Acknowledgements for Data and Database Assistance
This research would not have been possible without the unpublished and typically unavailable data from a very large number of colleagues and organizations. In addition, the effort required to complete an endeavor of this magnitude usually requires assistance for many aspects of the research such as study curation, data coding, entering, checking, classifying, analysis and the like. Here we would like formally to acknowledge and extend our deepest thanks to everyone involved in these activities.
Providers of raw data kindly shared data that we subsequently analyzed before including in our meta-analyses. Individual researchers, grant-funded studies, consultants, and archives provided raw data, including:
Add Health (This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (addhealth@unc.edu). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.)
Anonymous biopharmaceutical company
Australian [Adelaide] Longitudinal Study of Aging (Australian [Adelaide] Longitudinal Study of Aging: South Australian Health Commission, Australian Rotary Health Research Fund, and United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health (AG-08523-02))
Laura Baker & Pan Wang (Southern California Twin Project: NIMH (R01 MH58354), NIMH (Independent Scientist Award K02 MH01114-08), & Institute of Governmental Affairs, University of California, Davis)
Paul T. Barrett
Alexandre Baudet & Thibaud Latour
British Cohort Study 1970 (British Cohort Study 1970: Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education and UK Data Archive and Economic and Social Data Service. We are grateful to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, Institute of Education for the use of these data and to the UK Data Archive and Economic and Social Data Service for making them available. However, they bear no responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of these data.)
Dana Broach (Data were provided by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute)
Dana Carney
David Condon & Bill Revelle (Synthetic Aperture Personality Assessment (SAPA))
Kelly Dages
Colin DeYoung
Stephan Dilchert
Herb Eber
Education Longitudinal Study (Education Longitudinal Study 2002: This research utilized publicly available and restricted-use data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of IES, the U.S. Department of Education, NIH, or NCES.)
Valerie Elsässer & Hans-Werner Wahl (Interdisciplinary Study on Adult Aging/Longitudinal Study of Adult Development: Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (BMFSFJ); AZ 301-1720-295/2)
English Longitudinal Study of Aging (English Longitudinal Study of Aging: The data were made available through the UK Data Archive. ELSA was developed by a team of researchers based at the NatCen Social Research, University College London, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The data were collected by NatCen Social Research. The funding is provided by the National Institute of Aging in the United States, and by a consortium of UK government departments coordinated by the Office for National Statistics. The developers and funders of ELSA and the Archive do not bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.)
Greg Feist
Lew Goldberg (Eugene Springfield Community Sample: Funds for this project were provided by a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service (Grant MH49227: Mapping personality trait structure))
Irv Gottesman
Jeremy Gray
Cathy Hall
Health and Lifestyle Survey (Cox, B. D., Blaxter, M., Buckle, A. L. J., Fenner, N. P., Golding, J. F., Gore, M., et al. (1987). The Health and Lifestyle Survey. London: Health Promotion Research Trust. Disclaimer: Although all efforts are made to ensure the quality of the materials, neither the original data creators, depositors or copyright holders, the funders of the Data Collections, nor the UK Data Archive bear any responsibility for the accuracy or comprehensiveness of these materials. All rights reserved. No part of these materials may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the UK Data Archive.)
Health and Retirement Study (HRS (Health and Retirement Study): sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (grant number NIA U01AG009740) and conducted by the University of Michigan.)
High School and Beyond (United States Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/hsb/)
Jason Huang
Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing: Trinity College Dublin. TILDA data have been co-funded by the Government of Ireland through the Office of the Minister for Health, by Atlantic Philanthropies, and by Irish Life, and have been collected under the Statistics Act, 1993, of the Central Statistics Office. The project has been designed and implemented by the TILDA Study Team. © Department of Health.)
Dan Ispas & Dragos Iliescu
Norbert Jaušovec
Wendy Johnson
Maciek Karwowski
Kelly Longitudinal Study (This research used the Kelly Longitudinal Study, 1935–1955 data set [made accessible in 1978, original paper records and electronic data files]. These data were collected by E. Lowell Kelly and are available through the archive of the Henry A. Murray Research Center of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts [Producer and Distributor].)
