PSY2205 Lecture 6: The Essential Traits Approach

Question 1

How did Cattell make the 16 Personality Factors

Answer 1

Cattell used data from many different sources:
L-data – life data
T-data – test data
Q-data – questionnaire data

Factor analysis reduction of 4,500 trait words (from Allport) revealed 16 primary personality factors (source traits).

Question 2

What does the 16 personality factors questionnaire consist of?

Answer 2

The items ask simple questions about daily behaviour, interests, and opinions rather than asking for self-assessment of personality traits.

Question 3

What are the applications of the 16 personality factor questionnaire?

Answer 3

Research and Clinical Settings
Vocational Psychology
Personnel selection and placement
With adults or adolescents (16-year-olds) and 5th grade reading level

Question 4

How does the 16 personality factor questionnaire contribute to the Big 5 Theory?

Answer 4

The Big Five theory proposes that all traits fall under five broad groupings.
The 16 traits measured by the 16PF questionnaire can be grouped into five second-order Global Factors which correlate with the Big Five.

Question 5

What are some criticisms of Cartell’s 16 personality factor questionnaire?

Answer 5

Cattell’s findings are not easy to replicate; the 16 factors are really 5 factors (“The Big Five”).

Cattell used factor analysis in such a way as to end up with factors that were to some extent correlated with each other – not independent.
This is the crux of the difference between Eysenck and Cattell. Eysenck used a method that ensured the factors are independent of each other, not correlated.

Question 6

What are some similarities between Cartells 16 personality factor theory and Eysenck’s 3 super-trait theory?

Answer 6

Placing great importance on biological and genetic factors.

Both adopted a nomethetic approach and emphasised the scientific discovery and measurement of psychological traits rather than using clinical methodology.

Both used factor analysis to arrive at their theories but they used it in different ways
Cattell used oblique rotation and Eysenck used orthogonal rotation.

Both theorists were primarily concerned with explaining the personality of “normal” adults.

Question 7

What are the differences between Cartells 16 personality factor theory and Eysenck’s 3 super-trait theory?

Answer 7

Cattell:
primary factors: source traits
data driven - inductive
oblique rotation - factors can be correlated with each other.

Eysenck:
second-order factors: ‘supertraits’.
theory driven - deductive
orthogonal rotation - factors are not correlated, they are independent of each other.