After reporting bivariate, uncorrected correlations among all study variables, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test our prospective model. For each trait, we understand the items measuring the trait to be parallel indicators of a single construct. We therefore represented each trait as a latent variable. We used three parcels (i.e., groups) of items as indicators for each trait we included. We did so for the following reasons. First, the reliability of a parcel of items is greater than that of a single item, so parcels can serve as more stable indicators of a latent construct. Second, as combinations of items, parcels provide more scale points, thereby more closely approximating continuous measurement of the latent construct. Third, there is reduced risk of spuriously positive correlations, both because fewer correlations are being estimated and because each estimate is based on more stable indicators. Fourth, use of parcels reduces the number of degrees of freedom to be estimated in the model. Because each of the trait scales has numerous items, use of item-level indicators for each trait would prove problematic given
