Trait Theories Notes

Trait Theories

Introduction

• Instructor: Irene Tsang (irenetsang1510@gmail.com)

• Initial activity involves listing 5 words that describe personality (e.g., outgoing, shy).

• Another group activity creating a list of 20 words to describe personality.

Key Figures

• Gordon Allport (1897 – 1967)

  • His theory is one of the first humanistic theories, influencing Kelly, Maslow, and Rogers.

  • His ideas have been integrated into the mainstream understanding of personality.

• Hans Eysenck (1916 – 1997)

  • Introduced clinical psychology as a profession in the US.

  • Researched personality, intelligence, behavioral genetics, social attitudes, and behavior therapy.

• Raymond B. Cattell (1905 – 1998)

  • A major contributor to the science of human personality.

  • His work covered personality, temperament, motivation, emotion, and factor analysis.

Questions for Trait Theorists

• How can we characterize the consistent ways in which individuals differ in their feelings, thoughts, and behavior?

• How many different traits are needed to describe these personality differences?

• To what extent do individuals have a genetic inherited basis?

• If individuals can be described in terms of their characteristic traits, how are we to explain variability in behavior?

Major Concepts and Assumptions of Trait Theory

• A trait is a relatively stable and enduring tendency to behave in a particular way.

• Traits refer to consistent patterns in how individuals behave, feel, and think.

• Traits provide a shorthand method for describing someone's personality.

• People possess broad predispositions, called traits, to respond in particular ways.

• Human behavior and personality can be organized into a hierarchy, where behavior can be seen as specific responses, and traits can be linked in higher levels of organization.

Five-Factor Model

• Allport, Eysenck, & Cattell: Traits are the fundamental units of personality.

• 1980s: Improvements in methods, especially factor analysis (self-ratings, peer ratings, psychological staff ratings), led to a consensus.

• Traits can be usefully organized in terms of five broad, bipolar dimensions.

  • Goldberg, John, Costa & McCrae

Allport’s Theory of Personality Traits

• Gordon Allport is considered the founder of trait theory.

• Trait theory is sometimes viewed as dry, inflexible, and not paying attention to the rich and interesting developmental aspects of personality.

• Allport is generally considered to have been humanistic in his approach.

• Within his effort to understand the individual, Allport focused on traits, psychological phenomena that allow some ability to predict the behavior of an individual.

• Allport was also concerned about factors that negatively affect people, such as prejudice.

• Allport went through the dictionary and selected every term that could distinguish differences among personalities.

• Allport found about 18,000 terms of which 4,500 were considered to fit their definition of personality traits.

• Allport defined traits as stable and consistent tendencies in how an individual adjusts to his or her environment.

• Allport was one of the first theorists to make systematic distinctions among traits in terms of their importance.

• From the 4,500 personality traits he identified, he organized and distinguished the 3 levels of traits.

  • Cardinal Traits (核心特質): dominant trait that characterizes nearly all of a person’s behavior, so basic that all of a person’s activities can be traced back to the trait.

  • Central Traits (主要特質): prominent, general dispositions found in anyone, basic building blocks of personality.

  • Secondary Traits (次要特質): dispositions that surface in some situations but not others, inconsistent or superficial aspects of a person.

• Allport believed that traits are the basic units of personality.

• Traits actually exist and are based in the nervous system.

• Traits can be defined by three properties: frequency, intensity, and range of situations.

• For example, a very submissive person would be very submissive over a wide range of situations

• Traits are generalized and personalized determining tendencies consistent and stable modes of an individual’s adjustment to his environment.

• Traits are different from states and activities which are temporary, brief, and caused by external circumstances.

• Allport is known for his concept of functional autonomy.

• Although the motives of an adult may have their roots in the tension-reducing motives of the child, the adult grows out of them and becomes independent of these earlier tension-reducing efforts.

• Allport is also known for his emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual.

• Allport emphasizes the utility of idiographic research, or the in-depth study of individuals.

Dimensional Approach

• Trait Theories assume that personality can be described by a number of continuous dimensions.

