Personality: dispositional theories Flashcards
What is a disposition?
a latent tendency to exhibit a coherent class of behaviours
Does it cause a behaviour, or summarise why it occurred?
Categorising people by disposition (types)
exclusions categories or type-based classification
exclusive categories
you belong to one or the other
Nominal or ordinal variables (introverts or extroverts)
Qualitative difference
Type-based classification
typology
categorising people by disposition (traits)
- continuous dimensions or trait-based classification
continuous dimensions (traits)
be higher or lower among an entire dimensions, an internal variable levels of extraversion, a quantitative difference
trait-based classification
“traitology”
categorising people by dispositions - trends
Tend to be normally distributed
categorising people by disposition - types
tend to be bimodally distributed
Traits vs types
you can convert a trait to a type - eg splitting a distribution down the middle and saying one side is marmite lovers the other side is marmite haters
You can’t convert a type to a trait
popular typologies
Enneagram, Jung/Myers-Briggs/Kiersky
Some scientific models
Eysenck’s 2 and 3 factor model
Cattell’s 16 factor model
Wiggins’s circumples model
The big five model
Enneagram
…
Jung / Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
ESTJ vs INFP
Extroverted, sensing, thinking, judging
Vs
Introverted, intuitive, Felling, Perceiving.
Eysenck’s 2 and 3 Factor Models
2 Factor Model:
Introversion - Extraversion
- sociable, dominant, active, sensation-seeking.
Emotionality-Stability (neuroticism)
- anxious, depressed, moody, easily upset.
Extraversion and neuroticism combine to yield a classical Greek typology (from Galen)
3 Factor Model:
- introversion-extraversion
-emotionality-stability (neuroticism)
- Psychoticism (added) - impulsive, cold, antisocial, egocentric, aggressive
Rooted in biology
- extroverts need more stimulation to achieve optimal cortical arousal
- neurotics possess a more unstable autonomic nervous system
- psychotics have more testosterone and less MAO (neurotransmitter)
- E,N,P = heritable - partly coded for by genes.
Factor analysis
A set of statistical procedures designed to uncover the nature and number of latent factors that underlie a given set of items.
FA allows clusters of correlating items (factors) to be identified and interpreted
Some subjectively is involved here.
Purpose of a factor analysis
Reduce many specific traits to fewer general (more fundamental?) traits.
Decide which general traits matter, which matter more
Indicate how the general traits correlate themselves
Show that a set of items is coherent
Factor analysis - Eysenck
Eysenck showed that E, N and P were more general traitors that could be derived from more specific traits. The structure was thus hierarchical. Extraversion subsumed: dominance, sociability, activity
Cattell’s 16 factor model
Consists of primary factors, a left and a right meaning.
The lexical hypothesis (Galton), all important traits have been encoded in natural language, the more important a trait is, the more frequently it is referred to.
So a dictionary - abstract all the trait adjunctive, reduced to a manageable number, use as a basis for self-ratings. After a factor analysis - corresponds to personality traits, hope is that procedure is non-arbitrary, comprehensive key traits, bring order to chaos of personality theories
Selected 16 factors that tapped interesting dimensions, top-down and bottom-up
16 factors were factored - E and N number were among the higher-order factors obtained
The Big Five - Goldberg, Costa & McCrae
five identifiable dimensions regularly emerge from the FA’s, dimensions are found across different: types of item, types of assessments, types of people, types of species (not all 5)
Five Factors
1. Neuroticism (emotionality)
2. Extraversion (dominance)
3. Openness (sophistication)
4. Agreeableness (Likeability)
5. Conscientiousness (repsonsibility)
OCEAN acronym
Neuroticism
anxiety, angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, vulnerability
A disposition for unpleasant emotions, anger, anxiety, depression or vulnerability - emotional instability
Extraversion
warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement-seeking, positive emotions
Showing energy, positive emotions - stimulation for seeking company of others
Openness
fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values.
Appreciating art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity and variety of experience.
Agreeableness
Trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, tender-mindedness
Behaving compassionately and cooperatively rather than suspiciously and antagonistically towards others.
Conscientiousness
competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, deliberation
Aiming for achieving, planned behaviour rather than spontaneous behaviour
Signs of personality: book preferences
extraversion- relationships, celebrity romance
Introversion- horror, sci-fi, manga
Agreeable- relationships, religion, family drama
Disagreeable- psychological-drama, scary, cult-classics
Openness- philosophical novels, plays and musicals, university readings
Traditional - light fantasy, Indian books, Christian classics
Neurotic- mental issues, sad endings, dark and dangerous
Levelheaded- politics, philosophy, leadership business, science and technology.
Conscientious- grown-up-stuff, brain foods, history, professional reading
Tardy- modern fantasy,k humour comedy, teenage books
signs of personality: word preferences (E)
High extraversion - tonight, party, love, night
Low extraversion-computer, internet, probably, don’t, anime
signs of personality: word preferences (N)
more neurotic - sick, lonely, swear words, depression
Less neurotic - success, workout, basketball,
signs of personality: word preferences (C)
more conscientious- thankful, great, blessed,
Less conscientious- swear words, YouTub, Pokémon
signs of personality: word preferences (A)
More agreeable- excited, wonderful, blessed,
Less agreeable- swear words, hell
Signs of personality: word preferences (O)
more open - universe, writing, music
Less open- abbreviations e.g u, ur, wat, gud
Extraversion: mechanism and function
mechanism - response to reward (mid-brain dopamine reward system)
+ increased reward pursuit and capture
- physical dangers, family instability
neuroticism: mechanism and function
mechanism- response to threat (amygdala and limbic system, serotonin)
+ vigilance, striving
- anxiety, depression
conscientiousness: mechanism and function
response inhibition (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex)
+ planning, self control
- rigidity, lack of spontaneous response
agreeableness: mechanism and function
mechanism- regard for others (theory of mind - empathy component)
+ harmonious social relationships
- not putting self first, lofty status
openness: mechanism and function
breadth of mental associations
+ artistic sensibility, divergent thought
- unusual beliefs, proneness to psychosis
further detail: the big five
each factor has a number of different facets, allowing for greater subtlety of characterisation
Known to be stable after the age of 30 and heritable too
The factors often neatly map onto traits described in other theories, simply or as a combination
misgivings: the big five
precise components of each factor are disputed (especially openness/intellect)
A 6 factor solution has emerged adding honesty-humility but also a one-factor solution
Factor analysis leaves room for biasing one’s findings
Why should personality encoded in language be basis of scientific model
Atheoretical - smart theorising may suggest other traits of greater significance
Dynamics and complexities of personality are not addressed
types after all:
average, reserved, role models and self-centered
evaluation of the big five
are the big 5 traits fundamental and invariant of personality
Organisational tools, stimulated research
Reflect interesting underlying order in personality
Criticism: situational influence, variability of behaviour, predictive power of traits: have been addressed, and conceptual, measurement and statistical issues
Personality: factor analysis
each item loads on (correlated with) a factor to some degree. The pattern of loadings (made more coherent by factor rotation) serves as the basis for interpretation
Conclusions as to the factor structure are then reached by considering the size and composition of the clusters
