KV Petrides
Personality
Dr. KV Petrides
www.psychometriclab.com
KV Petrides
Definitions of personality I
• It is very difficult to provide a single coherent
definition of the term ‘personality’.
• Hall and Lindzey (1957) claimed that the term
has as many different meanings and definitions
as there are personality theorists.
• Perhaps more important, there are many
different approaches to the study of
personality.
KV Petrides
Definitions of personality II
• One reasonable working definition is
provided by Child (1968, p. 83):
– “more or less stable, internal factors that
make one person’s behaviour consistent
from one time to another and different from
the behaviour other people would manifest
in comparable situations.”
KV Petrides
Definitions of personality III
• Another definition is provided by
someone with a valid claim to being the
greatest psychologist of all time:
– “a more or less stable and enduring
organization of a person’s character,
temperament, intellect, and physique, which
determines his unique adjustment to the
environment”.
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Professor Hans J Eysenck
(1916-1997)
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Definitions of personality IV
• Two points should be noted about the
definitions above:
– Both are rooted in the ‘trait’ approach to
personality.
• A trait is defined as a stable characteristic or quality
distinguishing one person or thing from another.
– Both include features that many theorists would not
view as part of personality (e.g., cognitive abilities,
physical characteristics).
KV Petrides
Humanistic approach
• This approach has its roots in the philosophical
schools of existentialism and phenomenology.
• It emphasizes that individuals have free will,
personal worth, and a need for self-actualization.
• The main impact of this approach has been in the
areas of clinical psychology and counseling.
• Major figures in the humanistic tradition are
Kelly, Rogers, and Maslow.
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Psychodynamic approach
• This class of approaches originates from Freud’s
psychoanalytic theory.
• Freudian theory has been highly influential in very
diverse areas of enquiry.
• Today, psychoanalytic theory continues to play an
important role in psychotherapy, although its
influence within mainstream psychology is very
limited.
• Major figures in the psychodynamic tradition are
Freud, Jung, Adler, Horney, and Erikson.
KV Petrides
Humanistic and psychodynamic approaches
humanistic
psychodynamic
KV Petrides
Trait theories of personality
• The trait approach to personality is undoubtedly
the dominant approach in the field. Some major
advantages of trait theories:
– Predicated on a vast body of empirical evidence.
– Explicit, testable, and subject to falsification.
– Results and observations are replicable.
• While there is little doubt as regards the relative
advantages of the trait approach, the question of
whose trait theory is best has led to fierce debates
between some of the greatest psychologists of all
time.
KV Petrides
“Raymond Cattell has been one of the most
influential and original psychologists working in the
field of individual differences in intelligence and
personality, in psychometrics and in behaviour
genetics, and his voluminous writings have been
crucial in the development of a scientific
psychology. Many of his discoveries have become
universal property, such as the distinction between
fluid and crystallized ability, or the state-trait
dichotomy. Few people can have a better claim for
recognition by virtue of the rigor and originality of
the work done.”
- Hans J Eysenck (written shortly before their death)
“When he died, he was the most cited
living psychologist and he is the third
most cited psychologist of all time (after
Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget). In
this writer’s opinion, Hans Eysenck was
the single most important psychologist
who ever lived. His citation legacy will
be tracked for decades to come.”
– J Philippe Rushton (2001, Personality
and Individual Differences, 31, 17-39).
KV Petrides
Big 5 theories I
P T Costa, Jr.
R R McCrae
• Big 5 theories tend to be primarily descriptive, i.e., they
attempt to document how people differ. As a result,
their theoretical foundations are relatively weak.
• Big 5 theories originate from Cattell’s psycholexical
approach, but over the years many Big 5 studies mutated
from discovery investigations into confirmatory tests of
a preconceived model.
• The empirical roots of Big 5 theories are in an obscure
paper by Tupes and Christal (1961). Norman (1967)
was the first to predicate a theory on these findings.
• Currently, the most popular measure of the Big Five is
Costa and McCare’s (1992) NEO PI-R.
KV Petrides
Big 5 theories II
O
C
E
A
N
L R Goldberg
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The Big Five – Core meanings I
• Extraversion (positive emotionality, surgency)
– The extent to which people prefer to be alone or with others.