  • Eysenck’s two-dimensional classification system: introversion – extraversion, stability – instability

  • The “Big Five” personality traits (OCEAN): Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism

Hans Eysenck

• He thinks a trait is a group of correlated habit; i.e. a person who has one of these habits tends to have the other habits that constitute the trait

  • Extroversion / Introversion

  • Neuroticism / Stability

  • Later, one more dimension: Psychoticism vs. Superego control

Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality.

• Figure 7.2 Eysenck's hierarchical model of personality.

Eysenck's model of personality structure

• Eysenck described personality structure as a hierarchy of traits. In this scheme, a few higher-order traits, such as extraversion, determine a host of lower-order traits, which determine a person's habitual responses.

• Concept of trait as a consistent and relatively permanent tendency in behavior.

• One’s personality could change throughout lifespan, but more dramatically during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

• Between 20 and 30, both men and women become less emotional, and somewhat more likely to be cooperative and self-disciplined.

• Eysenck’s Dimensional approach to classification of personality system

• Personality changes are often associated with becoming more mature.

• Men and women, all show the same stable personality pattern after age 30. Because personality is stable, it is somewhat predictable.

• However, individuals may struggle to overcome or change certain traits (e.g., become less shy, more confident), which means one can always refine his or personality.

• Traits are also useful because they help predict someone's behavior.

• But one must keep in mind the person-situation interaction, which means you must take into account how the person's traits will interact with the situation's cues.

• Accuracy in predicting behaviors across situations can be increased if a person is observed under different conditions.

• The person-situation interaction means that a person's behavior results from an interaction between his or her traits and the effects of being in a particular situation.

• People behave differently at a wedding, funeral, or friend's graduation because each of these situations puts our different cues to which you respond.

• The trait concept is necessary to explain the consistency of behavior, whereas recognition of the importance of the situation is necessary to explain the variability of behavior.

Cattell’s Trait Theories to Personality

• Raymond Cattell provides a dramatic contrast to Allport. His approach to trait theory was purely scientific and mathematical (factor analysis). He focused on psychological testing, and made extraordinary contributions to psychology in this regard.

• Cattell distinguishes among three methods in the study of personality: clinical, bi-variate, and multivariate.

• Cattell believes that the most important technique in multivariate research is factor analysis.

• Factor Analysis a statistical method that finds relationships among many items and allows them to be grouped together.

• Among the many possible distinctions between traits, two are very important:

  • The first is:

    • ability traits: clever, musical, sporty, etc.

    • temperament traits: easy-going, etc.

    • dynamic traits: sociable, narrow-minded

  • The second is:

    • surface traits: anxious, nervous, etc.

    • source traits: introvert, extrovert, etc.

• Cattell distinguishes three sources of data which are similar to the L-O-T-S classification of data sources: Life record data (L-data) , questionnaire data (Q-data) and objective-test data (OT-data).

• Life Record Data (L-data) : related to behavior in actual, everyday situations such as school performance or interactions with peers.

• Questionnaire data (Q-data) : Involves self-report data or responses to questionnaire

• OT data, involves behavioral miniature situations in which the subject is unaware of the relationship between the response and the personality characteristic being measured.

• Cattell began with the factor analysis of L-data and found 15 factors that appeared to account for most of personality. He then set out to determine whether comparable factors could be found in Q-data.

• Thousand of questionnaire items were written and administered to large numbers of normal people. Factor analyses were run to see which items went together. The main result of this research is a questionnaire known as the Sixteen Personality Factor (16 P.F.) Questionnaire.

Cattell's 16 Personality Factors

Goldberg's Big Five Personality Theory

• Lewis R. Goldberg is a pioneer in developing the ‘Big Five” Personality Theory.

• He has experiences teaching in various countries including Netherlands, Turkey, and the U. S.

• He has served for the U. S. Secret Service (1980 – 1986) and U. S. Peace Corp (1962 – 1966).

• The five-factor model organizes personality traits in five cardinal traits:

  • Openness (開放性特質)

  • Conscientiousness (自控性特質)

  • Extraversion (外向性特質)

  • Agreeableness (合群性特質)

  • Neuroticism (神經性特質)

• These five factors became known as the Big Five, or the OCEAN.

