Papers by Marzena Cypryańska
PLoS ONE, 2022
This article presents a new framework for understanding how people think personality changes acro... more This article presents a new framework for understanding how people think personality changes across the life span. In two studies we examined the correspondence among how people thought their personalities would change, how people in general change, and changes found in a meta-analysis of changes in personality. We conceptualized and measured personality in terms of the Big Five model (FFM). In Study 1 participants rated either how they had changed from the past to the present or how they would change from the present to the future. We found that for openness to experience and social vitality participants thought these traits had increased from the past to the present, whereas participants did not think they would change from the present to the future. In contrast, participants thought that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability would increase from the present to the future, although they did not report changes in most of these traits from the past to the present....
Participants in the study were recreational runners who completed measures of their orientation t... more Participants in the study were recreational runners who completed measures of their orientation to exercise, the Five Factor Model of personality, self-efficacy as a specific adaptation (a socio-cognitive construct of personality) and measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction) and eudaimonic well-being (life engagement). Consistent with previous research, task-oriented (internally focused) motivation to exercise was positively related to extraversion and to conscientiousness, and ego-oriented (externally focused) motivation was positively related to extraversion. Also consistent with previous research, self-efficacy and measures of well-being were positively related to extraversion and conscientiousness. Mediational analyses found that well-being mediated relationships between task-oriented motives and both extraversion and conscientiousness. Self-efficacy mediated the relationship between ego-oriented motives and extraversion. The implications of these results for the st...
The study concerns the positivity effect in temporal comparisons involving the self (one’s view o... more The study concerns the positivity effect in temporal comparisons involving the self (one’s view of the self in the past versus present versus future). We examined whether teenagers would perceive personal progress from the past to the future and from the present to the future. Forty eight participants (35 women) aged between 17 and 18 (M = 17.51, SD = 0.51) evaluated a set of 18 characteristics (9 positive and 9 negative). The set of traits included characteristics from the fundamental dimensions of social judgment (agency and communion) and from the dimension of morality. All participants evaluated each trait three times. They indicated the degree to which the traits described them 3 years ago, then the degree to which the traits describe them now, and the degree to which the traits will describe them in 3 years. Answers were given using a 7-point scale with endpoints of 1 (not at all), through 4 (moderately) to 7 (extremely so). The results confirmed most of our predictions and th...
PLOS ONE, 2020
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (10-14 March, 2020) we conducted a survey (n = 1028) of... more At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (10-14 March, 2020) we conducted a survey (n = 1028) of a nationally representative sample (age, sex, and locale) in Poland. Respondents indicated how strong they thought the threat was to themselves, to Poland, and the world. They also described their emotional reactions to the pandemic, which we used to calculate three scores: Anxiety, Hopelessness, and Panic. Respondents also indicated how often they engaged in various coping behaviors and how much they supported different types of economic sacrifice. We used these responses to calculate measures that we labelled as Spread Prevention (e.g., social distancing), Self-preservation (food stockpiling), and Economic Sacrifice (e.g., fighting COVID-19 regardless of the cost). Multiple regression analyses found that perceived threat to self was the most reliable predictor (positive) of emotional reactions and of coping behaviors, and that Anxiety was the most reliable predictor (positive) of Spread prevention and Economic sacrifice. Panic predicted (positively) Self-preservation. A series of mediation analyses found that Anxiety mediated relationships between threat and coping behaviors, and that Panic mediated the relationship between perceived threats and Self-preservation. In addition, we found that scores on all measures, except Panic, increased following the announcement of the first COVID-19 related fatality in Poland, which occurred on the third (middle) day of the study. The mediational relationships we found did not vary as a function of whether the data were collected before or after this announcement. The present results suggest that emotional reactions to perceived threats can serve an instrumental function by providing the motivation to engage in coping behaviors. Such a mechanism complements much research on stress that has focused on how coping mediates threat-emotion relationships.
In a series of studies conducted in the USA and Poland, we found that vegetarianism can serve as ... more In a series of studies conducted in the USA and Poland, we found that vegetarianism can serve as a basis for the formation of personal relationships. Consistent with research on the similarity-attraction effect, we found that vegetarians were more likely than omnivores to have friends and lovers who were vegetarians. In study 1, vegetarians reported that their diets were a more important part of their identities than omnivores did. In studies 2, 3, and 4, we found that vegetarians were three to six times more likely to have vegetarian friends than omnivores were. In study 4 we found that vegetarians were twelve times more likely to have romantic partners who were vegetarians than omnivores were. These results suggest that following a vegetarian or an omnivorous diet is an important influence on an individual’s choice of relational partners, possibly because dietary choice is part of an individual’s social identity.
Social Psychological Bulletin, 2018
Participants in the present study (82 high school students and 60 seniors) used a version of the ... more Participants in the present study (82 high school students and 60 seniors) used a version of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) to describe their past (10 years ago), present, and future (10 years from the present) selves. From the TIPI we derived measures of positive and negative self-evaluation. We analyzed these data with 2 (young-old) x 3 (past, present, and future) ANOVAs. Consistent with previous research, for positive self-evaluations, we found that younger people thought they were better now than they had been in the past and would be better in the future than they were now, and older people thought that had been better in the past than they were now, and that they were better now than they would be in the future. In contrast, and inconsistent with previous research, for negative self-evaluations, we found few differences among ratings of the three selves. We provide a tentative explanation of these results based on possible differences in how positive and negative ag...
