HANS EYSENCK (Biologically based factor theory)
CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFYING FACTORS
Hans Jurgen Eysenck was born in Berlin on March 4,
1916, the only child of Ruth Werner, a starlet and later
became a German silent film star under the stage name
of Helga Molander. Anton Eduard Eysenck, his father
was a comedian, singer, and actor.
1. Psychometric Evidence - the factor must be
reliable and replicable
His parents divorced when he was 2, and he was raised
by his grandmother, seeing his parents only once or
twice a year. Eysenck described his grandmother as “unselfish, caring, altruistic, and altogether too good for this
world”. He was a star athlete and left Germany to
escape the Nazis in 1934, his grandmother, however,
died in a concentration camp around 1941 or 1942
He eventually began studying psychology at University
College in London, under the renowned Cyril Burt. He
earned his Ph.D. in 1940, and during World War II he
worked as a research psychologist using factor analysis
to study personality.
* Only child of a theatrical family
* He grew up with little parental discipline & few strict
controls over his behavior
FACTOR THEORY – compared to Cattell
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Eysenck was more likely to theorize before
collecting and factor analyzing data
Extracted fewer factors (3 general factors)
Used a wider variety of approaches to gather
data
The personality theory of Hans Eysenck has
strong psychometric and biological components
Eysenck used orthogonal roation
BIOLOGICAL BASES OF PERSONALITY
1. Temperament - biological based tendency to
behave in particular ways from very early life
2. Understanding how heredity affects
behavior and personality; psychologists turn
to the science of behavioral genetics or the
scientific study of the role of heredity in
behavior
3. Biological aspects of personality are assessed
using brain imaging techniques
2. Heritability – genetics, eliminates learned
characteristic
3. Make sense from a theoretical view –
deductive method of investigation beginning with
a theory and then gathering data that are
logically consistent with that theory
4. Possess social relevance - it must be
demonstrated that mathematically derived
factors have a relationship (not necessarily
causal) with such socially relevant variables as
drug addiction, outstanding performance in
sports, psychotic behavior
HIERARCHY OF BEHAVIORAL ORGANIZATION
1. Specific acts or cognitions – individual
behaviors or thoughts that may or may not be
characteristic of a person.
2. Habitual acts or cognitions – responses that
recur under similar conditions.
3. Several related habitual responses from a
trait – defines as “important semi-permanent
personality dispositions.”
4.Types or Super factors - Made up of several
inter-related traits
DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY
According to Eysenck, the sixteen primary
personality factors identified by Cattell in the 16PF test were unreliable and could not be
replicated. Eysenck chose instead to focus on
higher order factor analysis, and he identified
three “superfactors:” extraversion,
neuroticism, and psychoticism. According to
Eysenck, higher order factors are similar to
types, and they represent combinations of
primary personality traits.
Extravert -principal difference between
extraverts and introverts is one of cortical arousal
level.
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Largely influenced by genetic factors
(temperamental trait) whereas the
sociability aspect of extraversion is more
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likely to be influenced by one’s
environment.
Characterized by sociability,
impulsiveness, jocularity, liveliness,
optimism, and quick-wittedness
Bipolar unit: introverts are quiet,
passive, unsociable, careful, reserved,
thoughtful, pessimistic, peaceful, sober,
and controlled.
Neuroticism- refers to one’s emotional stability,
or lack thereof. It incorporates mood
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People who score high on neuroticism
often have tendency to overreact
emotionally and to have difficulty
returning to normal state
Has a strong hereditary component
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Studies report people high in it have
traits: anxiety, hysteria, and OCD
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Often complain of physical symptoms:
headache/backache, but they also may be
free from psychological symptoms
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Bipolar end is "stability"
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Diathesis can be a predisposition
Psychoticism- superego function
Children who score high on a measure of
psychoticism tend to have behavior problems and
learning difficulties, they become loners, skip
school, commit crimes, and are generally disliked
by teachers and peers
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P is a bipolar factor, with psychoticism on
one pole and superego on the other.
Psychoticism is independent of both E and
N. The latest and weakest of Eysenck's
personality factors
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High P scorers are often egocentric,
cold, nonconforming, impulsive, hostile,
aggressive, suspicious, psychopathic and
antisocial while Low P scorers tend to be
altruistic, highly socialized, empathic,
caring, cooperative, conforming, and
conventional
Diathesis-Stress Model - Some people are
vulnerable to illness because they have either a
genetic or on acquired weakness that predispose
them to an illness.
MEASURING PERSONALITY
1. Maudsley Personality Inventory, or MPI- it
assessed only E and N and yieldedsome
correlation between these two factors.
