“Just Teasing...”: Personality Effects on Perceptions and Life Narratives of Childhood Teasing

This study investigated how personality affects individuals’ life narratives of teasing and their perceptions of childhood teasing events. Participants viewed videotaped interactions of a childhood teasing incident in which victim responses to teasing were varied. Personality and teasing history information was collected and life narratives of past teasing experiences were elicited from participants. Personality strongly affected participants’ reactions to the videotaped teasing incident; many of these personality effects occurred in interactions between personality and situational cues (victim responses). Personality also affected life narratives of teasing. Structural equations modeling (SEM) using a levels of analysis approach suggested that the effects of personality on life narratives were both direct and mediated by teasing history.