No personality change following unemployment: A registered replication of Boyce, Wood, Daly, and Sedikides (2015)

• Published in: Journal of research in personality 2019-08, Vol.81, p.195-206
• Main Authors: Gnambs, Timo, Stiglbauer, Barbara
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Life events; Personality change; Replication; Unemployment
• ISSN: 0092-6566; 1095-7251
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2019.06.009

•We aimed to replicate previous findings on job loss and personality change.•Latent change analyses revealed significant general changes in the Big Five traits.•There was no evidence for an effect of unemployment on changes in personality.•Analyses accounting for potential selection effects led to comparable results.•The results reported by Boyce et al. (2015) could not be replicated. The involuntary loss of paid employment represents an adverse life event that has been suggested to lead to personality change. However, previous research has reported highly contradictory findings. Therefore, a replication of Boyce et al. (2015) is presented. These authors originally identified nonlinear changes in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Using data from the German National Education Panel Study (N = 5005), we examined the impact of unemployment on personality change across three years. Latent change analyses indicated no effect of job loss on any Big Five trait. Moderating effects of unemployment duration or gender were not found. Even analyses accounting for potential selection effects led to comparable results. Thus, personality seemed invariant despite changes in employment status.