation of the three facets. Study 2 used a multistate-multitrait analysis to confirm this structure. Studies 3-5 used success-failure exp…
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…
Predictive validity of an implicit association test for assessing anxiety
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was adapted to measure anxiety by assessing associations of self (vs. other) with anxiety-related (vs. calmness-related) words. Study 1 showed that the IAT-Anxiety exhibited good internal consistency and adequate stability. Study 2 revealed that the IAT-Anxiety was unaffected by a faking instruction. Study 3 examined the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures and showed that the IAT-Anxiety was r…
Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Decoding the narcissism–popularity link at zero acquaintance
On the basis of a realistic behavioral approach, the authors showed that narcissists are popular at zero acquaintance and aimed to explain why this is the case. In Study 1, a group of psychology freshmen (N = 73) judged each other on the basis of brief self-introductions using a large round-robin design (2,628 dyads). Three main findings were revealed: First, narcissism leads to popularity at first sight. Second, the aspects of narcissism that ar…
Predicting actual behavior from the explicit and implicit self-concept of personality
The authors present a behavioral process model of personality that specifies explicit and implicit aspects of the self-concept of personality as predictors of actual behavior. An extensive behavioral study (N = 130) including a variety of relevant social situations was conducted. This approach allowed reliable measurement of more than 50 behavioral indicators. A priori assignment of indicators to the Big Five dimensions was conducted on the basis…
Becoming Friends by Chance
How extraverted is [email protected]? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses
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…
Measuring and explaining tax evasion
The relationship between positive and negative affect in the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule
Facets of Dynamic Positive Affect
This article proposes the differentiation of Joy, Interest, and Activation in the Positive Affect (PA) scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988). Study 1 analyzed the dynamic course of PA before, during, and after an exam and established the differentiation of the three facets. Study 2 used a multistate-multitrait analysis to confirm this structure. Studies 3-5 used success-failure exp…
Who is late and who is early? Big Five personality factors and punctuality in attending psychological experiments
In your eyes only? Discrepancies and agreement between self- and other-reports of personality from age 14 to 29
Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonality Project. Results for self-reported personality showed maturation effects (increases in extravers…
The development of the rank-order stability of the Big Five across the life span
Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter, we analyzed data from two representative panel studies and investigated how certain methodological d…
Thinking about anxiety moderates the relationship between implicit and explicit anxiety measures
Unraveling the three faces of self-esteem
The relationship between positive and negative affect in the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule
Predictive validity of an implicit association test for assessing anxiety
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was adapted to measure anxiety by assessing associations of self (vs. other) with anxiety-related (vs. calmness-related) words. Study 1 showed that the IAT-Anxiety exhibited good internal consistency and adequate stability. Study 2 revealed that the IAT-Anxiety was unaffected by a faking instruction. Study 3 examined the predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures and showed that the IAT-Anxiety was r…
Facets of Dynamic Positive Affect
This article proposes the differentiation of Joy, Interest, and Activation in the Positive Affect (PA) scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; D. Watson, L. A. Clark, & A. Tellegen, 1988). Study 1 analyzed the dynamic course of PA before, during, and after an exam and established the differentiation of the three facets. Study 2 used a multistate-multitrait analysis to confirm this structure. Studies 3-5 used success-failure exp…
Spontaneous emotion regulation during evaluated speaking tasks
In these studies, the correlates of spontaneously using expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal during stressful speeches were examined. Spontaneous emotion regulation means that there were no instructions of how to regulate emotions during the speech. Instead, participants indicated after the speech to what extent they used self-motivated expressive suppression or reappraisal during the task. The results show that suppression is associa…
Who is late and who is early? Big Five personality factors and punctuality in attending psychological experiments
Thinking about anxiety moderates the relationship between implicit and explicit anxiety measures
How extraverted is [email protected]? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses
Becoming Friends by Chance
Unraveling the three faces of self-esteem
Predicting actual behavior from the explicit and implicit self-concept of personality
The authors present a behavioral process model of personality that specifies explicit and implicit aspects of the self-concept of personality as predictors of actual behavior. An extensive behavioral study (N = 130) including a variety of relevant social situations was conducted. This approach allowed reliable measurement of more than 50 behavioral indicators. A priori assignment of indicators to the Big Five dimensions was conducted on the basis…
Facebook Profiles Reflect Actual Personality, Not Self-Idealization
Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Decoding the narcissism–popularity link at zero acquaintance
On the basis of a realistic behavioral approach, the authors showed that narcissists are popular at zero acquaintance and aimed to explain why this is the case. In Study 1, a group of psychology freshmen (N = 73) judged each other on the basis of brief self-introductions using a large round-robin design (2,628 dyads). Three main findings were revealed: First, narcissism leads to popularity at first sight. Second, the aspects of narcissism that ar…
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…
Stability and change in affective experience across the adult life span
Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a national sample spanning the adult life span, age differences in anger and sadness were explored. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings consistently suggest that the frequency of anger increases during young adulthood, but then shows a steady decrease until old age. By contrast, the frequency of sadness remains stable over most of adulthood and begins to increase in old age. In addition, …
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…
Implicit Interpersonal Attraction in Small Groups
The present research investigated the nature and behavioral consequences of interpersonal attraction in small groups. In line with dual-process models of information processing, we studied the influence of implicit and explicit evaluations of interaction partners on actual friendly behavior in two social contexts. In two studies, 247 unacquainted same-sex participants ( N 1 = 139; N 2 = 108)—assigned to groups of four to six members—rated each ot…
Measuring and explaining tax evasion
A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior
Does being from a higher social class lead a person to engage in more or less prosocial behavior? Psychological research has recently provided support for a negative effect of social class on prosocial behavior. However, research outside the field of psychology has mainly found evidence for positive or u-shaped relations. In the present research, we therefore thoroughly examined the effect of social class on prosocial behavior. Moreover, we analy…
Accurate Judgments of Neuroticism at Zero Acquaintance
Prior studies have consistently found a surprising inaccuracy of people's neuroticism judgments at zero acquaintance. Based on the Realistic Accuracy Model (Funder, 1995), we hypothesize that this is due to a lack of relevance of the situation in which targets are typically observed. Fifty participants were videotaped in a highly trait-relevant (i.e., socially stressful) situation as well as three less relevant situations. An aggregate of self-re…
Accuracy of Self‐Esteem Judgments at Zero Acquaintance
OBJECTIVE: Perceptions of strangers' self-esteem can have wide-ranging interpersonal consequences. Aiming to reconcile inconsistent results from previous research that had predominantly suggested that self-esteem is a trait that can hardly be accurately judged at zero acquaintance, we examined unaquainted others' accuracy in inferring individuals' actual self-esteem. METHOD: = 23.5 years) were videotaped in a self-introductory situation, and self…
In your eyes only? Discrepancies and agreement between self- and other-reports of personality from age 14 to 29
Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self-other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonality Project. Results for self-reported personality showed maturation effects (increases in extravers…
The End of a Stereotype
The current research dealt with the stereotype that only children are more narcissistic than people with siblings. We first investigated the prevalence of this stereotype. In an online study (Study 1, N = 556), laypeople rated a typical only child and a typical person with siblings on narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry, the two subdimensions of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire. They ascribed both higher admirati…
The development of the rank-order stability of the Big Five across the life span
Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter, we analyzed data from two representative panel studies and investigated how certain methodological d…
Psychology (27 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Developmental psychology (16 works) · Personality Traits and Psychology (14 works) · Personality (13 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (10 works) · Big Five personality traits (9 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (8 works) · Extraversion and introversion (7 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (7 works)