Showing papers in "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2007"

Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals

Abstract: The importance of intellectual talent to achievement in all professional domains is well established, but less is known about other individual differences that predict success. The authors tested the importance of 1 noncognitive trait: grit. Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes, including educational attainment among 2 samples of adults (N=1,545 and N=690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N=138), retention in 2 classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (N=1,218 and N=1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N=175). Grit did not relate positively to IQ but was highly correlated with Big Five Conscientiousness. Grit nonetheless demonstrated incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness. Collectively, these findings suggest that the achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent but also the sustained and focused application of talent over time.

A question of belonging: race, social fit, and achievement.

Abstract: Stigmatization can give rise to belonging uncertainty. In this state, people are sensitive to information diagnostic of the quality of their social connections. Two experiments tested how belonging uncertainty undermines the motivation and achievement of people whose group is negatively characterized in academic settings. In Experiment 1, students were led to believe that they might have few friends in an intellectual domain. Whereas White students were unaffected, Black students (stigmatized in academics) displayed a drop in their sense of belonging and potential. In Experiment 2, an intervention that mitigated doubts about social belonging in college raised the academic achievement (e.g., college grades) of Black students but not of White students. Implications for theories of achievement motivation and intervention are discussed.

The BIAS map: behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes.

Abstract: In the present research, consisting of 2 correlational studies (N = 616) including a representative U.S. sample and 2 experiments (N = 350), the authors investigated how stereotypes and emotions shape behavioral tendencies toward groups, offering convergent support for the behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes (BIAS) map framework. Warmth stereotypes determine active behavioral tendencies, attenuating active harm (harassing) and eliciting active facilitation (helping). Competence stereotypes determine passive behavioral tendencies, attenuating passive harm (neglecting) and eliciting passive facilitation (associating). Admired groups (warm, competent) elicit both facilitation tendencies; hated groups (cold, incompetent) elicit both harm tendencies. Envied groups (competent, cold) elicit passive facilitation but active harm; pitied groups (warm, incompetent) elicit active facilitation but passive harm. Emotions predict behavioral tendencies more strongly than stereotypes do and usually mediate stereotype-to-behavioral-tendency links.

Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly.

Abstract: Five studies investigated the cognitive and emotional processes by which self-compassionate people deal with unpleasant life events. In the various studies, participants reported on negative events in their daily lives, responded to hypothetical scenarios, reacted to interpersonal feedback, rated their or others’ videotaped performances in an awkward situation, and reflected on negative personal experiences. Results from Study 1 showed that self-compassion predicted emotional and cognitive reactions to negative events in everyday life, and Study 2 found that self-compassion buffered people against negative self-feelings when imagining distressing social events. In Study 3, self-compassion moderated negative emotions after receiving ambivalent feedback, particularly for participants who were low in self-esteem. Study 4 found that low-self-compassionate people undervalued their videotaped performances relative to observers. Study 5 experimentally induced a self-compassionate perspective and found that selfcompassion leads people to acknowledge their role in negative events without feeling overwhelmed with negative emotions. In general, these studies suggest that self-compassion attenuates people’s reactions to negative events in ways that are distinct from and, in some cases, more beneficial than self-esteem.

Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five.

Abstract: Factor analyses of 75 facet scales from 2 major Big Five inventories, in the Eugene-Springfield community sample (N=481), produced a 2-factor solution for the 15 facets in each domain. These findings indicate the existence of 2 distinct (but correlated) aspects within each of the Big Five, representing an intermediate level of personality structure between facets and domains. The authors characterized these factors in detail at the item level by correlating factor scores with the International Personality Item Pool (L. R. Goldberg, 1999). These correlations allowed the construction of a 100-item measure of the 10 factors (the Big Five Aspect Scales [BFAS]), which was validated in a 2nd sample (N=480). Finally, the authors examined the correlations of the 10 factors with scores derived from 10 genetic factors that a previous study identified underlying the shared variance among the Revised NEO Personality Inventory facets (K. L. Jang et al., 2002). The correspondence was strong enough to suggest that the 10 aspects of the Big Five may have distinct biological substrates.

Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: willpower is more than a metaphor.

