A growing body of research supports the notion that cognitive abilities and personality are systematically related. However, this research has focused largely on global personality dimensions and single—often equally global—markers of cognitive ability. The present study offers a more fine-grained perspective. Specifically, it is one of the first studies to comprehensively investigate the associations between both fluid and crystallized intelligence with Big Five personality domains as well as their facets. Based on a heterogeneous sample of the adult population in Germany (N = 365), our study yielded three key findings. First, personality was more strongly related to crystallized intelligence than to fluid intelligence. This applied both to the total variance explained and to the effect sizes of most of the Big Five domains and facets. Second, facets explained a larger share of variance in both crystallized and fluid intelligence than did domains. Third, the associations of different facets of the same domain with cognitive ability differed, often quite markedly. These differential associations may substantially reduce—or even suppress—the domain-level associations. Our findings clearly attest to the added value of a facet-level perspective on the personality–cognitive ability interface. We discuss how such a fine-grained perspective can further theoretical understanding and enhance prediction.

Practice engagement theory (PET) posits that individuals’ literacy proficiencies develop as a by-product of their engagement in everyday reading and writing practices and, reciprocally, that literacy proficiencies affect levels of engagement in reading and writing practices. This suggests that literacy training which increases engagement in meaningful practices might generate proficiency growth. Research has shown that this approach does indeed seem to be effective in improving (adult) learners’ literacy proficiency. A number of cross-sectional comparisons of participants’ and non-participants’ performance in various training activities, as well as quantitative modelling of adults’ proficiency growth in longitudinal studies have confirmed the theoretical assumptions of PET. The authors of this article describe the first application of PET to literacy and numeracy development in a longitudinal study of a nationally representative adult population. Their investigation followed a sample of adults initially interviewed and assessed in the German component of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), adding longitudinal data from three additional waves of the national extension study (PIAAC-L), which included repeated assessments of literacy and numeracy proficiency over a period of three years. The authors’ quantitative modelling of the growth of literacy and numeracy proficiency over time provides strong support for PET. Their comparisons of how various practice engagement indexes predict growth of literacy and numeracy proficiencies indicate that reading engagement is the strongest predictor of literacy growth and maths engagement is the strongest predictor of numeracy growth. The authors conclude their article by considering their findings’ implications for sustainable development, lifelong learning policy and future research into the development of adult literacy and numeracy proficiency.

Social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills comprise a broad set of abilities that are essential for building and maintaining relationships, regulating emotions, selecting and pursuing goals, or exploring novel stimuli. Toward an improved SEB skill assessment, Soto and colleagues recently introduced the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI). Measuring 32 facets from 5 domains with 192 items (assessment duration: ~15 min), BESSI constitutes the most extensive SEB inventory to date. However, so far, BESSI exists only in English. In three studies, we comprehensively validated a novel German-language adaptation, BESSI-G. Moreover, we expanded evidence on BESSI in three ways by (1) assessing the psychometric properties of the 32 individual skill facets, in addition to their domain-level structure; (2) providing first insights into the temporal stabilities of the 32 facets over 1.5 and 8 months; and (3) investigating the domains’ and facets’ associations with intelligence, in addition to personality traits. Results show that BESSI-G exhibits good psychometric properties (unidimensionality, reliability, factorial validity). Its domain-level structure is highly similar to that of the English-language source version. The facets show high temporal stabilities, convergent validity with personality traits, and discriminant validity with fluid and crystallized intelligence. We discuss implications for research on SEB skills.