The Five Factor Model of Personality Flashcards
What are the domains of the Big 5 (Lexical approach, Goldberg, 1992)?
Emotional stability Extraversion Intellect Agreeableness Conscientiousness
What are the domains of the Five Factor Model (FFM, Costa & McCrae)?
Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
Describe the basic ideas behind the Big Five.
- Proposed by Goldberg (1992)
- Language has evolved to describe core features of human behaviour
- These are naturally occurring trait descriptors (adjectives)
- These core features (traits) can therefore be found through factor analysis, a statistical technique for grouping variables together.
- No ontological claims - inductive not deductive, no theoretical basis.
Describe the basic ideas behind the Five Factor Model.
- Costa & McCrae (1995)
- Has a theoretical basis (deductive)
- Used the Big 5 as an organising framework
- States that personality is described by 5 domains
- Each domain consists of facets, and facets can be divided into behaviours (hierarchical structure)
- Individual differences in domains are stable over time
- There’s a genetic basis and the domains are derived from an internal biological system (heritable, neurobiological).
What are the four key claims of the FFM?
- Five factors are present in adjectives and questionnaire items.
- FFM has a biological basis
- Should be observed universally
- Should show temporal stability
What does the Big Five show about the claim that five factors are present in adjectives and questionnaire items?
EXTRA
The 556 adjectives correlate with FFM model scales (NEO-PI). Found that the transparent format was slightly clearer structure for bi-polar adjectives. Self and others formats produced congruent findings.
What does a joint factor analysis of NEO-PI-R and Eysenck’s P-E-N suggest?
Costa & McCrae 1995
Suggested that Eysenck’s P is a conflation of C and A - do they represent different things?
Openness not present in PEN or RST - part of FFM or part of intelligence?
What does behavioural genetics show about the claim that the FFM has a biological basis?
EXTRA
- Common pathway model (embodies hierarchy) fits nicely and supports the biological basis, suggesting that over 50% of each trait is explained by genetics.
- For adjectives and questions, much lower and more varied rates of genetic contribution were found.
- The independent pathway suggests that different adjectives had different levels of genetic contribution.
- Cholesky decomposition found no contribution of genetics for Agreeableness.
What do twin studies show about the claim that the FFM has a biological basis?
McGuffin, Riley and Plomin (2001):
Used recent twin studies to estimate the contribution of genetics to personality as about 40%.
Leohlin et al. (1998):
Found rates of above .5 for each trait due to genetics - over half of variability
Shared environment doesn’t account for any variability
What are the genome-wide associations with the FFM found by Terracciano et al. (2010)?
Neuroticism (SNAP25 – rs362584)
- Region linked to ADHD and psychiatric disorder
Extroversion (CHD13 & CHD23)
- Calcium dependent adhesion genes
- 13: heart
- 23: neuro-sensory (link to Eysenck’s PEN - under-arousal idea, extroverts seek extra stimulation)
Openness (CNTNAP2 – re10251794)
- Linked to autism and complex schizophrenia phenotype
Agreeableness (CLOCK – encode for circadian rhythms)
- A is linked to morning-ness
Conscientiousness (DYRK1A0)
- Linked to Alzheimer’s and Down’s Syndrome
This supports questionnaire results, but further replication is necessary.
What support does DeYoung et al. (2010) provide for the claim that the FFM has a biological basis?
Neurological structures - used structural MRI to determine brain area associations, as any genetic effects must be instantiated through neural substrates - the brain translates genes to behaviour.
Found links between N (sensitivity to punishment) and the amygdala, mPFC and Mid-cingulate.
E = sensitivity to rewards, amygdala and OFC.
A = altruism and cooperation, superior temporal sulcus
O = working memory, dorsolateral PFC
C = impulse control, lateral PFC
What support does Canli et al. (2002) provide for the claim that the FFM has a biological basis?
EXTRA
Investigated extraversion and emotion through amygdala response to emotional faces in introverts and extroverts, found that extraverts are more tuned to happy than fearful faces and a strong positive correlation between extraversion and activity change.
What support does Kumari et al. (2004) provide for the claim that the FFM has a biological basis?