Abstract: The present work suggests that self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source. Laboratory tests of self-control (i.e., the Stroop task, thought suppression, emotion regulation, attention control) and of social behaviors (i.e., helping behavior, coping with thoughts of death, stifling prejudice during an interracial interaction) showed that (a) acts of self-control reduced blood glucose levels, (b) low levels of blood glucose after an initial self-control task predicted poor performance on a subsequent self-control task, and (c) initial acts of self-control impaired performance on subsequent self-control tasks, but consuming a glucose drink eliminated these impairments. Self-control requires a certain amount of glucose to operate unimpaired. A single act of self-control causes glucose to drop below optimal levels, thereby impairing subsequent attempts at self-control.

Relations between personality and coping: a meta-analysis.

Abstract: Personality may directly facilitate or constrain coping, but relations of personality to coping have been inconsistent across studies, suggesting a need for greater attention to methods and samples. This meta-analysis tested moderators of relations between Big Five personality traits and coping using 2,653 effect sizes drawn from 165 samples and 33,094 participants. Personality was weakly related to broad coping (e.g., Engagement or Disengagement), but all 5 traits predicted specific strategies. Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted more problem-solving and cognitive restructuring, Neuroticism less. Neuroticism predicted problematic strategies like wishful thinking, withdrawal, and emotion-focused coping but, like Extraversion, also predicted support seeking. Personality more strongly predicted coping in young samples, stressed samples, and samples reporting dispositional rather than situation-specific coping. Daily versus retrospective coping reports and self-selected versus researcher-selected stressors also moderated relations between personality and coping. Cross-cultural differences were present, and ethnically diverse samples showed more protective effects of personality. Richer understanding of the role of personality in the coping process requires assessment of personality facets and specific coping strategies, use of laboratory and daily report studies, and multivariate analyses.

Social exclusion decreases prosocial behavior.

Abstract: In 7 experiments, the authors manipulated social exclusion by telling people that they would end up alone later in life or that other participants had rejected them. Social exclusion caused a substantial reduction in prosocial behavior. Socially excluded people donated less money to a student fund, were unwilling to volunteer for further lab experiments, were less helpful after a mishap, and cooperated less in a mixed-motive game with another student. The results did not vary by cost to the self or by recipient of the help, and results remained significant when the experimenter was unaware of condition. The effect was mediated by feelings of empathy for another person but was not mediated by mood, state self-esteem, belongingness, trust, control, or self-awareness. The implication is that rejection temporarily interferes with emotional responses, thereby impairing the capacity for empathic understanding of others, and as a result, any inclination to help or cooperate with them is undermined.

Does social exclusion motivate interpersonal reconnection? Resolving the "porcupine problem."

Abstract: Evidence from 6 experiments supports the social reconnection hypothesis, which posits that the experience of social exclusion increases the motivation to forge social bonds with new sources of potential affiliation. Threat of social exclusion led participants to express greater interest in making new friends, to increase their desire to work with others, to form more positive impressions of novel social targets, and to assign greater rewards to new interaction partners. Findings also suggest potential boundary conditions to the social reconnection hypothesis. Excluded individuals did not seem to seek reconnection with the specific perpetrators of exclusion or with novel partners with whom no face-to-face interaction was anticipated. Furthermore, fear of negative evaluation moderated responses to exclusion such that participants low in fear of negative evaluation responded to new interaction partners in an affiliative fashion, whereas participants high in fear of negative evaluation did not.

Agency and communion from the perspective of self versus others.

Abstract: On the basis of previous research, the authors hypothesize that (a) person descriptive terms can be organized into the broad dimensions of agency and communion of which communion is the primary one; (b) the main distinction between these dimensions pertains to their profitability for the self (agency) vs. for other persons (communion); hence, agency is more desirable and important in the self-perspective, and communion is more desirable and important in the other-perspective; (c) self–other outcome dependency increases importance of another person’s agency. Study 1 showed that a large number of trait names can be reduced to these broad dimensions, that communion comprises more item variance, and that agency is predicted by self-profitability and communion by other-profitability. Studies 2 and 3 showed that agency is more relevant and desired for self, and communion is more relevant and desired for others. Study 4 showed that agency is more important in a close friend than an unrelated peer, and this difference is completely mediated by the perceived outcome dependency.

