TAI



Interests

Interests are an important source of individual differences in terms of day-to-day activities. They are arguably a function of both Temperament and Ability in the sense that what we want to do is partly driven by how we typically behave (Temperament) and what we are capable of doing (Ability). Interests would fall squarely among the "characteristic adaptations" (described here) as few people would argue that they are innate.


Research on the structure of interests has been an important contribution from the field of vocational psychology, though the majority of this work has focused on the occupational correlates of vocational interests rather than the broader range of avocational interests (think hobbies and pastimes). An important goal for the SAPA Project is to determine whether interests ought to be considered a separate domain of personality. The argument against this idea is obvious -- as we already mentioned, many feel that Interests are (at least partly) driven by Temperament and Ability. The argument in favor of separating Interests is based on the idea that they provide a window into other innate features of personality that are outside of Temperament and Ability. These would presumably include topics that have proven elusive to measure, such as motivation, values and character. We aren't currently giving feedback on Interests on the SAPA Project because the data are still coming in. At some point in the future, this will likely change as we get a more clear understanding of the relationship between Interests and other individual differences.


Interests Frameworks

The universe of interests is remarkably diverse and the task of organizing them poses some unique challenges. One of these stems from the fact that any given individual's interests typically reflect that person's cultural and demographic background (including their socioeconomic status) as well as their Temperament and Abilities. Indeed many interests are culture- or demography-specific. Stereotypical examples would include playing the Didgeridoo or jai alai or the observation of specific religious traditions.


[Everything below here is leftovers.]

The most well-known framework was first proposed by John Holland, though... [More here including origins/older history, etc.]

A somewhat more intuitive framework distinguishes between avocational and vocational interests. Avocational interests are more often thought of as hobbies or past-times. These interests are "expressed" in terms of how individuals spend their free time. Vocational interests are more specifically related to occupational pursuits. Vocational and avocational interests are often measured quite differently, as can be seen by comparing open-source scales for each (e.g., the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales ("ORVIS") [LINK] and the Oregon Avocational Interest Scales ("ORAIS")[LINK]). The ORVIS contains 8 scales with a total of 92 items that ask participants to rate their preferences and behaviors (e.g., "Like to repair cars or trucks"). Response choices would reflect a Likert-type scale [LINK]. By contrast, the ORAIS is made up of 200 items representing 33 groups of activities where participants report the frequency of engaging in certain behaviors (e.g., "gardening"). The response choices for these items would contain options ranging from "Never in my life" to "More than 10 times in the past year".

While vocational interests are measured relatively frequently in the course of interest assessment for career counseling purposes, they are not typically included in research assessments of personality. Avocational measures are almost never included. Despite this, preliminary evidence suggests that scores on self-reported avocational interest measures provide significant incremental predictive validity on peer-report ratings of Big-Five personality traits, even after controlling for demographic factors and self-reported Big-Five scores.

Participants in the SAPA Project survey have the opportunity to contribute to the study of avocational interests by clicking on an additional link that is included at the top of their customized report. No additional feedback is given on these avocational interest items currently but we hope to add them to the primary report as soon as we have sufficient data to generate norms.



This page last modified on May 24th, 2013.