State conscientiousness and perceptions of duties and intellectual demands in daily life : a continuous-time modeling approach

Zager Kocjan, Gaja (author), Avsec, Andreja (author), Buško, Vesna (author), Sočan, Gregor (author)

In this study, we employed continuous-time dynamic modeling to investigate the evolving interplay between students' state conscientiousness and their perceptions of situation characteristics related to duties and intellectual demands. A week-long experience sampling study (ESM) was conducted using a mobile application, yielding 4694 reports from 185 undergraduate students (87.6 % female, mean age 20.2 years) responding to prompts five times daily. Results indicated that higher perceived levels of duty and intellectual demands were concurrently associated with higher state conscientiousness. Increases in state conscientiousness predicted subsequent reductions from the initial increase in perceived duties, possibly reflecting a sense of self-efficacy after acting conscientiously that lowered the perceived burden of subsequent duties. On the other hand, increases in perceived levels of duty and intellectual demands predicted subsequent reductions from the initially elevated state conscientiousness. Increased duty and intellectual demands may temporarily strain self-regulatory resources needed to meet momentary demands, making it difficult to engage in highly conscientious behavior on a sustained basis. The negative cross-effects underscore the importance of appropriate resource management for students, particularly in situations where they are expected to pursue multiple goals and tasks or engage in intellectually demanding activities.

• Language: English
• Keywords: state conscientiousness, psychological characteristics of situations, university students, experience sampling method, continuous-time dynamic modeling, conscientiousness, personality, students
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 7 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 236, art. 113030
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-166455
• UDC: 159.923-057.875
• ISSN on article: 1873-3549
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2024.113030
• COBISS.SI-ID: 222083587
• Publication date in RUL: 13.01.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Personality and individual differences
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1873-3549
• COBISS.SI-ID: 16024072

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: vestnost, osebnost, modeliranje v zveznem času, študenti, metoda vzorčenja izkušenj

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0110
• Name: Psihološki in nevroznanstveni vidiki kognicije

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0062
• Name: Uporabna razvojna psihologija