Personality predictors of academic outcomes: big five correlates of GPA and SAT scores.

Abstract: The authors examined relations between the Big Five personality traits and academic outcomes, specifically SAT scores and grade-point average (GPA). Openness was the strongest predictor of SAT verbal scores, and Conscientiousness was the strongest predictor of both high school and college GPA. These relations replicated across 4 independent samples and across 4 different personality inventories. Further analyses showed that Conscientiousness predicted college GPA, even after controlling for high school GPA and SAT scores, and that the relation between Conscientiousness and college GPA was mediated, both concurrently and longitudinally, by increased academic effort and higher levels of perceived academic ability. The relation between Openness and SAT verbal scores was independent of academic achievement and was mediated, both concurrently and longitudinally, by perceived verbal intelligence. Together, these findings show that personality traits have independent and incremental effects on academic outcomes, even after controlling for traditional predictors of those outcomes.

Individual differences in adult decision-making competence.

Abstract: The authors evaluated the reliability and validity of a set of 7 behavioral decision-making tasks, measuring different aspects of the decision-making process The tasks were administered to individuals from diverse populations Participants showed relatively consistent performance within and across the 7 tasks, which were then aggregated into an Adult Decision-Making Competence (A-DMC) index that showed good reliability The validity of the 7 tasks and of overall A-DMC emerges in significant relationships with measures of socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, and decision-making styles Participants who performed better on the A-DMC were less likely to report negative life events indicative of poor decision making, as measured by the Decision Outcomes Inventory Significant predictive validity remains when controlling for demographic measures, measures of cognitive ability, and constructive decision-making styles Thus, A-DMC appears to be a distinct construct relevant to adults' real-world decisions

The psychological structure of pride: a tale of two facets.

Abstract: To provide support for the theoretical distinction between 2 facets of pride, authentic and hubristic (J. L. Tracy & R. W. Robins, 2004a), the authors conducted 7 studies. Studies 1-4 demonstrate that the 2 facets (a) emerge in analyses of the semantic meaning of pride-related words, the dispositional tendency to experience pride, and reports of actual pride experiences; (b) have divergent personality correlates and distinct antecedent causal attributions; and (c) do not simply reflect positively and negatively valenced, high- and low-activation, or state versus trait forms of pride. In Studies 5-7, the authors develop and demonstrate the reliability and validity of brief, 7-item scales that can be used to assess the facets of pride in future research.

Group virtue: The importance of morality (vs. competence and sociability) in the positive evaluation of in-groups.

Abstract: Although previous research has focused on competence and sociability as the characteristics most important to positive group evaluation, the authors suggest that morality is more important. Studies with preexisting and experimentally created in-groups showed that a set of positive traits constituted distinct factors of morality, competence, and sociability. When asked directly, Study 1 participants reported that their in-group's morality was more important than its competence or sociability. An unobtrusive factor analytic method also showed morality to be a more important explanation of positive in-group evaluation than competence or sociability. Experimental manipulations of morality and competence (Study 4) and morality and sociability (Study 5) showed that only in-group morality affected aspects of the group-level self-concept related to positive evaluation (i.e., pride in, or distancing from, the in-group). Consistent with this finding, identification with experimentally created (Study 2b) and preexisting (Studies 4 and 5) in-groups predicted the ascription of morality, but not competence or sociability, to the in-group.

Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: experimental evidence

Abstract: Previous fieldwork has suggested that visible social support can entail an emotional cost and that a supportive act is most effective when it is accomplished either (a) outside of recipients' awareness or (b) within their awareness but with sufficient subtlety that they do not interpret it as support. To investigate the latter phenomenon, the authors conducted 3 experiments in which female participants were led to expect a stressful speech task and a confederate peer provided support in such a way that it was either visible or invisible (N=257). Invisible support (practical and emotional) reduced emotional reactivity relative to visible and no support. Visible support was either ineffective or it exacerbated reactivity. Explanatory analyses indicated that support was effective when it avoided communicating a sense of inefficacy to recipients.