Roger Kievet
Michal Kosinski & David Stillwell (MyPersonality Project)
Filip Lievens & Britt De Soete
Long Beach Longitudinal Study (Long Beach Longitudinal Study: R01AG10569/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States)
Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 and 1936 (Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 and 1936: Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, Chief Scientist Office, Age UK, and Medical Research Council)
Matt McGue & Shandell Pahlen (University of Minnesota Twin Aging: University of Minnesota Twin Aging Study)
Gerhard Meisenberg
Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS (Mexican Health and Aging Study): partly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (grant number NIH R01AG018016). Data files and documentation are public use and available at www.MHASweb.org.)
Midlife in the United States (MIDUS I study (Midlife in the U.S.): supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development. The MIDUS II research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (P01-AG020166) to conduct a longitudinal follow-up of the MIDUS I investigation. Data used for this research were provided by the longitudinal study titled “Midlife in the United States,” (MIDUS), managed by the Institute on Aging, University of Wisconsin. This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (P01-AG020166).)
Minnesota Twin Study of Adult Development and Aging (National Institute on Aging Grant R01 AG06886)
Murray Archive
National Child Development Survey (Power, C., & Elliott, J. (2006). Cohort profile: 1958 British birth cohort (National Child Development Study). International Journal of Epidemiology, 35, 34−41. Any publication, whether printed, electronic or broadcast, based wholly or in part on these materials, should acknowledge the original data creators, depositors or copyright holders, the funders of the Data Collections (if different) and the UK Data Archive, and acknowledge Crown Copyright where appropriate. Copyright: Centre for Longitudinal Studies. Although all efforts are made to ensure the quality of the materials, neither the original data creators, depositors or copyright holders, the funders of the Data Collections, nor the UK Data Archive bear any responsibility for the accuracy or comprehensiveness of these materials. All rights reserved. No part of these materials may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the UK Data Archive.)
National Educational Longitudinal Study 1988 (United States Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/nels88/)
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. National Longitudinal Surveys. https://www.bls.gov/nls/nlsy97.htm)
National Survey for Health and Development (National Survey of Health and Development: Funded by the Medical Research Council)
Emily C. Nusbaum & Paul Silvia
Deniz S. Ones
Miranda Peeters
Jakob Pietschnig
Ricardo Primi
Project Talent (American Institutes for Research. Project Talent. https://www.air.org/project/project-talent)
Max Roberts
Chet Robie
Second Duke Adaptation Study (Duke University Data Archive for Aging and Adult Development was the data source. The Duke Adaptation Study was supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging, AG00364 (HD00668), to the Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. Busse, E. W., Siegler, I. C., George, L. K., Palmore, E., Maddox, G. L., & Nowlin, J. B. (2006). Second Duke Adaptation Study, 1968-1976. http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/00743 UNF:3:UEsAw9ofVLXOyHo+f6c3pA== Murray Research Archive [Distributor] V3 [Version])
Amitai Shenhav
Judy Silberg (Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development)
Claire Sira
Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE): This paper uses data from SHARE wave 4 release 1.1.1, as of March 28th 2013 or SHARE wave 1 and 2 release 2.6.0, as of November 29th 2013. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European Commission through the 5th Framework Programme (project QLK6-CT-2001-00360 in the thematic programme Quality of Life), through the 6th Framework Programme (projects SHARE-I3, RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE, CIT5-CT-2005-028857, and SHARELIFE, CIT4-CT-2006-028812) and through the 7th Framework Programme (SHARE-PREP, N° 211909, SHARE-LEAP, N° 227822 and SHARE M4, N° 261982). Additional funding from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG BSR06-11 and OGHA 04-064) and the German Ministry of Education and Research as well as from various national sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org for a full list of funding institutions).)
