What Setting Suits You?
Aimed at integrating cutting-edge psychological science into the classroom, columns about teaching Current Directions in Psychological Science offer advice and how-to guidance about teaching a particular area of research or topic in psychological science that has been the focus of an article in the APS journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.
More teaching resources: The Paradox of Achieving Social Embeddedness Through Nonsocial Activities
Sitcoms love to riff on characters who are perfectly matched—or hilariously mismatched—with their environments. Consider Leslie Knope, the earnest public servant in Parks and Recreation, or Arthur, the sweet, conscientious accountant from Loot. By contrast, consider Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, raucously unsuited to his temporary job as a department-store Santa, or Homer Simpson, dangerously too lazy to oversee safety at a nuclear power plant. These shows exploit person–environment fit to charm or alarm us.
In their Current Directions article, Kandler and colleagues define person–environment fit (PE fit) as “the optimal compatibility between individuals and their outer world” (Kandler et al., 2024, p. 198). PE fit can predict people’s well-being, behavioral outcomes, and health, above and beyond the trends seen in a person or environment alone.
One team studied PE fit in the workplace (Denissen et al., 2018). First, they measured a large sample of European workers on Big Five personality traits (extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience). Next, they recorded participants’ current jobs, job satisfaction, and income. Specialists rated which traits each job would demand. For example, bookkeeping requires low extraversion levels, but a film acting job requires high extraversion levels. A religious professional requires high agreeableness levels, but a job in the armed forces requires low agreeableness levels. Financial department managers need to be conscientious. Firefighters need to be high in emotional stability.
Participant job satisfaction and income were predicted to some degree by the Big Five alone, but job satisfaction was especially high if jobholders’ personalities matched their job characteristics. For example, people who were medium on openness to experience and whose job also required mid-levels of that trait had a fit bonus—they were earning a few thousand Euros more than people whose personalities were mismatched (either too high or too low in openness for their jobs’ demands).
Another example: Students thrived in university programs (as measured by their grades and self-rated satisfaction) when their (self-rated) abilities matched the perceived demands of the program (e.g., Bohndick et al., 2018).
In another study, thousands of Londoners were tested on Big Five personality characteristics and life satisfaction (Jokela et al., 2015). The researchers coded each of their neighborhoods on geographic characteristics. They found, first, that personalities cluster in neighborhoods—there were social pockets of conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness. These personality pockets were associated with geographic variables. For example, higher income neighborhoods had low agreeableness and lower income neighborhoods had lower emotional stability. But they also found several instances of PE fit. For example, people who were high in openness to experience and also lived in higher density, ethnically diverse neighborhoods had higher life satisfaction. (Apparently highly open people thrive in bustling, diverse urban settings.) People higher in agreeableness or conscientiousness were happier when they lived in pockets with lower life satisfaction, perhaps because these traits are adaptive in such areas.
If you’re teaching research methods, PE fit can introduce students to main effects and interactions. The London study found main effects of geography on life satisfaction. Life satisfaction was higher in areas with higher incomes, more employment, and more green spaces. The study found main effects for personality on satisfaction (specifically, satisfaction was higher among extraverts and those high in emotional stability). They also found interactions—life satisfaction depended on a match between personality and geography.
The fit between a person and their environment, or PE fit, can provide undergraduates with engaging, concrete examples of nature/nurture dynamics, causal reasoning, and the difference between main effects and interactions.
Before talking about PE fit in class, engage students with an adaptation of the game Would You Rather. Pose the following questions to students:
| 1. Who makes more money: | |
| People who are high in conscientiousness? | People whose jobs demand more conscientiousness? |
| 2. Who’s more satisfied with their university program: | |
| People who perceive they have higher academic ability? | People at universities that have more academically demanding programs? |
| 3. Who has higher life satisfaction: | |
| People who are high in openness to experience? | People who live in diverse neighborhoods? |
| 4. What’s more important for success and happiness: | |
| People’s personality traits? | People’s environments? |
Ask students to explain their votes. Perhaps some will volunteer an “it depends” response—if not, prompt them to do so with this question: “Do you think it might matter if people’s personalities match their environments? How might person–environment fit work in these four examples?”
Follow through on each example using details from Kandler et al.’s article. Here’s an example (the rest are presented after the References below):
| 1. Who makes more money: | |
| People who are high in conscientiousness? | People whose jobs demand more conscientiousness? |
| Research says: It depends on fit! Across a wide variety of jobs, people earn more money when their personalities fit with their job’s demands. Conscientious people earn more money, especially in jobs that require them to be responsible and diligent (such as being a financial account manager) (Denissen et al., 2018). | |
Then, walk through different causal dynamics of PE fit. People with certain traits might move into jobs or neighborhoods in which they thrive—a process of attraction. Or people might modify jobs and settings to improve fit—a process of construction. Or they might change their own attributes and behaviors to better adapt to their environments—a process of conformation. By discussing these dynamics with our students, we can illustrate how psychologists move beyond simplistic debates such as nature vs. nurture to consider, instead, how people and environments shape each other in different directions.
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References
Bohndick, C., Rosman, T., Kohlmeyer, S., & Buhl, H. M. (2018). The interplay between subjective abilities and subjective demands and its relationship with academic success. An application of the person–environment fit theory. Higher Education, 75, 839–854. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0173-6
Denissen, J. J. A., Bleidorn, W., Hennecke, M., Luhmann, M., Orth, U., Specht, J., & Zimmermann, J. (2018). Uncovering the power of personality to shape income. Psychological Science, 29, 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617724435
Jokela, M., Bleidorn, W., Lamb, M. E., Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J. (2015). Geographically varying associations between personality and life satisfaction in the London metropolitan area. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 112, 725–730. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1415800112
Additional Student Activity Prompts
| 2. Who’s more satisfied with their university program: | |
| People who perceive they have higher academic ability? | People at universities that have more academically demanding programs? |
| Research says: It depends on fit! Students whose ability matches the demands of their program typically get better grades and are more satisfied (Bohndick et al., 2018). | |
| 3. Who has higher life satisfaction: | |
| People who are high in openness to experience? | People who live in diverse neighborhoods? |
| Research says: It depends on fit! People high in openness tend to have higher life satisfaction, but this link is especially strong if they also live in a diverse neighborhood (Jokela et al., 2015). | |
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