• Differences among trait theorists have raised a fundamental question: If traits are basic unit of personality, why can’t trait theorists agree on which and how many units are basic?

• At this time, a consensus is indeed emerging on the five- factor model of personality, or what has come to be known as the Big Five.

Big Five Dimensions

• Goldberg suggested that any model for structuring individual differences will have to encompass – at some level – something like “Big Five” dimensions

• Big was meant to refer to the finding that each factor subsumes a large number of more specific traits. The Big Five are almost as broad and abstract in the personality hierarchy as “superfactors”.

• The Big Five were designed to capture those personality traits that people consider most important.

• Goldberg has spelled out the rationale for this approach in terms of the fundamental lexical (language) hypotheses.

• Costa and McCrae acknowledged the important role that Eysenck played when he identified extraversion (外向) and neuroticism (神經質) as second-order personality factors.

• However, they disagreed with Eysenck regarding psychoticism. They initially proposed a different factor called openness (開放).

• Costa and McCrae have moved beyond the third factor of openness, and added two more second-order factors: agreeableness (親和) and conscientiousness (盡責).

• NEO Personality Inventory (or NEO-PI), later they developed the Revised NEO-PI, or NEO-PI-R, which also measures agreeableness and conscientiousness (see McCrae & Costa, 2003).

Big Five Personality Traits

• The Big Five Personality Traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Characteristics of the High Scorer v. Low Scorer

Psychological Testing

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Instrument (MBTI) Personality Test

  • Four dichotomies – 16 possible psychological types

  • None of these are better or worse

  • Individuals naturally prefer one overall combination of type differences

MBTI - Analysts

• INTJ: Imaginative and strategic thinkers, with a plan for everything.

• INTP: Innovative inventors with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

• ENTJ: Bold, imaginative, and strong-willed leaders, always finding a way - or making one.

• ENTP: Smart and curious thinkers who cannot resist an intellectual challenge.

MBTI - Diplomats

• INFJ: Quiet and mystical, yet very inspiring and tireless idealists.

• INFP: Poetic, kind, and altruistic people, always eager to help a good cause.

• ENFJ: Charismatic and inspiring leaders, able to mesmerize their listeners.

• ENFP: Enthusiastic, creative, and sociable free spirits who can always find a reason to smile.

MBTI - Sentinels

• ISTJ: Practical and fact-minded individuals whose reliability cannot be doubted.

• ISFJ: Very dedicated and warm protectors, always ready to defend their loved ones.

• ESTJ: Excellent administrators, unsurpassed at managing things or people.

• ESFJ: Extraordinarily caring, social, and popular people, always eager to help.

MBTI - Explorers

• ISTP: Bold and practical experimenters, masters of all kinds of tools.

• ISFP: Flexible and charming artists, always ready to explore and experience something new.

• ESTP: Smart, energetic, and very perceptive people who truly enjoy living on the edge.

• ESFP: Spontaneous, energetic, and enthusiastic entertainers - life is never boring around them.

Additional Assessment Methods

• Personality Assessment (e.g. Test Anxiety Inventory)

• Psychoanalytic Assessment

• Projective Tests (e.g. Rorschach Test, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Phenomenological Assessment (e.g. Q-Sort)

• Trait Assessment: Personality Inventory e.g. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), 16-PF Test

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

• The MMPI-2 is designed with 10 clinical scales which assess 10 major categories of abnormal human behavior, and four validity scales, which assess the person’s general test-taking attitude and whether they answered the items on the test in a truthful and accurate manner.

• MMPI-2 is made up 10 clinical subscales:

  1. Hypochondriasis (Hs)

  2. Depression (D)

  3. Hysteria (Hy)

  4. Psychopathic Deviate (Pd)

  5. Masculinity/Femininity (Mf)

  6. Paranoia (Pa)

  7. Psychasthenia (Pt)

  8. Schizophrenia (Sc)

  9. Hypomania (Ma)

  10. Social Introversion (Si)