2. For this reason, he developed another test, The
Eysenck Personality Inventory, or EPI. The
EPI contains a lie (L) scale to detect faking, but
more importantly, it measures extraversion and
neuroticism independently, with a near zero
correlationbetween E and N
3. The Eysenck Personality Inventory was
extended to children 7 to 16 years of age by
Sybil B. G. Eysenck, who developed the
Junior EPI.
The EPI was still a two-factor
inventory, so consequently Hans and Sybil
published a third personality test, namely the
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
(EPQ), which included a psychoticism (P)
scale. The EPQ, which has both an adult and
a junior version, is a revision of the stillpublished EPI.
4. Subsequent criticisms of the P scale led toyet
another revision, the Eysenck Personality
Questionnaire-Revised.
PERSONALITY AS PREDICTOR
- Psychoticism (P) is related to genius and
creativity
- High P scorers and high E scorers are
likely to be troublemakers as children
- Thus, the high E scoring troublemakers
tend to grow into productive adults, while
the high P scoring troublemakers tend to
continue.
DAVID BUSS: EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF
PERSONALITY
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High P scorers are genetically more vulnerable to
stress than are low P scorers.
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David Buss was born April 14, 1953 in Indianapolis
Indiana
Arnold H. Buss, Sr. and Edith Nolte.
Arnold H. Buss Sr. earned his PhD in Psychology
from Indiana University in the early 1950s and was
a professor of psychology at the University of
Pittsburgh, Rutgers, and finally the University of
Texas, where he is currently Professor Emeritus.
Arnold Buss’ research focused on aggression,
psychopathology, self-consciousness, and social
anxiety.
Overview of Evolutionary Theory of Personality
• Charles Darwin (1859) laid the foundation for
modern theory of evolution, even though the
theory itself has been around since the ancient
Greeks.
Darwin’s major contribution was not the theory
of evolution but rather an explanation for how
evolution works, namely through selection
(natural and sexual) and chance. Chance occurs mostly
through random genetic mutation and we won’t have
much to say about chance. Instead, we focus on
selection of three different kinds:
Three types of Selection:
1. Artificial Selection – (Breeding) occurs
when humans select particular desirable traits
in a breeding species.
2. Natural Selection – a more general form of
artificial selection in which nature rather than
people select traits.
- occurs when traits become either more or less
common in a species over a long period of time
because they do or do not lead to greater
survivability
3. Sexual Selection – operates when members
of the opposite sex find certain traits more
appealing and attractive than others and
thereby produce offspring with those traits.
Traits – get "selected" simply because they lead to
greater survivability and hence more offspring with
that trait survive to reproduction age.
Three distinct outcomes of evolutionary process:
1. Adaptations
– evolved strategies that solve important
survival/reproductive problems.
-Often the products of natural or sexual
selection and must have a genetic or inherited
bases to them.
2. By-products
– Traits that happen as a result of adaptations
but are not part of the functional design.
- “Come along for the ride” of natural or
sexual selection. e.g., scientific ability or
driving skill
3. Noise – also known as “random effects”,
occurs when evolution produces random
changes in design that do not affect function.
-tends to be produced by chance and not
selected for. e.g., belly button “innie” or “outie”
Principles of Evolutionary Psychology- can be
identified as the scientific study of human thought and
behavior from an evolutionary perspective and focuses
on four big questions:
1. Why is the human mind designed the
way it is and how did it come to take its
current form?
2. How is the human mind designed; that is,
what are its parts and current structure?
3. What function do the parts of the mind
have? And what is it designed to do?
4. How do the evolved mind and current
environment interact to shape human
behavior?
EVOLUTIONARY PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY
- focuses on the why of behavior, rather than
the how of biological models, or the what of
descriptive taxonomies. it is "best regarded as
a theory about the origins, rather than the
content of human nature"
The Nature and Nurture of Personality
behavior and personality are caused by either
internal-qualities or external-environment ones
- “what causes the individual differences”
Fundamental Situational Error - the tendency to
assume that the environment alone can produce
behavior void of a stable internal mechanism.
• ”without internal mechanisms, there can be no
behavior”
Fundamental Attribution error - describes our
tendency to ignore situational and environmental
forces when explaining the behavior of other people
and instead focus on internal dispositions.
- is the tendency people have to overemphasize
personal characteristics and ignore situational
factors in judging others’ behavior. We tend to
believe that others do bad things because they are
bad people.
• The two must be involved and interact with
each other
Adaptive Problems and their Solutions:
Mechanisms – the process of evolution by natural
selection which produced two basic problems of life.
They:
Operate according to principles in
different adaptive domains
Number in the dozens or hundreds
(maybe even thousands)
Are complex solutions to specific adaptive
problems (survival, reproduction)
Survival – e.g food, danger, predation, etc.
