CHAPTER 2 Personality Traits: A Good Theory

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1 CHAPTER 2 Personality Traits: A Good Theory Behavioural residue: when people live in an environment, they leave behind traces that hint at the personality of the person. What is a personality trait? Def.: describe a person s typical style of thinking, feeling, acting in different kinds of situations and at different times. Temporary states (emotions), attitudes, physical attributes are not considered traits. Traits are measured over a continuum a continuous stretch from low to high. They can t be directly measured (like height/weight) so psychologists view them as hypothetical concepts. Two Approaches to the Study of Personality Traits Idiographic: goal is to understand personality of a single individual with all of the idiosyncrasies/characteristics that make them unique Nomothetic: goal is to discover universals concepts that can apply to everyone by identifying traits that describe all people or can be applied to any person. Eysenck found that both approaches could be used to study a single person and develop a theory of personality from there. He hypothesized that the human personality is organized into a hierarchy. According to Eysenck, the lower on the pyramid = the more idiosyncratic. The higher = more similar to other people who may have same personality trait. This pyramid categorizes human personality from most general level at the top to most specific level at bottom. o General = trait is universal. Specific = trait is more unique to one individual The very bottom level = specific behaviours like responses, acts, cognitions, and reactions to everyday life. o While these may not be unique, if they occur many times = habit or typical way of responding When certain traits tend to occur together in people then it is said that a personality type/syndrome/superfactor/ observed constellation of traits has been identified.

2 What do we know about personality from the idiographic approach? Studying individual personalities Allport identified three different kinds of traits: Central traits: traits that are a major importance in understanding person. 5 or 10 traits that people might use to describe one person to another. ( They re talkative, outgoing etc.) Secondary traits: traits of lesser importance, less consistently displayed or seldom displayed or only slightly revealed so only a close friend might recognise them. Cardinal traits: these are for unusual people where only trait can describe them. They are extremely pervasive and extremely influential that practically every aspect of the person s life is touched by the ruling passion. o Example: Oscar the Grouch What do we know about personality from the nomothetic approach? Finding universals Theoretical Approach Def.: personality psychologists start with a theory or even common wisdom about human personality Lexical Approach Def.: explores a particular language and identifies the number of synonyms that describe personality The reasoning is that if a concept is important to the speakers of a language, then that concept is encoded in their language in multiple ways. If this same personality trait is found in many languages may = human universal The Measurement Approach Def.: discovering important aspects of personality and trying to measure personality One of these methods is factor analysis: statistical technique that mathematically identifies meaningful underlying structure among a set of variables. Cattell started with 4504 trait terms identified by Allport and reduced them to 160 by eliminating the similarities that eventually narrowed down to Cattell s 16 Personality Factors

3 More on Factor Analysis Achieved by looking at the correlations between all of the questions of the data. Patterns of correlations will tell which variables go together and which ones don t fit. This finally results in the formation of factors. Eigenvalue of a factor: Each factor can explain a certain amount of variation (variance) in answers between participants. Factor loadings: calculated from the eigenvalue, an estimate of how strongly each questions fits into a given factor. May lead to finding underlying concept When doing factor analysis, the first factor generally accounts for the most amount of variation. It doesn t guarantee making sense because it is derived mathematically. This leads to rotating the factors to find which questions go together best. Researchers may take pragmatic approach and only keep factors that are actually interpretable. Once the right numbers have been identified, the factors must be named this is accomplished by looking at the items that fall together on each factor and see what concept they seem to be getting at. The great nomothetic search for universal principles of personality The Big Five followed a series of different approaches. 1. Allport s lexical approach 2. Cattell s factor analysis down to 16 factors 3. Other s built on Cattell s factors to narrow them down to only five The five factors seemed to summarize a large number of more distinct lower level traits. Many popular questionnaire tests also seemed to reveal the five traits. They also seemed to be based in biological/evolutionary and are therefore universal. The Big Five is composed of Surgency (Extraversion), Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Culture. Three Superfactors: Eysenck Eysenck s PEN model of personality: Identified three broad dimensions of personality, based on physiological/biological differences between people: Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism

