A new day, a new me: Daily event domain and valence interact in relation to daily personality

Does daily personality relate to the daily positive and negative events people report? And do interpersonal (extraversion, agreeableness) and intrapersonal (conscientiousness) traits relate more closely to daily social and achievement events, respectively? In a diary study, 133 undergraduates provided measures of daily events and daily Big Five personality. A three-level model examined daily event items as functions of their valence (negative vs. positive), domain (social vs. achievement), and their interaction (level 1); and the extent to which daily personality moderated these effects (level 2) for the average person (level 3). It revealed 4 three-way interactions. For extraversion and agreeableness, valence × personality interactions emerged for social-but not achievement-events. For neuroticism, valence × personality interactions emerged for both domains, but social was stronger. For conscientiousness, a valence × personality interaction emerged for achievement-but not social-events. We discuss whether daily personality shapes daily event experiences or vice versa.