Kurtis Swope
Aaro Toomela
John Trent
United Kingdom Data Archive
Well Elderly 2 (Well Elderly 2: National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging and United States Department of Health and Human Services. National Institutes of Health. National Institute on Aging (R01 AG021108))
Jelte Wicherts
Kevin Williams
Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (This document contains materials from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since 1991, the WLS has been supported principally by the National Institute on Aging (AG-9775, AG-21079 and AG-033285), with additional support from the Vilas Estate Trust, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors.)
Matthias Ziegler
Providers of unpublished materials (other than raw data) generously shared unpublished studies and materials that expanded the meta-analytic database. These individuals supplied us with unpublished studies and otherwise inaccessible materials but did not provide raw data. We are grateful.
Mike Aamodt
Kim Barchard
Vic Catano
Megan Crowley
Christen Dovalina, Chris Berry, & Paul Sackett
Carmen Flores-Mendoza
Irv Gottesman
Jen Harvel
Eric Heggestad
Daniel Higgins
Jason Huang
Dan Ispas & Dragos Iliescu
Roza Jankovic, Elizabeth Teets, & Michael Knies
Reidar Källström
Sebastian Lange
Morrie Mullins
Türker Özkan
Maria Rotundo
Anjum Sibia
Jürgen Strohhecker
Robert Votruba
Eric Weis
Paul Wood
Ruopeng Wu
Providers of supplemental information or statistics contributed statistical or otherwise critical information that were not included in published materials. This made it possible to include additional studies in the database. We are grateful for their generosity and dedication to collaborative science.
Angel Aguilar Alonso
Julie Aitken Schermer
Anne-Grit Albrecht
Jüri Allik
Manfred Amelang & Ricarda Steinmayr
Alana Andrade
Hubert Annen
Anonymous pharmaceutical company
Michela Balsamo
Laura Barron
Paul Bartone
Philip Batterham, Helen Christensen, & Andrew Mackinnon
Alexandre Baudet & Thibaud Latour
Alex Beaujean & Michael Firmin
Michael Biderman & Nhung Nguyen
Tanja Bipp
Angel Blanch
Tim Bogg
Silvia Bonaccio
Jan Booij & Sarah M. Burke
Peter Borkenau
Adam Butler
Anne Campbell
Barbara Carretti
Ben Chapman
Gilad Chen
Wen Cheng
John Chibnall
Ole Christian Lang-Ree, Nina Margrethe Isaksen, & Tom Hilding Skoglund as well as the Norwegian military
Hannie Comijs
Katie Corker
Megan Crowley
Kobi Dayan & Shaul Fox
Ian Deary & Sarah Harris
Ana Delgado & Gerardo Prieto
Andreas Demetriou
Amelia Diaz
Stephan Dilchert
Nermin Djapo
Stefano Di Domenico
Christen Dovalina, Chris Berry, & Paul Sackett
Paul Duberstein
Jan Duchek
Angela Duckworth, Sarah Patrick, & Benjamin Plummer
Michael Dufner
Amy DuVernet
Jill Ellingson
Andrew Elliot
Juliana Gottschling (Cognitive Ability, Self-Reported Motivation, and School Achievement (CoSMoS) and Saarland Secondary School Study)
Eileen Graham
Anett Gyurak & Ozlem Ayduk
John Hattie
Guido Heineck
Laura Helle
Benjamin E. Hilbig
Scott M. Hofer
John Horwood (Christchurch Health and Development Study: Health Research Council of New Zealand, National Child Health Research Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, and New Zealand Lottery Grants Board)
Renate Houts & Terrie Moffitt (Dunedin Longitudinal Study: New Zealand Health Research Council and New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE). US National Institute on Aging (NIA) grants AG032282, AG048895, AG049789, UK MRC grant MR/K00381X, UK ESRC grant ES/M010309/1, Additional support was provided by the Jacobs Foundation and the Avielle Foundation.)