4 Also identified narrow traits (more specific traits) associated with each of the factors. Psychoticism: how tough-minded or antisocial a person is. People high in psychoticism tend to be selfish and antisocial. Narrow traits: Aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, unsympathetic, creative, tough-minded Extraversion: how outgoing people are to social/physical environment. People high in extraversion tend to be outgoing and experience many positive feelings. Sociable, lively, active, assertive, sensation-seeking, carefree, dominant, surgent, venturesome Neuroticism: refers to negative emotionality and emotional reactivity. People high in neuroticism tend to be easily upset and vulnerable to negative emotions. People low in neuroticism tend to be even-tempered and calm, somewhat unemotional, and recover quickly after an upsetting situation. Anxious, depressed, guilt feelings, low self-esteem, tense, irrational, shy, moody, emotional A problem with Eysenck s theory is that many psychologists believe that traits are missing. Eysenck disagreed and said that the others were looking at different levels of hierarchy. He believed that other conceptualizations of traits are invalid because they include traits from multiple levels of the hierarchy. Five Factors: The Big Five and the Five-Factor Model Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness. According to the NEO-PI-R each of the five factors are made up of six subscales called facets. Neuroticism: People high in this tend to show poorer coping skills/health and are more likely to experience burnout and job changes. They are also prone to negative emotions. Facets Anxiety Angry hostility Depression Self-consciousness Impulsiveness

5 Vulnerability to stress Extraversion: People high in this (extraverts) are likely to hold leadership positions in groups, have more friends/sexual partners. People low in this (introverts) are more likely to experience trouble with relationships. Facets: Warmth Gregariousness Assertiveness Activity Excitement-seeking Positive emotions Openness (or Inquiring Intellect ): can refer to an appreciation of the life of the mind in such things as ideas, thoughts, fantasies, art, and beauty. NOT the same as intelligence. People can score high on Openness and low on IQ. There s no particular psychological benefit to this. Facets: Fantasy Aesthetics Feelings Actions Ideas Values Agreeableness: quality of interpersonal relationships (how well the person gets on with others). Can also be thoughts of as prosocial or communal orientation to others and is contrasted with antagonism/competitiveness. People high in this tend to show better performance in group work. People low in this are often at risk for cardiovascular disease, juvenile delinquency, and interpersonal problems. Facets: Trust Straightforwardness Altruism Compliance

6 Modesty Tender-mindedness Conscientiousness: individual s degree of organization, both physical organization (tidy office) and mental organization (planning ahead). Also includes how they regulate impulses. People high in this are organized, neat, thorough, and diligent. Also have better GPA and job performance. This can lead to annoying habits like fastidiousness, compulsive neatness, and workaholic behaviour. People low in this are more likely to smoke/drink/do drugs, show ADD, have poor diet, and not exercise enough. Facets Competence Order Dutifulness Achievement-striving Self-discipline Deliberation Two Models of the Five Factors Today, the five factors of the five-factor model are measured using a revised version of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). The ordering of the factors reflects the amount of variance, from largest to smallest, accounted for by each factor. Differences between the FFM (Five-factor model) and the Big Five FFM s neuroticism = the Big Five s Emotional Stability. They refer to the same dimension but they just emphasize a different direction. The Big Five s Culture Factor is a narrower version of Openness. The Big Five describes personality without trying to give an origin for them. The FFM theorises that the five factors are biological. The Big Five is grounded in adjectives, so it has been replicated cross-culturally in different languages. The NEO-PI-R uses sentences, making it more dependent on language and harder to cross-replicate. Is Five really the ultimate answer? If you want to discover personality, more factors are probably better. However, if you want to figure out why someone acts the way they do, based on traits, less is better.

7 A One-Factor Solution General personality factor (GPF): the smallest number of factors that can describe personality. In this case, it is one factor that is hypothesized to explain all of human personality like the way g represents an underlying factor of all intelligence. The GPF lies at the top of a hierarchy. This factor would include all of the positive aspects of the five factors (Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Intellect). It would also have the two factors of alpha (ability to get along with others) and beta (the flexibility to deal with change, challenges, demands). People high in GPF are altruistic, sociable, able to handle stress, dependable, task-focused. More Factor Options HEXACO (six-factor model): Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience. Honesty-humility was discovered from research in other languages and may indicate a person s genuineness or trustworthiness. Someone high in this would be altruistic and unable to hurt others for personal gain. Criticism is that Honesty-humility is just a facet of Agreeableness. The five-factor model is criticised because of omission of temporary states (moods) and evaluations (judgements of character). When these are added back, there are 7 factors: Negative Valence and Positive Valence are added. These are important for understanding pathology. Four Temperaments and Five Factors The Ancient Greeks linked personality to the four humours. This was dismissed but it does have some connection to personality studies today. Allport conducted studies where he d show images of people displaying four temperament types and others would be able to accurately guess them. He noted that the four temperaments seemed to fit under two-factor theories of personality (speed/intensity of emotional arousal OR activity level/tendency to approach or withdraw from situations). Today, most researchers agree that the five factors are major dimensions. However, some say that the five factors are aspects of a two-factor solution. Alpha: Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness

8 Beta: Extraversion and Openness to Experience o It has been argued that these two factors represent the major tasks of personality development: socialization (living with society s rules) and actualization (personality growth). o The two factors seem to related to the Ancient Greeks idea of emotional/nonemotional and changeable/unchangeable.