McCrae and Costa Five Factor Model

Mccrae and Costa’s Five Factor Trait Theory

• Trait - habitual patterns of behavior, thought, emotions that are relatably stable for a specific time.

• How many traits does a person possess? how do we measure traits? how many traits exist? — these are the questions of this theory.

Gordon Allport (kasama niya si Odbert dito)- used dictionary and found 17, 953 words that describe the trait of a person.

• compromise: it is good as it gives “individualistic” or unique description to people but it’s marami.

Raymond Cattel - used words search that describe a trait, like what Allport did. The difference was, he turned these descriptions into questions. Then, he used L-data (life data) na pinasagutan sa secondary source para malaman ang trait ng target person. Gumamit naman ng Q-data (questionnaire data) na pinasagutan sa target person. They correlate this (for each people na pinag-aaralan niya) and he found clusters.

• the clusters are then turned to 16 personality factor traits.

• He was commended from using data. His approach was called “empiricist approach”. Speficially, an exploratory factor analysis

Eysenck /ay-singk/ - empiricist approach din. it used confirmatory factor analysis

• Imbis na 16 ay 3 personality factors daw - extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism (look at the bullets)

  • high-low: outgoing warm or reserved

  • high-low: emotionally stable or unstable

  • high-low: sociability/nakiki-halubilo or anti-social

Criteria for trait theory: (not needed to review)

• ito ito raw yung dapat makita sa isang theory.

1. psychometric soundness - consistency and accuracy.

2. heritability

3. the theory shuold be theoretically making sense

4. it should predict social phenomenon

Paul Costa and Robert Mccrae’s Five Factor Model - it’s an integration of 16 and 3 factor traits from previous people to form their five factor (big five).

• Big five:

1. Neuroticism

a. high - anxious

b. low - calm

• openness

  • High - curious, imaginative, original, creative

  • Low - prefers conventional, routine-inclined, uncreative,

• agreeableness

  • High - trusting, emphatic, helpful, friendly, lenient, people pleaser

  • Low - suspicious, doubtful, uncooperative, competitive

• conscentiousness.

  • High - organized, careful, disciplined

  • Low - disorganized, careless, impulsve

1. Extraversion

   1. high - talking, fun, affectionate

   2. low - reserved, quiet

• It is a big achievement to have the five factor trait turned from taxonomy to theory. Theory generates research and can explain/predict behaviors.

• Taxonomy is mere classification but theory explains behavior and generates research.

• The strength of their five factor was: they observed that traits remain the same until old age provided that the person has no alzhemier’s disease.

Costa and McCrae’s core components of personality

• Basic tendencies - raw material personality capacity and disposition of a person. an example would be “how quickly do you learn?” it can be biological. i am predispositioned to learn abruptly. yung OCEAN ay basic tendencies.

• Characteristic adaptations - ****the ability to change.

• Self-concept - your evaluation of who you are. it does not matter if it’s accurate or not. personal myths are included. it is a form of characteristic adaptations, it changes.

peripheral components of personality

• biological bases - bases of basic tendencies. but note that not only biology (like genes or hormones or brain structure ang nakakaapekto sa basic tendencies). nakakaapekto rin ang early experience.

• objective biography - this does not make sense in the book, but to quote, they said theorists are concerned “with what happened in a person’s life than what the person viewed from such experiences.”

Other things from the book:

1. Cattell and McCrae-Costa used inductive method. Ibig sabihin, they do not have preconcieved statement or hypothesis while doing the research. Others used deductive method.