Agreeableness, empathy, and helping: a person x situation perspective.

Abstract: This research program explored links among prosocial motives, empathy, and helping behavior. Preliminary work found significant relations among components of self-reported empathy and personality (N = 223). In Study 1, the authors examined the generality of prosocial behavior across situations and group memberships of victims (N = 622). In Study 2, empathic focus and the victim's outgroup status were experimentally manipulated (N = 87). Study 3 (N = 245) replicated and extended Study 2 by collecting measures of prosocial emotions before helping. In Study 4 (N = 244), empathic focus and cost of helping as predictors of helping behavior were experimentally manipulated. Overall, prosocial motivation is linked to (a) Agreeableness as a dimension of personality, (b) proximal prosocial cognition and motives, and (c) helping behavior across a range of situations and victims. In persons low in prosocial motivation, when costs of helping are high, efforts to induce empathy situationally can undermine prosocial behavior.

Across the thin blue line: police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot.

Abstract: Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed. Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy. Moreover, although community respondents set the decision criterion lower for Black targets than for White targets (indicating bias), police officers did not. The authors suggest that training may not affect the speed with which stereotype-incongruent targets are processed but that it does affect the ultimate decision (particularly the placement of the decision criterion). Findings from a study in which a college sample received training support this conclusion.

The role of need fulfillment in relationship functioning and well-being: a self-determination theory perspective.

Abstract: Self-determination theory posits 3 basic psychological needs: autonomy (feeling uncoerced in one's actions), competence (feeling capable), and relatedness (feeling connected to others). Optimal well-being results when these needs are satisfied, though this research has traditionally focused on individual well-being outcomes (e.g., E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 2000). Three studies examined the role of need fulfillment in relationship functioning and well-being. Study 1 found that fulfillment of each need individually predicted both individual and relationship well-being, with relatedness being the strongest unique predictor of relationship outcomes. Study 2 found that both partners' need fulfillment uniquely predicted one's own relationship functioning and well-being. Finally, in Study 3, the authors used a diary recording procedure and tested a model in which the association between need fulfillment and relationship quality was mediated by relationship motivation. Those who experienced greater need fulfillment enjoyed better postdisagreement relationship quality primarily because of their tendency to have more intrinsic or autonomous reasons for being in their relationship.

Reducing explicit and implicit outgroup prejudice via direct and extended contact: The mediating role of self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety.

Abstract: In 4 studies, the authors investigated mediators of the effect of cross-group friendship. In Study 1, cross-group friendship among White elementary school children predicted more positive explicit outgroup attitude toward South Asians, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety. In Study 2, cross-group friendship and extended contact among White and South Asian high school students positively predicted explicit outgroup attitude, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety. Study 3 replicated these findings in a larger independent sample. In all 3 studies, exposure to the outgroup positively predicted implicit outgroup attitude. Study 4 further showed that self-disclosure improved explicit outgroup attitude via empathy, importance of contact, and intergroup trust. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, which argue for the inclusion of self-disclosure as a key component of social interventions to reduce prejudice.

Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption: When romantic motives elicit strategic costly signals.

Abstract: Conspicuous displays of consumption and benevolence might serve as “costly signals” of desirable mate qualities. If so, they should vary strategically with manipulations of mating-related motives. The authors examined this possibility in 4 experiments. Inducing mating goals in men increased their willingness to spend on conspicuous luxuries but not on basic necessities. In women, mating goals boosted public—but not private—helping. Although mating motivation did not generally inspire helping in men, it did induce more helpfulness in contexts in which they could display heroism or dominance. Conversely, although mating motivation did not lead women to conspicuously consume, it did lead women to spend more publicly on helpful causes. Overall, romantic motives seem to produce highly strategic and sex-specific self-presentations best understood within a costly signaling framework.

Beat them or ban them: the characteristics and social functions of anger and contempt.

