Personality Structure: Classifying Traits Flashcards
Fundamental Lexical Hypothesis: personality traits
“The most important individual differences in human transactions will come to be encoded as single terms in all of the world’s languages.”
(Goldberg, 1990)
Lexical Approach: Early Attempts (I)
Baumgarten (1933), in German
Allport & Odbert (1936), in English 18,000 English words Traits: approx. 4,500 States: approx. 4,500 Evaluations (good/bad): approx. 5,200 Miscellaneous : approx. 3,600
Factor Analysis (FA): statistical technique
Exploratory FA (EFA)
Confirmatory FA (CFA)
Exploratory FA (EFA)
Data reduction technique: aims to explain a pattern of correlations between large numbers of variables
Generates hypotheses
Example: Self-Report
- Questionnaire
- Correlations
- Factors and Factor Loadings
Confirmatory FA (CFA)
Statistical technique for model testing
Tests hypotheses
Early Attempts (II) - Cattell
First factor analysis of 35 traits
12 traits found + 4 added later =16PF (1949)
Cattell’s 16PF
- Abstractedness
- Apprehension
- Dominance
- Emotional Stability
- Liveliness
- Openness to Change
- Perfectionism
- Privateness
- Reasoning
- Rule-Consciousness
- Self-Reliance
- Sensitivity
- Social Boldness
- Tension
- Vigilance
- Warmth
Converging Evidence: Factor Analyses (early lexical studies III)
Tupes & Christal (1961, 1992): 5 factors
Norman (1963, 1967): 5 factors
Costa & McCrae (1985, 1991): 5 factors
Goldberg (1990, 1992): 5 factors
Different samples, ages and nations: 5 factors
Same 5 Factors with different measures
Trait descriptive adjectives
Statements describing affect, cognitions, and behaviour
Self-ratings vs. observer ratings
Nonverbal measures
Five-Factor Model of Personality /“Big Five”
Pervin et al., 2005
Openness (O) Conscientiousness (C) Extraversion (E) Agreeableness (A) Neuroticism (N)
Neuroticism (N)
Assesses maladjustment vs. emotional stability
Identifies individuals prone to:
- Psychological distress
- Unrealistic ideas
- Excessive cravings or urges
- Maladaptive coping responses
Extraversion (E)
Assesses quantity and intensity of :
- Interpersonal interaction
- Activity level
- Need for stimulation
- Capacity for joy
Openness (O)
imagination/intellect
Proactive seeking and appreciation of experience for its own sake
Toleration for and exploration of the unfamiliar
Agreeableness (A)
Quality of one’s interpersonal orientation along a continuum from compassion to antagonism in:
- thoughts
- feelings
- actions
e.g. kind - unkind
Conscientiousness (C)
Assesses the individual’s degree of:
- organisation
- persistence
- motivation in goal-directed behaviour
e.g. lazy = hardworking
Why are the Big Five so important?
Help us sort out the confusion of different models and measures of personality
Provide a kind of “compass” (mapping system) to understand where in the personality space to place specific traits we want to know more about.
Big Five: Integration of Cattell’s 16PF
Examples
Neuroticism
Anxiety Emotional Stability (-)
Extraversion
Social Assertiveness Introversion (-)
Openness
Openmindedness
Intellect
Agreeableness
Warmth
Aggressiveness (-)
Conscientiousness
Dutifulness
Perfectionism
Big Five Facets: Development of the NEO-Five Factor Scales
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)
NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R)
NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI)
Costa & McCrae (1985)
Derived from analyses of Cattell’s 16 PF:
3 Scales: N, E and O
NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
Costa & McCrae (1991)
Adopted five-factor personality model and added A and C:
5 Scales with 12 items each: N, E, O, A and C
NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R)
Costa & McCrae (1992)
Measures 6 facets of each of the Big Five dimensions
30 Scales with 8 items of each facet:
N, E, O, A and C domain and facet scores
Extraversion (E)
E1: Warmth E2: Gregariousness (socially outgoing) E3: Assertiveness E4: Activity E5: Excitement Seeking E6: Positive Emotions
Openness to Experience (O)
Where they draw the big different
O1: Fantasy O2: Aesthetics O3: Feelings O4: Actions O5: Ideas O6: Values
Agreeableness (A)
A1: Trust A2: Straightforwardness A3: Altruism A4: Compliance A5: Modesty A6: Tender-Mindedness
Example: Self-Pity
Big Five Dimensions and Facets as a “compass”
To see which dimension and facets are related to self-pity
Dimensions -> Neuroticism
Facets -> Depression
Five-Factor Model of Personality - summary
A very useful taxonomic system
A common language to communicate traits
A “compass” where to map personality characteristics
Is the Five-Factor Model the final answer?
Seems to capture Western personality language dimensions better than Eastern
Does not always replicate, not even in Western cultures: “Big 5 plus or minus 2”
What’s missing in the Big 5?
Honesty/humility
HEXACO Model (Ashton et al., 2004; Lee & Ashton, 2004, 2006)
Humility Emotionality Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness
Five vs. Six Factors
Strong similarity in the facet content of three factors:
- Extraversion
- Conscientiousness
- Openness
Facet differences:
Agreeableness &Emotionality
Five-factor (Neo): Tendermindedness Compliance Trust Altruism Modesty Straightforwardness
Six-factor (HEXACO): Gentleness Flexibility Forgiveness Patience
Anxiety Angry Hostility Depression Self-consciousness Impulsiveness Vulnerability
Anxiety
Fearfulness
Dependence
Sentimentality
Example: Psychopathy (Gaughan, Miller & Lynham, 2012)
Using, the NEO PI-R and the HEXACO as “compasses”, which scale provides a better map – and thus better understand of Psychopathy?
Findings: Psychopathy (total score)
Both Big Five and HEXACO predicted psychopathy
HEXACO predicted slightly better, as it explains more in each dimension
Six personality traits ≠ six personalities
Each trait dimensions has multiple facets = Different combinations per individual
Each individual varies in their overall score on each trait
Still researchers claim to have found “distinct” personalities
(big 5; Asendorpf, 2003)
Resilient: low N, high A, C, O, E
Internalising: low E, high N
Externalising: low A & C
Not reliable, sample sample
Gerlach, Farb, Revelle & Amaral (2018)
Added a 4th “personality type”
Have 1.5 million participants
Criticisms of Gerlach, Farb, Revelle & Amaral (2018)
These precise combinations are not very common
This problem remains even in large samples.
Using personality types to predict personality is less accurate than using trait levels.
Through finding the fundamental personality dimensions
Researchers are able to efficiently & comprehensively measure personality
Factor analyses is a technique used to…
identify the major dimensions of personality
Early factor analyses of English words in lexical studies yielded five factors “the Big 5” personality traits:
Neuroticism Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness (imagination/intellect)
Later lexical studies in different languages and have reliably found six personality dimensions:
Honesty-humility Emotionality Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness
Two main scales for measuring personality:
Big 5
- NEO scales (Costa & McCrae, 1991, 1992)
6 factor
- HEXACO (Ashton & Lee, 2009; Lee & Ashton, 1994)
