This article investigates mechanisms through which neuroticism leads to distress in daily life. Neuroticism may lead to distress through exposing people to a greater number of stressful events, through increasing their reactivity to those events, or through a mechanism unrelated to environmental events. This article evaluates the relative importance of these three explanations. Subjects were 339 persons who provided daily reports of minor stressful events and mood for 6 weeks. Exposure and reactivity to these minor stressors explained over 40% of the distress difference between high- and low-neuroticism subjects. Reactivity to stressors accounted for twice as much of the distress difference as exposure to stressors. These results suggest that reactions within stressful situations are more important than situation selection in explaining how neuroticism leads to distress in daily life.

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/99043/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00253.x.pdf?sequence=1

Personality and the problems of everyday life: the role of neuroticism in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors.

The relative weight of predictor variables in multiple regression is difficult to determine because of non-zero predictor intercorrelations. Relative weight (also called relative importance by some researchers) is defined here as the proportionate contribution each predictor makes to R2, considering both its unique contribution and its contribution when combined with other variables. Although there are no unambiguous measures of relative weight when variables are correlated, some measures have been shown to provide meaningful results (Budescu, 1993; Lindeman, Merenda, & Gold, 1980). These measures are very difficult to implement, however, when the number of predictors is greater than about five. A method is proposed that is computationally efficient with any number of predictors, and is shown to produce results that are very similar to those produced by more complex methods. Recommendations are made for when this procedure may be applied and in what situations it is not appropriate.

A Heuristic Method for Estimating the Relative Weight of Predictor Variables in Multiple Regression.

Attachment style differences in psychological symptomatology, self-concept, and risky or problem behaviors were examined in a community sample (N = 1,989) of Black and White adolescents, 13 to 19 years old. Overall, secure adolescents were the best-adjusted group, though not necessarily the least likely to engage in risky behaviors. Anxious adolescents were the worst-adjusted group, reporting the poorest self-concepts and the highest levels of symptomatolog y and risk behaviors. In contrast, avoidant adolescents reported generally high levels of symptomatolog y and poor self-concepts but similar levels of risk behaviors to those found among secures. Mediation analyses suggested that the observed differences in problem behaviors were at least partially accounted for by the differential experience of distress symptoms (primarily hostility and depression) and by social competence. Finally, patterns of attachment effects were similar across age, gender, and racial groups, with some important exceptions.

https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/collins/nancy/UCSB_Close_Relationships_Lab/Publications_files/Cooper%20et%20al.,%201998.pdf

Attachment Styles, Emotion Regulation, and Adjustment in Adolescence

The search for a meaningful index of the relative importance of predictors in multiple regression has been going on for years. This type of index is often desired when the explanatory aspects of re...

History and Use of Relative Importance Indices in Organizational Research

Summary 1 In flowering plants the balance between sexual and clonal, asexual reproduction can vary widely. We quantified variation in sexual reproduction in a tristylous, clonal, aquatic plant, Decodon verticillatus , and investigated the role of ecological and genetic factors in causing this variation. 2 We surveyed components of sexual fertility and vegetative growth in 28 populations distributed along a 500-km latitudinal transect in New England, USA. Northerly populations tend to be monomorphic (M) for style length, and probably therefore have reduced sexual reproduction compared with southerly, trimorphic (T) populations. 3 Compared with T populations ( n = 10), M populations ( n = 18) exhibited large reductions for all components of sexual reproduction, including flower production, pollen deposition, pollen tube growth, fertilization, fruit set and seeds per fruit. Seven M populations produced no seed at all, and the other 11 very little (mean = 24 vs. 1139 seeds per plant in trimorphic populations). Clonal propagation was also greatly reduced in M populations. 4 A survey of three polymorphic allozyme loci detected only single, usually heterozygous, genotypes in 15 M populations, whereas all T populations were genotypically diverse. The other three M populations contained three or fewer genotypes and one always predominated. Sexual recruitment is therefore extremely rare. 5 Comparison of the sexual fertility of M and T populations in a concurrent common glasshouse experiment with our field data revealed that reduced sexual performance in northern M populations is principally due to genetic factors, but is also caused by ecological factors that covary with latitude. 6 This abrupt shift away from sexual reproduction in populations at the northern periphery of the geographical range in D . verticillatus may greatly limit their evolutionary potential and restrict further northward expansion.

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1365-2745.2001.00558.x

J. B. Copas

Papers

Applied Linear Statistical Models, 2nd Edition.