Abstract: This article reports 3 studies in which the authors examined (a) the distinctive characteristics of anger and contempt responses and (b) the interpersonal causes and effects of both emotions. In the 1st study, the authors examined the distinction between the 2 emotions; in the 2nd study, the authors tested whether contempt could be predicted from previous anger incidents with the same person; and in the 3rd study, the authors examined the effects of type of relationship on anger and contempt reactions. The results of the 3 studies show that anger and contempt often occur together but that there are clear distinctions between the 2 emotions: Anger is characterized more by short-term attack responses but long-term reconciliation, whereas contempt is characterized by rejection and social exclusion of the other person, both in the short-term and in the long-term. The authors also found that contempt may develop out of previously experienced anger and that a lack of intimacy with and perceived control over the behavior of the other person, as well as negative dispositional attributions about the other person, predicted the emergence of contempt.

Can emotions be truly group level? Evidence regarding four conceptual criteria.

Abstract: Recent advances in understanding prejudice and intergroup behavior have made clear that emotions help explain people’s reactions to social groups and their members. Intergroup emotions theory (D. M. Mackie, T. Devos, & E. R. Smith, 2000; E. R. Smith, 1993) holds that intergroup emotions are experienced by individuals when they identify with a social group, making the group part of the psychological self. What differentiates such group-level emotions from emotions that occur purely at the individual level? The authors argue that 4 key criteria define group-level emotions: Group emotions are distinct from the same person’s individual-level emotions, depend on the person’s degree of group identification, are socially shared within a group, and contribute to regulating intragroup and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Evidence from 2 studies supports all 4 of these predictions and thus points to the meaningfulness, coherence, and functionality of group-level emotions.

The Adult Attachment Interview and Self-Reports of Attachment Style: An Empirical Rapprochement

Abstract: Although 10 studies have been published on the empirical overlap of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and measures of self-reported attachment style, results in this literature have been inconsistently interpreted in narrative reviews. This report was designed as a rapprochement of the AAI and attachment style literatures and includes 3 studies. Study 1 (combined N = 961) is a meta-analytic review showing that by J. Cohen's (1992) criteria (mean r = .09), the association between AAI security and attachment style dimensions is trivial to small. Study 2 (N = 160) confirms meta-analytic results with state-of-the-art assessments of attachment security and also examines attachment dimensions in relation to the Big 5 personality traits. Finally, Study 3 is an investigation of 50 engaged couples that shows that developmental and social psychological measures of attachment security predict somewhat distinct--though theoretically anticipated--aspects of functioning in adult relationships.

An additional antecedent of empathic concern: valuing the welfare of the person in need.

Abstract: Two experiments examined the role of valuing the welfare of a person in need as an antecedent of empathic concern. Specifically, these experiments explored the relation of such valuing to a well-known antecedent--perspective taking. In Experiment 1, both perspective taking and valuing were manipulated, and each independently increased empathic concern, which, in turn, increased helping behavior. In Experiment 2, only valuing was manipulated. Manipulated valuing increased measured perspective taking and, in part as a result, increased empathic concern, which, in turn, increased helping. Valuing appears to be an important, largely overlooked, situational antecedent of feeling empathy for a person in need.

Implicit theories of emotion: affective and social outcomes across a major life transition.

Abstract: The authors demonstrate that people differ systematically in their implicit theories of emotion: Some view emotions as fixed (entity theorists), whereas others view emotions as more malleable (incremental theorists). Using a longitudinal and multimethod design, the authors show that implicit theories of emotion, as distinct from intelligence, are linked to both emotional and social adjustment during the transition to college. Before entering college, individuals who held entity (vs. incremental) theories of emotion had lower emotion regulation self-efficacy and made less use of cognitive reappraisal (Part 1). Throughout their first academic term, entity theorists of emotion had less favorable emotion experiences and received decreasing social support from their new friends, as evidenced by weekly diaries (Part 2). By the end of freshman year, entity theorists of emotion had lower well-being, greater depressive symptoms, and lower social adjustment as indicated in both self- and peer-reports (Part 3). The emotional, but not the social, outcomes were partially mediated by individual differences in emotion regulation self-efficacy (Part 4). Together, these studies demonstrate that implicit theories of emotion can have important long-term implications for socioemotional functioning.

Choice as an act of meaning: The case of social class.