Reproduction – e.g mating, intimacy, and trust.
Hostile forces of nature which diseases, parasites,
food shortages, harsh climate, predators and other
natural hazards.
Adaptation are often product of natural or sexual
selection or must have a genetic or inherited basis to
them.
Specific classes of mechanisms:
Physical Mechanisms - Physiological organs and
systems that evolved to solve problems of survival
Physiological Mechanisms - Internal and specific
cognitive, motivational, and personality systems that
solve specific survival and reproduction problems.
Evolutionary Biology – focuses on the origin of
physical mechanisms
Evolutionary Psychology – Focuses on the origin of
psychological mechanisms
Evolved Mechanisms - psychological mechanisms
relevant to personality can be grouped into three
categories:
1. Goals/Drives/Motives
2. Emotions
3. Personality Traits
Motivation and Emotion as Evolved Mechanisms
*These drives are “adaptations” because they directly
affect the health and well-being of a person.
Two goals and motives that act as evolved
mechanisms:
1. Power - aggression, dominance,
achievement, status, “negotiation of
hierarchy.
2. Intimacy - Love, attachment, “reciprocal of
alliance”
Forms of power:
1. Aggression
2. Dominance
3. Achievement status
4. “Negotiation of Hierarchy”
Forms of Intimacy:
1. Love
2. Attachment
3. “Reciprocal Alliance”
Personality Traits as Evolved Mechanisms
- Adaptive significance of behavioral dispositions
1. Surgency – involves the disposition to experience
positive emotional states to engage in one’s
environment and to be sociable and confident.
“Hierarchy Proclivities” – how people negotiate and
decide who is dominant and who is submissive.
2. Agreeableness/ Hostility – marked by a person’s
willingness to cooperate and help the group on the one
hand or to be hostile and aggressive to the other.
3. Emotional Stability/ Neuroticism
Emotional Stability - involves one’s ability to handle
stress or not. Some people are calm under stress while
others are high strung much of the time.
Neuroticism – according to Mccrae and Costa, the
tendency to experience negative emotions such as
anxiety, guilt, and sadness.
4. Conscientiousness –people who are careful and
detail oriented as well as focused and reliable.
5. Openness – involves one’s propensity for innovation
and ability to solve problems.
ORIGINS OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Environmental Sources
Early Experiential Calibration
- that childhood experiences make some
behavioral strategies more likely than
others. attachment, for example, between
caregiver and infant is inherently adaptive—
without such attachment the baby does not
survive the first few weeks of life.
Alternative Niche Specialization
- that different people find what makes them
stand out from others in order to gain
attention from parents or potential mate.
Inclusive Fitness
- the idea that we are likely to help a brother
than a cousin and a cousin more than a
stranger because the brother is more
closely related to us, and cousin is more
closely related than a stranger.
Mechanism Are Optimally Designed evolutionary
- change occurs over hundreds of generations
and there is always a lag between
adaptation and environment. human
preference fatty and salty food is a good
example.
Heritable/Genetic Sources – Heritability is the
obsess, rigid
extent to which a trait is under genetic influence.
AGREEABLENESS
Non-adaptive sources – some sources of individual
Harmonious relationship Subject to social cheating
do not benefit survival or reproductive success and
COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS IN EVOLUTIONARY
hence categorize as non-adaptive.
THEORY
Maladaptive traits – are those that actively harm
-Evolution implies GENETIC DETERMINISM
one’s chance for survival or decrease one’s sexual
(Behavior as set and void of influence from the
attractiveness.
environment)
Genetic Defect – mutation harmful to the other
Epigenetics – change in gene function that does not
person
involve changes in DNA.
Environmental Trauma – brain or spinal cord injury,
-Mechanisms are OPTIMALLY DESIGNED
which can also lead to maladaptive differences.
- Nature and Nurture
NEO- BUSSIAN EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES OF
PERSONALITY
1.
MacDonald (1995)
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Tied personality to evolved motivational/
emotional systems.
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Range
of
personality
variations
are
alternate strategies for for maximizing
future.
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Tied personality to evolved strategies for
solving adaptive problems.
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Had
only
dominance,
nurturance,
4
personality
dimensions:
conscientiousness,
neuroticism
(left
out
openness)
2.
Nettle (2006)
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Hypothesizes that there are fitness costs
and benefits of the Big 5 dimensions of
personality during ancestral period of
evolution.
BENEFIT COSTS
EXTRAVERSION
Mating success, Physical risks Social allies, Explore
environment
NEUROTICISM
Vigilance to danger Stress and Depression
OPENNESS
Creativity Unusual beliefs
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
Deliverable social quality