– The extent to which people experience positive emotions.
– + “I love life”, - “I am not easily amused”
• Neuroticism (negative emotionality, adjustment)
– The extent to which people experience negative emotions.
– Primarily concerns intrapersonal feelings.
– + “I get irritated easily”, - “I am very pleased with myself”
• Note that E and N are, in some form or other, part of
all major personality taxonomies (Eysenck’s,
Cattell’s, Gray’s, etc.).
KV Petrides
The Big Five – Core meanings II
• Agreeableness
– The extent to which people are pleasant and well-liked by
others.
– + “I hate to seem pushy”, - “I distrust people”
• Conscientiousness
– Concerns the manner in which people complete tasks.
– + “I excel in what I do”, - “I have difficulty starting tasks”
• Openness-to-Experience (intellect)
– Has been variously thought of as a dimension of creativity,
culture, curiosity, intellectuality.
– Perhaps the most problematic dimension in the framework.
– + “I have a vivid imagination”, - “I do not like art”
KV Petrides
Big 5 theories III
• Despite their weak theoretical foundation, Big 5
theories enjoy very considerable empirical support:
– They emerge in different cultures (Saucier, Hampson, &
Goldberg, 2000).
– They have high heritability indices (Plomin & Caspi, 1999).
– They predict many external criteria (Furnham & Heaven,
1999).
– They can be recovered in self- and peer-ratings and
observations (McCrae & Costa, 1987).
– They remain relatively stable across the life-span (Caspi &
Roberts, 1999).
KV Petrides
Correlates of the Big Five I
• Neuroticism
– Unsatisfactory sex life, stress symptoms, cancer (-), gaze
avoidance, psychosomatic conditions (migraines,
muscular problems, etc.), smoking, likelihood of divorce
(primarily in females).
• Extraversion
– Sporting behaviour, early onset of sexual behaviour,
tobacco and alcohol consumption, hedonism,
multitasking, more likely to initiate conversations with
strangers.
KV Petrides
Correlates of the Big Five II
• Openness-to-Experience
– Interest in the arts, commercial creativity (advertising),
hypnotic susceptibility, cognitive ability, training
responsiveness.
• Agreeableness
– Marital satisfaction, cancer, performance in competitive
settings (-), capacity for teamwork, drop in self-esteem
after conflict.
• Conscientiousness
– Longevity, vandalism (-), job performance, educational
achievement, safe sex.
KV Petrides
Big 5 theories – Limitations I
• Weak theoretical foundations.
– About all we can say is that these are some major ways in
which people’s personalities differ, but we have little idea,
or convincing data, as to the origins of these differences (A,
C, and, especially, O).
• Questions concerning orthogonality.
– The A and C dimensions consistently show high positive
correlations.
• Over-reliance on pre-structured datasets
(confirmatory bias).
– Many factor analyses (whether by design or not) specifically
select clusters of variables that are bound to produce five
factors due to semantic overlap.
KV Petrides
Big 5 theories – Limitations II
• The generality and universality of the five factors
has been exaggerated by advocates. Not all ‘Big
5’ factors are the same 5 factors. There are at least
two salient Big Five theories that are not fully
consistent with each other (‘Big 5’ versus ‘Five
Factor Model’).
– Big Five: circular/circumplex structure, based on
lexical hypothesis, ‘Intellect’.
– Five-Factor theory: hierarchical structure, sociobiologically based (?), ‘Openness-to-Experience’.
• Block (1995, 2001) presents a lucid and detailed
exposition of the shortcomings of Big 5 theories.
KV Petrides
Major personality journals
•
•
•
•
European Journal of Personality (EAPP)
Journal of Personality
Journal of Personality Assessment (SPA)
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(APA)
• Personality and Individual Differences (ISSID)
• Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
(SPSP)
KV Petrides
On the web
• http://www.personality-project.org/
– Maintained by W. Revelle
• http://www.cattell.net/devon/rbcmain.htm
– The R B Cattell memorial page
• http://www.spsp.org/
– Society for Personality and Social Psychology