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THE TRAIT APPROACH TO PERSONALITY :PENCIL2: SPA2 LECTURE 2 - Coggle…
THE TRAIT APPROACH TO PERSONALITY
:PENCIL2:
SPA2 LECTURE 2
Traits
Traits are a fundamental unit of personality
Traits are on a continuum
E.g. Introverted vs Extroverted
Assumptions of Trait Theory
Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time.
Traits are stable across situations
Extroversion can vary across situations (e.g. if you are meeting your partner's parents for the first time you may be less extroverted than if you were going out with friends).
Early days of personality research
Gordon Allport:
Examined the words we use to describe people (the lexical approach)
Identified 18,000 words, 4,500 described traits
Raymond Cattell:
One of the first to use Factor Analysis to identify clusters of attributes that may cluster together to describe the same underlying trait.
171 trait names (from Allport’s 4,500 traits) reduced to 46 surface traits.
46 surface traits entered into Factor Analysis to give 16 clusters of personality factors.
16 different traits that we can measure people on.
Some evidence that 16 factors can be further reduced.
Eysenck's Theory of Personality
Proposed that:
Fundamental traits are biologically based, but the environment can impact on how traits are expressed.
Personality is based on character, temperament, intelligence, physique and nervous system.
Traits are relatively stable.
e.g. trait level --> habitual response --> specific response
e.g. sociable --> talking to people --> introducing self to strangers etc.
EPQ
Extroversion:
High end: sociable, stimulation seeking
Low end: social reticence, stimulation avoidance
People high in E are less likely to acquire anxiety based constraints on behaviour.
Neuroticism:
High end: emotionally unstable, spontaneous
Low end: reflective, deliberate
People whose autonomic nervous system is highly reactive is likely to develop a neurotic disorder -
biological impact on personality
The tendency to respond very emotionally to stimuli is seen as a predisposing condition to the development of a psychological disorder -
environmental impact on personality
Psychoticism:
High end: aggressive, divergent thinking
Low end: empathetic, cautious
Polygenic trait
- depends on contributions from lots of different genes.
People high in P are more likely to develop psychotic disorders; schizotypal disorders, borderline personality disorder.
Not a diagnostic tool though.
People high in extroversion and neuroticism are less susceptible to conditioning that inhibits behaviour, so they are more likely to develop behavioural problems amongst things like anti-social behaviour.
Critiquing Eysenck's Theory
3 factors shown to be stable across time
Cross-cultural validity of EPQ
Child version of EPQ
Theory has significant application in mental health
BUT...
Psychoticism scale has low internal reliability
Is reducing personality to 3 supertraits too simplistic?
The Big Five
Costa & McCrae (1985)
Large samples complete personality questionnaires
Factor analysis carried out to identify clusters
Data driven hypothesis - collect data first and then generate a hypothesis based on the statistical analysis.
O.C.E.A.N
Extroversion
Need for stimulation, sociable, energetic, friendly, assertive.
Agreeableness
Helpful, trusting, considerate
Conscientiousness
Self disciplined, organised and determined.
Neuroticism
Mood swings, emotionally volatile (if high in N)
Openness
Being intellectually curious, willing to consider new ideas and being generally open to new experiences.
NEO-PI-R (1992)
Developed by Costa & McCrae to measure the Big 5.
2400 items
Psychometrically tested
Associations with the Big Five
Hayes & Joseph (2003)
High E and Low N associated with higher happiness levels.
Low N and High C associated with higher life satisfaction.
Stoughton et al. (2013)
Low levels of A associated with ‘bad-mouthing’ on social media (cyber-bullying)
High levels of E associated with social media posting of substance abuse (e.g. photos of drinking alcohol)
Geographical Differences
Rentfrow et al. (2015)
Averages plotted for different areas of the UK.
Blue = Low levels of that trait
Red = High levels of that trait
Possible geographical differences in average OCEAN levels.
High Agreeableness in Scotland
Low Neuroticism in Scotland
High Conscientiousness in the South of England and in Scotland.
Low Neuroticism in the South West
Low Openness in England
Low extroversion in the South West
Bleidorn et al. (2016)
Replicated this study in America.
High Extroversion in Whitewater, WI
Low Extroversion in Portland, OR
High Agreeableness in Jackson, TN
Low Agreeableness in Beverley Hills, CA
Personality, Geographical Area and Self-Esteem
Bleidorn et al. (2016)
High Extraversion = high self esteem regardless of area.
High emotional stability = high self-esteem regardless of area.
Positive correlation between individual and city levels of Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.
E.g. If you are high in openness, you tended to live in an area that was also, on average, high on openness (and the same applies for Agreeableness and Conscientiousness)
And this was positively related to self-esteem.
Why do we get Geographical Differences?
Ecological Influence
Physicality of place affects attitudes and behaviours.
Social Influence
Social norms affect attitudes and behaviours.
Selective Migration
Certain groups of people are more likely to migrate (openness, extraversion, agreeableness)
Evidence of a 6th factor?
Trait models: Expanding on the Big 5…
Ashton, Lee & Son (2000)
- evidence of a 6th factor
Positively loaded characteristics included:
Truthful
Honest
Fair
Loyal
Trustworthy
Negatively loaded characteristics included:
Untruthful
Dishonest
Greedy
Sly
Corrupt
HEXACO Model
Lee & Ashton (2008)
H
onesty-Humility
E
motionality
E
x
traversion
A
greeableness
C
onscientiousness
O
penness
6 dimensions have been reliably found across languages including; Dutch, French, German, Korean.
Critique of the 6th Factor
Saucier (2002)
- Honesty-Humility too similar to Agreeableness
Some evidence that the 6th factor is more like spirituality
(Macdonald, 2000)
Some evidence that there are many other factors independent of the Big 5 (e.g. Thrifty, frugal, miserly - see p.186 of textbook)
The Dark Triad
Narcissism
Entitlement, superiority, grandiosity, vanity, inflated self-assessment
Machiavellianism
Cold, manipulative
Psychopathy
Low empathy, low anxiety, thrill-seeking, high impulsivity
The Dark Triad and Outcomes
Furnham (2010)
Workplace
: manipulation of others to ‘get ahead’ (e.g. gain leadership roles)
Education
: can appear to do better - more likely to cheat/plagiarise
Mating behaviour:
men more likely to pursue short-term relationships, to poach others’ partners and to be poached.
The Dark Tetrad
Evidence of a fourth trait -
Sadism
Dark triad and Sadism (Chabrol et al., 2015)
600 high school students
All four traits correlated with each other
Four clusters of students:
Low on all four (28%)
High on Machiavellianism and Sadism (29%)
High on Narcissism and Psychopathy (28%)
High on all four (15%)
Issues with the Trait Approach
Data driven
What about theory?
Descriptive nature
Number of factors
Cognitive limitations and limitations of analysis
Labelling of factors
Judgement of researchers
Cultural issues with current models