Raymond Cattell
(1905-1998)
Ms. Arooj Nazir
Personality is what permits a prediction of what a
person will do in a given situation.
Introduction to Cattell’s personality theory
• Cattel’s goal was to predict what a person will do or how a person will
behave in response to a given stimulus situation.
• He did no claim to change or modify behaviors from undesirable to
desirable.
• Previously, people wanted to change their abnormal behavior to
normal through case study method by psychoanalytic.
• Cattell’s aim was to study their personality, not to treat it. he believed
it was impossible, or at least unwise to attempt to change a
personality before understanding fully what was to be modified.
• His theory did not originate in a clinical setting rather it was a rigorously
scientific, relying on observations of behaviors and masses of data.
• He used FACTOR ANALYSIS: a statistical technique based on correlations
between a number of measures, which may be explained in terms of
underlying factors.
• Two sets of data about a person combined to form a single dimension, or
factor that describes the information provided by both sets of data.
• Factors as traits-mental elements of the personality.
• Only when we know someone’s traits we can predict how someone will
behave.
• 1/3 personality is genetically based and 2/3 social and environment
influences.
Life of Cattell(1905-1998)
• Born in England, he recalls in his autobiography that his childhood years were happy and
filled with such activities as sailing, exploring caves and swimming.
• However, the relative tranquility of his childhood was interrupted when England entered
World War I. Barely 9 years old, Cattell saw hundreds of wounded soldiers returning from
France being treated in a converted hospital near his home. He later realized how these
experiences shaped his own life: “Silently there came an abiding sense of seriousness into my
life, compounded of a feeling that one could not be less dedicated than those wounded
soldiers and the need to accomplish while one might” (Cattell, 1974).
• At 16 Cattell entered University of London, where he majored in physics and chemistry.
Disagreeing the advice of classmates and friends, Cattell decided to pursue a graduate
degree and career in psychology. He received his Ph.D from University of London.
• After receiving his doctorate in psychology, he went to New York and spend a year as a
research associate of the Edward Throndike at Columbia University, subsequently
teaching at Harvard and University of Illinois. After retirement he founded the institute
for research and remained actively involved in research and writing. Cattell has published
some 35 books and 400 research articles in the course of his career. Notable works
include Description and measurement of personality; The scientific analysis of
personality.
• Cattell did not begin his work through clinical impressions or intuitive notions about
human nature like many other theorists. Rather, his approach to personality is based on
empirical methods of research. His scientific model of behavior has resulted in complex
system of personality. Despite the complexity of his theory, his objective behavioral data
is to be applauded and demand serious consideration by the student of personality.
• Like Allport, he believes that traits constitute the core structure of personality and are
ultimately responsible for what a person will do in a given situation. Also like Allport,
Cattell distinguishes between common and unique traits. However, he disagrees with
Allport’s view that traits actually exist within the person. For Cattell, traits do not have
any real physical status and as such can be inferred only from precise measurement of
overt behavior.
Cattell’s approach to Personality traits
• Traits: relatively permanent reaction tendencies that are the basic
structural unit of the personality.
Common Traits and Unique Traits
• Common traits: traits possessed in some degree by all persons. Examples:
intelligence, extraversion. Everyone has these traits but some have greater
extent than others. Cattell’s reason for suggesting that common traits are
universal is that all people have a similar hereditary potential and are
subject to similar social pressures at least within the same culture.
• Unique traits: traits possessed by one or a few persons.
• Unique traits are particularly apparent in our interests and attitudes. For
example, one person may have a consuming interest in genealogy(study of
families and family history, tracing linkages), whereas another may be
passionately interested in Civil Wars battles or baseball or Chinese martial
arts.
Ability, temperament and Dynamic Traits
• Ability traits determine how efficiently we will be able to work toward
a goals. Intelligence is an ability trait; our level of intelligence will
affect the ways in which we strive for our goals.
• Temperament traits describes the general style and emotional tone of
our behavior. E.g. how assertive, easy going, or irritable we are. These
traits affect the ways we act and react to situations.
• Dynamic Traits are the driving forces of behavior. They define our
motivation interests and ambitions.
Surface traits and source traits
• A surface trait is represented by a set of behavioral characteristics
that all seems to “hang” together. For instance, the observed
characteristics of inability to concentrate, indecision and restlessness
may cluster together to form the surface trait of neuroticism. Here,
the trait of neuroticism is evidenced by a cluster of overt elements
that seem to go.
• Cattell concluded that approximately 16 source traits constitute the
underlying structure of personality. These personality traits are
perhaps best known in connection with a scale that now measures
them: the 16PF (16 personality Factor).
• Source traits, in contrast are the basic underlying structures which
constitutes the building blocks of personality. They exist at a ‘deeper’ level
of the personality and are the causes of behavior in diverse domains over
an extended period of time.
• social boldness, dominance, and openness to change
• Surface traits are very obvious and can be easily identified by other people,
whereas source traits are less visible to other people and appear to underlie
several different aspects of behavior.
