Aligning measurement of psychological traits and economic preferences

Active Project Grant Awarded Last action

Award ID
R01HD107079
Recipient
Awarding agency
Obligated
$4,088,662

Award facts

Completion date 65% complete
Place of performance
Illinois, USA

Award details come from USAspending.gov.

Description

Abstract
We propose a collaborative research project in psychology, child development, and behavioral economics investigating the comparability and predictive power of measures of human potential that are regularly used in these fields. Using data collected on common measures of personality traits, executive function (EF) skills, and economic preferences across multiple countries, we will apply rigorous statistical methodology to investigate the relationships among these attributes beginning in pre-adolescence and assess which dimensions best predict health, wellbeing, educational outcomes, wages, and workforce decisions. We will also examine the stability and malleability of child and adolescent traits, skills, and preferences across environments with different contexts and incentive structures. (1) we examine the commonality of traits, and (2) their uniqueness, and (3) the evolution of unique and common traits. We will examine additional measures beyond the traditional ones (for example guanxi, a trait capturing sociability that is widely used in china) to examine their relationship with the standard measures, and whether they have additional predictive power. Personality traits, EF skills, and economic preferences in childhood and adolescence are important predictors of adult outcomes, including physical and mental health, educational attainment, and employment. Measures of these attributes, such as perseverance and time preference, are increasingly used to evaluate the impacts of childhood interventions, monitor progress in school, forecast health outcomes, and study economic and social inequality. However, little is known about how traits, skills, and preferences evolve and CO-evolve across childhood and adolescence. This grant will support collaborative efforts to measure child and adolescent personality traits, EF skills, and economic preferences drawing on expertise from the center for the economics of human development (university of chicago), the educational testing service, the briq institute on behavior & inequality (university of bonn), the institute of child development (university of minnesota), and the institute for economic and social research (jinan university). Using existing data combined with new data collection, we will explore the relationships across elicited trait, skill, and preference measures to determine the extent to which different measurement schemes capture common or distinct aspects of human differences, and if these relationships vary across cultures, gender, ethnicity, and race. Our analysis will standardize across the measures to account for factors that influence responses, leading to increased comparability. We will use our elicited measures and the latent factors underlying them to predict performance in school (e.g., absenteeism, grades, promotion, behavioral problems, graduation), health (e.g., physical, emotional, social), and wages, employment, and occupation. We will examine the stability and evolution of the elicited measures, the malleability of traits, skills, and preferences, the factors that predict these measures (including institutional and family background and parental influences on their children), and the correlates of stability and change throughout childhood and adolescence.

Transactions

Action Obligated Date
Amendment Developing predictors of health outcomes in childhood and adolescence - we propose a collaborative research project across psychology, neuroscience, and… $543,961
Amendment $0
Amendment $555,257
Amendment $0
Amendment $562,775
Amendment $562,775
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $0
Amendment $621,298
Amendment $621,298
Original award $621,298
Show all 16

Subawards

Subrecipient Amount Awarded
Subrecipient not on record The subcontract at the University of Minnesota will be led by Dr. Stephanie Carlson, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Child Development. Dr.… $632,687
Educational Testing Service Dr. Patrick Kyllonen (PI) will lead the subaward with ETS. Dr. Kyllonen is the Distinguished Presidential Appointee in the Research and Measurement Sciences… $105,722
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet Bonn Dr. Dohmen will contribute to the development of measures of preferences and personality, to the design of survey questionnaires and choice experiments. He will… $117,420

Quick answers

Who received award R01HD107079?

R01HD107079 was awarded to The University Of Chicago by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (National Institutes of Health) on September 25, 2023.

How much is award R01HD107079 worth?

$4,088,662 has been obligated on R01HD107079.

On GovTribe

See this award's full record

  • Every transaction and subaward
  • The recipient's other awards and teaming partners
  • Similar grant awards
  • Ask GovTribe AI about this award