LECTURE 5- trait MODELS OF PERSONALITY

Question 1

Eysenck PEN

Answer 1

• At the lowest level are the specific responses (any behavioural responses of the individuals to their environment)
• Specific responses that are found together in the individual make up habitual responses- (the ways that individuals typically behave in a situation)
• Collections of habitual responses that the individual produces make up traits (relatively stable, long-lasting characteristics of the individual)

Question 2

Eysenck PEN- super traits

Answer 2

• He suggested there are 2 super traits: extraversion and neuroticism
• Extraversion= (extraversion-intraversion)extraverts are sociable and impulsive people who like excitement and whose orientation is towards external reality. Introverts are quiet, introspective indivduals who are oriented towards inner reality and who prefer a well-ordered life
• Neuroticism- (stable-unstable)emotionally unstable, may have unreasonable fears of certain objects, places, animals, people, or obsessional or impulsive systems
• He added a third, Psychoticism- display the most severe type of psychopathology, frequently being insensitive to others, hostile, cruel, inhumane-
• He suggested individuals who score highly on neuroticism or psychoticism are predisposed to develop clinical neurosis and psychosis respectively under adverse circumstances.

Question 3

Evaluation of PEN

Answer 3

Evaluation of PEN
* Combines both descriptive and causal aspects of personality in one theory- the PEN model is supported by more credible evidence than purely descriptive models due to this distinct factor.

Cross cultural evidence is consistent -He found the factors were found in 24 nations- showing its cross cultural reference
He also found the same structures in children and adults

evidence for genetic component of the model- reviews of studies of twins who lived apart showed same structure and similar personality

• Comprehensive model -comprehensive in description by proposing a hierarchy of four levels and by making a clear distinction among those levels which enables comparison with other trait theories
• The model is testable, due to its experimental approach to personality
• The EPQ neuroticism and extraversion scales have good reliability
• However, EPQ psychoticism has lower internal reliability
• Analyses of personality measures showed that the data are better explained by a 5-factor model than the intended 3 factor model- Goldberg (1993)
  compared the five-factor model with Eysenck’s threefactor model and concluded that two of the factors – extraversion and neuroticism – are very similar, and that
  psychoticism can be subsumed under agreeableness and
  conscientiousness

in one other aspect, his theory can perhaps be criticised
for being too parsimonious, having only three factors. Do
three factors really represent the basic structure of personality?

Question 4

The big 5/ 5 factor model of personality

Answer 4

• Costa and McCrae (1985; 1897) describe these 5 factors: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (the big 5)
• In 1992- they developed the 240-item neuroticism, extraversion, openness personality inventory (NEO-PI-R)- shorter 60-item NEO-five-Factor inventory (NEO-FFI) is also available

Question 5

evaluation of the big 5

Answer 5

• Hierarchal like Eysenck model
• The big 5 was often found when many researchers used factor analysis on personality questionnaires
• It is data-derived (factor analysis) as opposed to theoretically based
• The big 5 traits are essentially descriptive and may suffer the problem of circular explanation of behaviour- this compares to Eysenck’s PEN model which is descriptive and causal

Question 6

HEXACO

Answer 6

• Ashton, Lee and Son (2000) found that among several studies in the USA, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Korea and Poland a 6th factor emerged
• Sixth trait honesty-humility was added in 2008
• -H honesty -humility
• E- emotionality
• X – Extraversion
• A- agreeableness
• C- conscientiousness
• 0- openness to experience
• They argue these factors have ‘biological constructs’ behind these factors

One biological construct is reciprocal altruism- Reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) is a form of
altruism (practice of unselfish concern for, or devotion to,
the welfare of others) in which an organism will make an
altruistic act but will not expect any immediate benefit in
return

Question 7

evaluation of HEXACO

Answer 7

• In some studies the 6th factor correlated with agreeableness, raising the question whether HEXACO really represents 6 independent factors
• There are other constructs that have been found to be Independent of the big 5 and could be added as the 6th e.g. spirituality, religiosity, sexually-related traits
• Some of the analyses to which Ashton and Lee refer are unpublished; among the published analysis, the first 5 factors are not precisely the big five

Question 8

General factor model of personality

Answer 8

• Musek, 2007- found a single factor explained much of the variance in peoples scores on the big 5
• finding suggests that when someone scored high on
  one of the factors (e.g. extraversion) they were likely to
  score high on one of the others. Therefore this finding
  suggested to Musek that there may be a further key trait
  underlying all these measures
• Musek, found from the factor analysis that the 5-factor model of personality first combined into two factors;
• Stability (alpha)- conforming and being stable (high conscientious, high agreeableness, low neuroticism)
• Plasticity (beta)- being open and capacity for change (high extraversion, high openess)
• And these 2 factors reduced to a single factor: the general factor of personality
• While stability is linked to the neurophysiological functions of the ascending rostral serotonergic system, plasticity is linked to the central dopaminergic system

Question 9

evaluation of general factor model of personality

Answer 9

• Ferguson et al., (2011) argued that the correlations between the 5 factor domains may be an artefact caused by self-report measures of personality such as social desirability
• However, Musek (2017) argued that after controlling for social desirability loadings on the GFP remained practically the same
• He also argued that ‘social desirability itself is probably more a personality trait than a response style… Thus, the correlations between the GFP and social desirability can perfectly fit the interpretation of GFP as a measure of social effectiveness or social efficacy’