Ann Howard
Gizem Hülür
Yoon-Mi Hur (South Korean Twin Registry: South Korean data were collected by financial support of the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2011-371-B00047))
Dan Ispas & Dragos Iliescu
Ando Juko & team (Keio Twin Registry)
Jaakko Kaprio, Eero Vuoksimaa, & Antti Latvala (FinnTwin: supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grants AA–00145, AA–08315, AA–09203, and AA–12502; by the Academy of Finland; and by the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation)
Heidi Keiser
Rachael Klein
Donald H. Kluemper
Katja Kokko & Anna-Liisa Lyyra (Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development: Academy of Finland grants 127125 and 118316)
Jack Kostal
Kaia Laidra
Richard Landers
James Lee & Christopher Chabris
Rhys Lewis
Richard Lippa
Eleni Lobene
Jan-Erik Lönnqvist
David Lubinski
Michelle Luciano & Narelle Hansell & Margie Wright
Mary Ann Lumsden & Miles Bore
Erik Lykke Mortensen
Don Lynam
Karen Mackinnon
Greg Manley & Tom Carretta
Tom Marlow & Ingmar Skoog (Göteborg Studies of Aging)
Jack Mayer
Robert W. McCarley & Ronald Gurrera
Robert McCrae & John Loehlin (National Merit Twin Study and the Texas Adoption Study: Grant MH 24280 from the National Institute of Mental Health)
Matt McLarnon
Lonneke de Meijer
Thomas Meyer
Benjamin Morasco
René Mõttus
John Mueller
Craig Nagoshi (Hawaii Family Study of Cognition: National Science Foundation Grant GB-34720 and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD-06669)
Lori Nathanson & Marc Brackett
Jenae Neiderhiser & Paul Lichtenstein (Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden: Supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grant R01MH54601)
Aljoscha Neubauer & Emanuel Jauk
Aljoscha C. Neubauer, Emanuel Jauk, & Sylvia Opriessnig
Janneke Oostrom
Frederick L. Oswald & Neal Schmitt
Ayça Özen & H. Canan Sümer
Robert Plomin & Andy McMillan (Twins Early Development Study programme grant from the UK Medical Research Council (G0901245; and previously G0500079).)
Chuck Reeve
Frühling Rijsdijk & Harriëtte Riese (Twin Interdisciplinary Neuroticism Study: NWO, Medische Wetenschappen (0804/904-57-130))
Heiner Rindermann
Stuart Ritchie
Jonah Rockoff
Pia Rosander
Tim Salthouse
Naomi Samimi Sadeh
Katja Schlegel
Suzanne Segerstrom
Anjum Sibia
Luke Smillie
Markus Sommer
Alma Sörberg
Andrea Soubelet
George Spanoudis
Mike Stallings (Colorado Twin Sample: CRCW grant from the University of Colorado; National Institutes of Health grants HD19802, HD010333, HD18426, HD038526, MH43899, MH63207, MH001865, DA05131, and DA011015; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and Veterans Administration grant 1296.07.1629B)
Heidrun Stoeger
Kristian Tambs
Ian Tharp
Yonca Toker
Annette Towler, Daniel Stanhope, & Eric Surface
Irina Trofimova
Susan Trumbetta
Travis Tubre
Fredrik Ullén & Guy Madison
Beth Visser
Jeffrey R. Vittengl
Dina Vojinovic & Najaf Amin (Erasmus Rucphen Family Study: European Commission FP6 STRP grant number 018947 (LSHG-CT-2006-01947); funding also received from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/grant agreement HEALTH-F4-2007-201413 by the European Commission under the programme “Quality of Life and Management of the Living Resources” of 5th Framework Programme (no.~QLG2-CT-2002-01254). The ERF study was further supported by ENGAGE consortium and CMSB)
Jan Wacker
Gerd Waldhauser
David Watson
Aaron Weidman & Jessica Tracy
Alex Weiss, Catharine Gale, & G. David Batty
Brett Wells
Jelte Wicherts
Marc Zajenkowski
Providers of manuals and technical materials shared published and unpublished test manuals, technical reports, and other technical materials that contained either personality-ability correlations that were included in the database or information that provided details about measures in the meta-analytic database. We thank them for their contributions.