As extraversion increases, cortical activity decreases (when at rest)
High in extraversion increase signal to greater extent than those low in extraversion (under cognitive demand – N-back task)
- Also provides evidence for Eysenck
What do cross-cultural effects show about the claim that FFM should be observed universally?
FFM is stable across 50 cultures (McCrae, Robert, Terracciano & Antonio, 2005)
What evidence does Vaidya et al. (2002) provide for the claim that FFM should show temporal stability?
Rank order stability
Found that over a 2.5 year period:
- Structural – stable
- Mean – increases in E, O, A, C
- Individual – 79-85% showed no change
- Rank order: N = .61; E = .72; O = .65; A = .59; C = .64
- Mean and rank order stability aren’t influenced by life events.
This suggests long term lifetime stability.
What evidence does Srivastava et al. (2003) provide regarding the claim that the FFM should show temporal stability?
Investigated changes in the 5 factors over 40 years for men and women, found N decreases for women, and A and C increase for both men and women. Therefore it’s not ‘set like plaster’.
What evidence does Jackson et al. (2012) provide regarding the claim that the FFM should show temporal stability?
EXTRA
Studied agreeableness over time for civilians and military service groups, found that although both increased over time, A increased significantly more in the civilian group. This suggests that life events can change personality - the FFM is not temporally stable.
What evidence does Tang et al. (2009) provide regarding the claim that the FFM should show temporal stability?
EXTRA
Studied personality change during depression treatment - the effect of SSRIs, found significant changes in neuroticism (decrease) and extraversion (increase). If personality can be altered by SSRIs, it’s not stable.
Outline the item selection critique of the FFM.
Adjectives selected to fit the Big 5 - Deary (1996) reanalysed data from 1915 pre-Big 5 (no selection bias) and found SIX factors that resemble the big 5 with agreeableness split across two factors (modesty and being liked).
You get out what you put in
Outline Block’s (1995) general critique of the FFM.
EXTRA
- Item selection
- Factor analysis (N of factors)
- Items are not orthogonal
- Correlations are asymmetrical, there’s not a linear relationship between traits. For example talkative is correlated with gregarious, but not vice versa.
- Deciding on the number of factors
Outline Block’s (1995) lexical critique of the FFM.
EXTRA
- Not scientific
- Single words cannot capture the complexities of behaviour
- Students used as raters: they’re not experienced enough
- Lay people: novices not experts
What is the WEIRD problem critique of the FFM?
Gurven et al. (2013)
o Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (Heinrich et al. 2010)
o All cross cultural FFM work on WEIRD sample
o If truly universal, should see FFM in preliterate, hunter-gatherer tribes
o Examined FFM in the Tsimane, forager-horticulturalist people in lowland Bolivia
o Live in extended family clusters, 50-300
o No evidence for FFM - Low reliabilities and no stable factor structures
What are the differences in structure between the big 5 and the FFM?
FFM = trait hierarchy (domains-facets-behaviours), Big 5 = no hierarchy
What are the differences in origins between the big 5 and the FFM?
FFM = Biology – genetics, neurology, evolution:
- Traits derived from biological processes, have a genetic base and stable over time and across cultures
Big 5 = Natural language:
- Evolved rich corpus of adjectives to describe own and other’s behaviours. Analysis of this provides description of main domain of personality
What are the differences in measurement between the big 5 and the FFM?
FFM: - Via questionnaire items designed to reflect causal role in behaviour at facet levels - 6 facets underlie each domain Big 5: - Via adjectives – calm, agreeable etc. - More decontextualised
What are the differences in causality between the big 5 and the FFM?
FFM:
- Traits cause behaviour and are themselves caused by biology
- Traits are not deterministic – dependent on environment
Big 5:
- No formal causal statement just represents natural language
What is the five factor model structure?
Correlations between domains and facets
Correlation between facets of each domain and no correlation between facets of different domains - i.e. Anxiety correlates well with and only with anger, depression, self-consciousness, impulsivity and vulnerability which all make up neuroticism domain
Consistently across studies, adjectives load on to 5 domains and the FFM facets onto their target 5 domains
McCrae, Robert, Terracciano & Antonio (2005):
- Each of six facets for each domain is a marker of their domain and not for any of the others
