"Just teasing ... ": Personality effects on perceptions and life narratives of childhood teasing

This study investigated how personality affects individuals' life narrative s of teasing and their perceptions of childhood teasing events. Participant s viewed videotaped interactions of a childhood teasing incident in which v ictim responses to teasing were varied. Personality and teasing history inf ormation was collected and life narratives of past teasing experiences were elicited from participants. Personality strongly affected participants' re actions to the videotaped teasing incident; many of these personality effec ts occurred in interactions between personality and situational cues (victi m responses). Personality also affected life narratives of teasing. Structu ral equations modeling (SEM) using a levels of analysis approach suggested that the effects of personality on life narratives were both direct and med iated by teasing history.