Amy Fernandes, Stela Ivanova, & Scott Mackintosh
Gareth Hagger-Johnson
Rainer Kurz
Damian O’Keefe
Maria Pollai
Markus Sommer
Auke Tellegen
Brenton M. Wiernik
Cheryl Zink
Providers of published materials assisted access to relevant, published materials that contributed to the meta-analytic database. We are thankful for their help.
Tanja Bipp
Tom Brothen
Jeff Cucina
Michael Cullen
Andreas Demetriou
Stephan Dilchert
Olivier Dionne & Tania Robinson
Jan Duchek
Madeline Ehrman
Andrea Gaye-Valentine
Eileen Graham
Annemarie Hiemstra & Eva Derous
Lian Hortensius Arwen Hunter
Jodie Illies
Kevin Impelman
Dan Ispas & Dragos Iliescu
Mavis Kung
John Palmatier
Jody Reiter-Palmon
Markus Sommer
Debra Steele-Johnson
Ekaterina Valueva
Parul Wasan
Ruopeng Wu
Library assistance was provided by several institutions that shared rare materials, scanned unloanable studies, and helped us maximize search methodologies. We are immensely grateful to the staff who relentlessly helped us retrieve these otherwise unreachable materials.
Melissa Ann Hubbard, David Bond, & Martha Jean Kallal
Sonia Barbarosa
Karen Fleet
Michelle Gait
Karen Lodge & Vicky Wallace
Linda Maddux & Gay Walker
Marie Paiva
Emily Veenstra-Ott
Alice Welch, Emily Riha, & Cherie Weston
Maura Williams-Freier
Scott Zimmer
Study translations were performed for dozens of non-English materials by the authors, research assistants, and generous volunteers. The authors and their research assistants (see separate section below for a listing) were proficient in multiple languages and were able to code directly from materials in Chinese, English, French, German, Korean, Spanish, and Turkish. We would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance with materials that were not in a language that could be coded directly or that contained portions that proved to be too complex for our team’s language expertise.
Paulina Birgiolaite
Stephan Dilchert
Neda Gould & Shahzad Kavoossi Farzad
Nataliya Harkins Balabanova
Lian Hortensius
Arsena Ianeva-Lockney
Mahdad Majd
Mariska Rebière
Tara Tetzlaff
Abhishek Wadhwa
Research assistants devoted thousands of tireless hours to searching for, obtaining, entering, and checking study information that contributed to the analyses. Without their conscientious work and countless hours of volunteer assistance, this project would not have been possible. Thank you!
Kelsey Aponas
Christine Cao
Usain Yat Lun Chan
Elizabeth Dippel
Steven Hunter Fritz
Anne Gale
Abraham Gibbons
Kayla Groehler
Ryan Hanna
Taryn Ibach
Qing Han Lau
Franky Chun Hei Li
Amanda Song Yu Low
Harry (Ting Fung) Luk
Atessa Majd
Chengxi Peng
Napoleon Petsoulis
Domingo Ramirez
Heather Roesslein
Yi Ying Sack
Sam Sevett
Ryan Shea
Bowei Song
Dylan Sorman
Paula Stanek
Glenn Trussell
Kevin Tully
James Updyke
Natalia Velenchenko
Ashley Wong
Classification contributions for identifying constructs measured by rare and unusual measures were provided by Auke Tellegen and Colin DeYoung (personality) as well as Kevin McGrew (cognitive ability). We thank them for their important contribution.
Meta-analysis scripts were written by Brenton Wiernik (for the beta version of the psychmeta package in R) and Jeffrey Dahlke (for the psychmeta R package). We appreciate their expert guidance and commitment to open science.
Publishing partners were Emma Molls and Amy Riegelman of the University of Minnesota Libraries Press, who guided us through the publication process and consideration of features, accessibility, and preservation. Thank you for your support.