Abstract: Social class is one important source of models of agency--normative guidelines for how to be a "good" person. Using choice as a prototypically agentic action, 5 studies test the hypotheses that models of agency prevalent in working-class (WK) contexts reflect a normative preference for similarity to others, whereas models prevalent in middle-class (MD) contexts reflect a preference for difference from others. Focusing on participants' choices, Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants from WK relative to MD contexts more often chose pens that appeared similar to, rather than different from, other pens in the choice set, and more often chose the same images as another participant. Examining participants' responses to others' choices, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that participants from WK relative to MD contexts liked their chosen pens more when a confederate chose similarly and responded more positively when a friend chose the same car in a hypothetical scenario. Finally, Study 5 found that car advertisements targeting WK rather than MD consumers more often emphasized connection to, rather than differentiation from, others, suggesting that models of agency are reflected in pervasive cultural products.

Attachment and the experience and expression of emotions in romantic relationships: a developmental perspective.

Abstract: In this longitudinal study, the authors tested a developmental hypothesis derived from attachment theory and recent empirical findings. Target participants were 78 individuals who have been studied intensively from infancy into their mid-20s. When targets were 20 –23 years old, the authors tested the way in which interpersonal experiences at 3 pivotal points in each target’s earlier social development—infancy/early childhood, early elementary school, and adolescence—predicted the pattern of positive versus negative emotions experienced with his or her romantic partner. A double-mediation model revealed that targets classified as securely attached at 12 months old were rated as more socially competent during early elementary school by their teachers. Targets’ social competence, in turn, forecasted their having more secure relationships with close friends at age 16, which in turn predicted more positive daily emotional experiences in their adult romantic relationships (both self- and partner-reported) and less negative affect in conflict resolution and collaborative tasks with their romantic partners (rated by observers). These results are discussed in terms of attachment theory and how antecedent life experiences may indirectly shape events in current relationships.

Dynamics of multiple-goal pursuit.

Abstract: The authors propose and test a model of multiple-goal pursuit that specifies how individuals allocate effort among multiple goals over time. The model predicts that whether individuals decide to step up effort, coast, abandon the current goal, or switch to pursue another goal is determined jointly by the emotions that flow from prior goal progress and the proximity to future goal attainment, and proximally determined by changes in expectancies about goal attainment. Results from a longitudinal diary study and 2 experiments show that positive and negative goal-related emotions can have diametrically opposing effects on goal-directed behavior, depending on the individual's proximity to goal attainment. The findings resolve contrasting predictions about the influence of positive and negative emotions in volitional behavior, critically amend the goal gradient hypothesis, and provide new insights into the dynamics and determinants of multiple-goal pursuit.

Identity-based motivation and health.

Abstract: People do not always take action to promote health, engaging instead in unhealthy habits and reporting fatalism about health. One important mechanism underlying these patterns involves identity-based motivation (D. Oyserman, 2007), the process by which content of social identities influences beliefs about in-group goals and strategies. Seven studies show the effect of identity-based motivation on health. Racial-ethnic minority participants view health promotion behaviors as White middle class and unhealthy behaviors as in-group defining (Studies 1 and 2). Priming race-ethnicity (and low socioeconomic status) increases health fatalism and reduces access to health knowledge (Studies 3 and 4). Perceived efficacy of health-promoting activities is undermined when racial-ethnic minority participants who identify unhealthy behavior as in-group defining are asked to consider their similarities to (middle-class) Whites (Studies 5-7).

Long-term disability is associated with lasting changes in subjective well-being: evidence from two nationally representative longitudinal studies.

Abstract: Hedonic adaptation refers to the process by which individuals return to baseline levels of happiness following a change in life circumstances. Two nationally representative panel studies (Study 1: N = 39,987; Study 2: N = 27,406) were used to investigate the extent of adaptation that occurs following the onset of a long-term disability. In Study 1, 679 participants who acquired a disability were followed for an average of 7.18 years before and 7.39 years after onset of the disability. In Study 2, 272 participants were followed for an average of 3.48 years before and 5.31 years after onset. Disability was associated with moderate to large drops in happiness (effect sizes ranged from 0.40 to 1.27 standard deviations), followed by little adaptation over time.