Do Institutional Characteristics Predict Markers of Adulthood? A Close Replication of Fosse and Toyokawa (2016)

Recent research reveals that some variability in personality differences can be explained by contextual factors such as location. Although little research has systematically evaluated how such variables predict individual differences in Emerging Adulthood, Fosse and Toyokawa (2016) revealed that characteristics of one's university such as selectivity and liberal arts classification did predict respondents' perceived importance and attainment of milestones associated with adulthood. As a close replication of Fosse and Toyokawa (2016), the present findings supported our preregistered hypotheses that liberal arts status predicted decreased perceived importance and lower attainment of some constructs of markers of adulthood but did not support predictions that selectivity would also predict such differences. Our findings provide further evidence of the institutional effects that emerge in multisample individual difference studies and extend those findings with a broader and more diverse sample than was considered previously.