PERSON-SITUATION TRANSACTIONS: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND SITUATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS WITH EMOTIONAL OUTCOMES

Abstract

There is an increasing need to understand how personality and situations are associated with each other. The current study is interested in how personality is linked to situation experiences and the ways of which person-situation transactions come to influence emotional outcomes. Using an experience sampling method, we examined the influence of personality traits from the HEXACO model on Situation Eight DIAMONDS characteristics, and how selected personality and situation factors influence anxiety, depression and anger in 107 participants. Results indicate that personality and situation experiences shared meaningful associations that are supported by theoretical concepts such as reciprocal altruism. In addition to showing that Situation Eight DIAMONDS taxonomy can predict emotional outcomes, our study also suggests that personality and situation characteristics importantly and independently influence emotional outcomes. Overall, findings from our study contribute to the field of person-situation transactions and situation research, encouraging future studies to look at different personality constructs or situation taxonomies to further the research on person-situation transactions.