• Surface traits are considered one construct of multiple traits that go
together. For example, being altruistic would be a surface trait while
source traits that comprise this would be being unselfishness, not greedy,
sharing, and being thoughtful.
Constitutional Traits and Environment Mold Traitsinteraction between personal and situational
variables
• Cattell maintains that source traits can be decided into two subtypes –
depending on their origins. Constitutional traits derive from the
biological and physiological conditions of the person. For example,
recovery from cocaine addiction may cause a person to be momentarily
irritable, depressed and anxious. Cattell would contend that these
behaviors result from changes in the person’s physiology and thus reflect
constitutional source traits.
• Environmental traits, on the other hand, are determined by influences in
the social and physical environment. These traits reflect learned
characteristics and styles of behaving and form a pattern that is imprinted
on the personality by the individual’s environment. Thus, a person who is
raised in Lahore behaves differently than a person who grows up in Okara
16PF (Sixteen Personality Factor
Questionnaire
DYNAMIC TRAITS: THE MOTIVATING FORCE
• Cattell described dynamic traits as the traits concerned with motivation. Cattell believed that a
personality theory that failed to consider the impact of dynamic , or motivating , forces is
incomplete, like trying in describe an engine but failing to mention the type of fuel on which it
run.
• Ergs and Sentiments
• Two type of dynamic, motivating traits.
• The word erg derives from the Greek word ergon, which means work or energy.
• Cattell used erg to denote the concept of instinct or drive.
• Ergs are the innate energy source or driving force of all behaviors, the basic units of motivation
that direct as toward specific goals.
• Erg is the permanent structure of the personality.
Cattell’s factor-analytic research identified 11 ergs.
• These are:
• anger
• Appeal
• Curiosity
• Disgust
• Gregariousness (friendliness, openness)
• Hunger
• Protection
• Security
• Self assertion -the confident and forceful expression or promotion of oneself, one's views, or one's desires.
• Self submission
• sex
• Sentiment is an environmental-mold source trait because it derived
from external social and physical influence.
• Sentiment is a pattern of learned attitudes that focus on an
as a persons community, spouse, occupation, religion, or hobby.
• Sentiment can be unlearned and can disappear so that it is no
persons life.
• ATTITUDES • Cattell defined attitude as our interest in and our
behavior toward some person, object, or event.
• SUBSIDIATION
• The ergs and sentiments are related to our attitude through the
which means that within the personality some elements subsidiate
other elements.
• Attitudes are subsidiary to sentiments; sentiments are subsidiary to
expressed these relationship in a diagram he called the dynamic
• THE SELF-SENTIMENT • Each person’s pattern of sentiment is
organized by a master sentiment called the self sentiment.
• The self sentiment provides stability, coherence, and organization
and linked to the expression of the ergs and sentiments.
• It contribute to the satisfaction of the dynamic traits and therefore
Fragment of a dynamic lattice showing attitude subsidiation,
sentiment structure, and ergic goals.
Sources of data analysis
• Life record data involves the measurement of behavior in actual, everyday situations such as
school performance or interactions with peers. Such data may also include trait ratings provided
by people who know the person well in real life setting.
• L DATA: Life record ratings of behaviors observed in real-life situations such as in classroom of
office.
• Self-rating questionnaire, by contrast, refers to the person’s self ratings about his behavior,
feelings and thoughts. Such information reflects the person’s introspections and selfobservations. Cattell has developed 16PF as a self-report test. Here, he expressed concern that
the subjects may not know themselves very well or may deliberately bias or falsify their answers.
• Q- DATA: Self- Report questionnaire ratings of our characteristics, attitudes and interests.
• Objective test data are derived from the creation of special situations in which the person’s
performance on certain tasks may be objectively scored. Here, the person is placed in a situation
where he responds without being aware of the dimensions on which he is being evaluated.
Therefore, Objective test is resistant to faking.
• T-DATA- data derived from personality tests that are resistant to faking.
Age
Cattell’s stages of Personality Development
Infancy birth to 6
years
Influenced by parents and siblings and by experience of weaning and toilet training.
Social attitudes along with ego and superego feelings of security or insecurity,
attitudes toward authority, and a possible tendency to neuroticism. Oral and anal
conflict can affect personality
6-14 childhood stage
There are few psychological problems. This marks the beginning of a trend toward
independence from parents and an increasing identification with peers. Stressful and
troublesome
14-23 adolescence
emotional disorders and delinquency, experiences conflicts centered on drives for
independence, self-assertion and sex.
23 to 50 maturity
Productive, satisfying time in terms of career, marriage and family. less flexible
compared with earlier stages. Emotional stability increases.
50-65
Personality development in response to physical, social and psychological changes.
Health, attractiveness vigor(physical health and strength) may decline.
People reexamine their values and search for a new self. Judgment of losses- the death
of spouses, relatives and friends, career lost to retirement, loss of status. Loneliness
and insecurity.