Journal of Personality, 2018
Objective: To examine the self-presentational motives underlying people's selection of their dail... more Objective: To examine the self-presentational motives underlying people's selection of their daily dress and relationships between these motives and public self-consciousness. Method: Participants in this study, 61 working adults, described their motives for choosing what they wore each day for 2 weeks. They also provided trait level measures of self-consciousness, social anxiety, and self-monitoring. Results: Multilevel modeling analyses found positive relationships between public selfconsciousness and the strength of various self-presentational motives for why people chose the clothes they wore each day. In contrast, there were few relationships between the strength of these motives and private self-consciousness, social anxiety, and self-monitoring. Participants felt better about themselves when they received compliments from others about their attire and when they were more (vs. less) satisfied with how they had dressed each day. Conclusions: The results suggest that dispositional public self-consciousness manifests itself in daily life in the form of motives for choosing daily attire, specifically for motives that involve selfpresentation.
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2018
Participants in the study were 404 recreational runners. At the end of each week for three months... more Participants in the study were 404 recreational runners. At the end of each week for three months they used an online diary to describe their psychological well-being for the week (a total of 4046 weeks), and they indicated if they had participated in an organized race each week (a total of 1111 races). Multilevel modeling analyses (weeks nested within persons) found that well-being, defined in terms of self-esteem, self-efficacy, life satisfaction, positive affect, and depressed affect, was higher during weeks in which participants had run in an organized race than it was during weeks in which they had not run in an organized race. Moreover, well-being was positively related to self-evaluations of performance in races. For recreational runners, finishing an organized race may represent the achievement of a goal, an achievement that increases well-being and may help maintain or increase the motivation to keep running.
Journal of sport & exercise psychology, 2018
Participants in the study were recreational runners (N = 244) who maintained online diaries. Once... more Participants in the study were recreational runners (N = 244) who maintained online diaries. Once a week for approximately 3 months they indicated how far they had run each day that week, and at the end of the week, they provided measures of their psychological well-being. A series of multilevel modeling analyses (weeks nested within persons) found that well-being, measured in terms of self-esteem, life satisfaction, self-efficacy, meaning in life, and affect, was positively related to how many days people ran each week and how far they ran each week. Satisfaction with one's progress mediated relationships between well-being and the amount of running, suggesting that increases in running lead to increases in satisfaction with progress, which lead to increased well-being. These results complement and extend existing research on the psychological benefits of exercise.
Memory & Cognition, 2013
Studies on direct comparative judgments typically show that, for items that are positively evalua... more Studies on direct comparative judgments typically show that, for items that are positively evaluated, a single item randomly drawn from a larger set of similar items tends to be judged as better than average (the BTA effect). However, Windschitl, Conybeare, and Krizan (2008) demonstrated that, under timing conditions that do not favor focusing attention on the single item, the reversal of the BTA effect occurs. We report two experiments showing that the magnitude of the reversed BTA effect increases as a function of the size of a multiitem referent with which a single item target is compared. Specifically, in direct comparative judgments of the attractiveness of positively evaluated objects (nice-looking cloth buttons, attractive buildings, or cupcakes), underestimation of the attractiveness of singletons, as compared with a multiitem set (reversed BTA effect), increased with the increased set size. Analysis of absolute judgments obtained for singletons and for small and large multiitem sets suggests that, for attractive stimuli, both the reversed BTA effect in comparative judgments and its sensitivity to set size occur as a result of a positive relationship between set size and perceived attractiveness in absolute judgments.
The Journal of Social Psychology, 2017
The Journal of Social Psychology, 2017
Self-humanization is defined as the tendency to view oneself as more essentially human than A c c... more Self-humanization is defined as the tendency to view oneself as more essentially human than A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 2 others. Researchers have claimed that people attribute more strongly to themselves than to others human nature traits but not uniquely human traits. In this paper we suggest that such claims are based on the misinterpretation of results. Most studies have not presented mean comparative judgments making it impossible to determine whether people thought they possessed characteristics less strongly or more strongly than the average person. We found that people (N = 256) in Poland, Italy, and Korea perceived themselves as possessing desirable human nature and uniquely human characteristics more than others, as possessing undesirable uniquely human traits less than others, and as similar to others in terms of undesirable human nature characteristics. It seems that being more human than others means possessing some traits more than others and possessing some traits less than others.
of the Two-Way Street between Cognition and Instruction. New Directions for Teaching and Learning... more of the Two-Way Street between Cognition and Instruction. New Directions for Teaching and Learning(89), 55–71. Morad, Y., Lemberg, H., Yofe, N., & Dagan, Y. (2000). Pupillography as an objective indicator of fatigue. Curr. Eye Res., 21(1), 535–542. Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. (2007). Interactive multimedia learning environments. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 309–326. Narayanan, N., & Hegarty, M. (2002). Multimedia design for communication of dynamic information. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, 57(4), 279–315. O’Hara, K., & Sellen, A. (1997). A comparison of reading paper and on-line documents. [In] Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (335–342). -
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Papers by Marzena Cypryańska