Cosmetic surgery and the relationship between appearance satisfaction and extraversion: Testing a transactional model of personality Tilmann von Soest a, * , Ingela L. Kvalem a,b , Knut C. Skolleborg c , Helge E. Roald c a Norwegian Social Research – NOVA, P.O. Box 3223 Elisenberg, 0208 Oslo, Norway b Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1094 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway c Colosseum Clinic Oslo, Sørkedalsveien 10B, 0369 Oslo, Norway article info Article history: Available online 8 July 2009 Keywords: Extraversion Cosmetic surgery Appearance Big Five Five-factor model abstract Few studies have tested potential explanatory mechanisms for the high stability of extraversion. In this study, the relationship between extraversion, appearance evaluation, and cosmetic surgery was investi- gated to examine such mechanisms. The ‘‘Big Five” personality traits were assessed in 155 female cos- metic surgery patients prior to and 6 months after surgery, as well as from a representative sample of 907 women. Patients showed higher extraversion scores prior to surgery than were found in the repre- sentative sample; further, extraversion scores increased after surgery, while the increase diminished when controlled for appearance evaluation. The results are in accordance with a transactional model, whereby extraverts engage in actions that reinforce extravert tendencies, which may account for the high stability of extraversion. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction After decades of research on personality traits, a general taxon- omy of broad personality dimensions called the ‘‘Big Five” has be- come increasingly popular. One important finding concerning these five personality traits is their high stability over time (Rob- erts & DelVecchio, 2000), with extraversion being the most stable of the five (Vaidya, Gray, Haig, & Watson, 2002). Even though sev- eral studies have been conducted investigating the stability of extraversion and the other four broad personality traits, little re- search has been undertaken to examine just how this high stability can be explained. In this paper, mechanisms that might account for the stability of extraversion are therefore investigated by studying the mutually reinforcing relationship between extraversion and evaluation of own appearance, as well as subsequent behaviors en- gaged to enhance appearance. More specifically, we examine whether extraversion influences the decision to undergo cosmetic surgery at the same time as cosmetic surgery’s impact on extraver- sion is in turn explored. In order to contrast the extraversion find- ings with results from the other personality traits, analyses on the remaining Big Five personality traits were also conducted. Core features of extraversion are the tendency to frequently experience positive moods, sensitivity to potential positive re- wards, and the tendency to evoke and enjoy social attention (Ash- ton, Lee, & Paunonen, 2002; Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005; Lucas, Diener, Grob, Suh, & Shao, 2000). A review has shown that the rank-order stability of extraversion and other personality traits in adulthood is considerable, reaching a peak test–retest consistency at about the age of 50, whereas consistency is somewhat lower in early adulthood (Roberts & Caspi, 2003; Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). Further, the rank-order stability has been shown to be espe- cially high for extraversion as compared to the other personality traits (Conley, 1984; Vaidya et al., 2002). The relative high stability of extraversion that has been observed raises the question of how this stability can be explained. According to Costa and McCrae (1994), the most prominent pro- ponents of a trait model of personality, personality is ‘‘set like plas- ter”. The relative stability of personality traits is explained by their genetic pre-determination, thereby leaving limited room for the influence of environmental factors in adulthood (McCrae & Costa, 1999a; McCrae et al., 199b). Thus, from the trait model perspective, the high stability of extraversion in adulthood can be understood by a considerable biological component determining basic person- ality traits. Contextual perspectives on personality, on the other hand, propose that personality traits are mainly shaped by envi- ronmental contingencies often connected to social roles (for a dis- cussion of this perspective, see Roberts & Caspi, 2003). In this case, stability in extraversion would be due to consistency of social envi- ronment. There is however little research that can confirm the explanatory power of this perspective in accounting for personality stability (Roberts & Caspi, 2003; Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003). The relatively narrow perspective of both these models, with their one determining focus on personality, may render them insufficient for understanding development and change in person- 0092-6566/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.07.001 * Corresponding author. Fax: +47 22 54 12 01. E-mail address: tvs@nova.no (T. von Soest). Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 1017–1025 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Research in Personality journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrp