Personality Theory & Research:
An International Perspective
Gordon L. Flett
Prepared by
Brenda Baird, University of Ottawa
Chapter 2 Overview
Units of Personality: Types versus Traits
• Personality Types
• Personality Traits
• Situationism
• The Trait-Type Interaction in Personality
Research
• Beyond Traits
• How Many Supertraits Are There?
• Analysis of a Key Personality Trait: Locus of
Control
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Personality Types
• Personality types are discrete categories
that differ in kind rather than degree
(qualitative versus quantitative)
• A benefit is that personality types form
clusters of common characteristics that
enable prediction
• Types may obscure individual differences
within a category due to the all or none
aspect
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Personality Types
Sheldon’s (1942) Somatotype Theory
• Three main body types
-
Ectomorphic
Mesomorphic
Endomorphic
• Sheldon coined the term “constitutional
psychology” to capture the link between
personality and physical attributes
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Personality Types
• Taxometrics is a statistical approach used
to test for types or discrete categories in
general
• A taxon is the identified category
• Jung identified two distinct types
•
•
extroversion (outgoing)
introversion (reserved)
• Jung revised his categories after finding
most people are ambiverts, having both
characteristics
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Personality Types
Contemporary Research on Personality Types
(continued)
•
•
Type approach has gained prominence in
recent years due to Block and Block’s
(1980) model
The Blocks’ research described two
orthogonal personality types:
• Ego control (high, low)
• Ego resiliency (high, low)
•
Results in four possible personality types
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Personality Types
Contemporary Research on Personality Types
(continued)
•
Robins, John, Caspi, Moffat, and
Stouthamer Loeber (1996) focused on three
types:
• Resilient type
• Overcontrolling type
• Undercontrolling type
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Personality Types
Contemporary Research on Personality Types
(continued)
•
•
Hart, Atkins, and Fegley (2003) replicated
Robbins et al. (1996) and reported stability
of types over time
Other research has failed to replicate these
types finding heterogeneity and blending of
types
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Personality Types
Contemporary Research on Personality Types
(continued)
•
•
•
Nagin and Tremblay (2001) explored the
heterogeneity issue in their research on
conduct disorder
Analyses focused on developmental
trajectories, or behavioural changes over
time
Found four different types of boys within
their sample
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Personality Traits
Allport’s Bold Assertions
• Personality has more than nominal
existence
• A personality trait is more generalized
than a habit
• A personality trait is dynamic, or
discriminative
• A personality trait may be established
empirically
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Personality Traits
Allport’s Bold Assertions
• A personality trait may be established
empirically
• A personality trait is not synonymous with
moral or social judgement
• A personality trait may be viewed in the
light of the personality which contains it
• Acts, and even habits, that are
inconsistent with a trait are not proof of
the nonexistence of the trait
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Personality Traits
Allport’s Conceptualization of Traits
• Common traits vs. Unique Traits
• Phenotypical vs. Genotypical Personal
Dispositions
• Pseudotraits
• Cardinal, Central, and Secondary
Dispositions
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Personality Traits
Traits Versus Types
• Types are believed to arise from certain
conditions that must be present
• Traits involve a gradual acquisition of
behaviours that can fall along a
continuum
• Types are discrete; Traits are continuous
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Situationism
Mischel’s Challenge to the Trait Approach
• Mischel (1968, 1969) concluded that traits
alone are poor predictors of behaviours
• Mischel argued that it is the situation that
produces changes in behaviour, rendering
personality traits not as stable as assumed
• Mischel found only 9% of the variance in
behaviour is explained by traits, based on
his estimated personality coefficient of .30
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The Trait-Situation Interaction in
Personality Research
• Interactionism refers to joint function of
person and situation on behaviour
• Endler (1983) distinguished between
mechanistic and reciprocal models of
interactionism
–
–
Mechanistic models focus on how the
situation impacts on behaviour
Reciprocal models focus on the interplay of
person and situation on behaviour
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The Trait-Situation Interaction in
Personality Research
• Endler’s interaction model of trait anxiety
distinguished between trait and state anxiety
–
–
Trait anxiety: typical level of anxiety
State anxiety: current level of anxiety
• One version of Endler’s Model proposes an
interaction among stress, anxiety, and coping
• Perception of threat is a process that involves
person variables and situation variables
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Beyond Traits
Personality Capabilities and the Maximal
versus the Typical Personality
• The concept of Personality Capabilities
allows a distinction between the typical and
the maximum capability
• Personality Capabilities are the maximal
tendencies in a person’s range of behaviours
• Maximal approach requires reporting
possible characteristics
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Beyond Traits
Metatraits and Traitedness
• Metatraits are those traits highly relevant to
a person
• A concept is “traited” if it is high in trait
relevance.
• Trait relevance validity is the degree to
which a construct is relevant to the target
population
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
• A supertrait is one that is universal and
explains a large proportion of variance in
behaviour
• Identification of supertraits begins with the
lexical approach: selection of personality
terms in a language
• Factor analyses reduces the terms to create
clusters of related items
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
Eysenck’s Big Three
•
Three Supertraits are heritable (genetic)
with physiological substrates
Three Super Traits
•
–
–
–
E extroversion-dimension
N neuroticism-emotional stability
P psychotocism-ego control)
(acronym - PEN)
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
Eysenck’s Big Three
Hierarchical Structure of Eysenck’s Model
•
•
•
•
At the first level of the four-tiered
hierarchy are personality states
At the second level are habitual acts
At the third level are trait levels
At the fourth (top) level are supertraits (P,
E, N)
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
Five-Factor Models and the Big Seven
• Norman (1963) reported 5 factors:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Culture
Goldberg, (1993) coined these factors the
Big 5
22
How Many Supertraits Are There?
Five-Factor Models and the Big Seven
• Costa and McRae (1992b) developed the
NEO-OI-R Scale to assess personality in
their revised version of the Big 5:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Neuroticism
Extroversion/ introversion
Openness
Agreeableness/antagonism
Conscientiousness
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
Five-Factor Models and the Big Seven
• Digman (1997) identified two factors
(alpha, beta)
• Other researches identified seven factors
with the additional factors describing
positive and negative self-evaluations
• The Five Factor Model was found to be
highly replicable across cultures
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How Many Supertraits Are There?
The Predictiveness of Specific “Narrow” Traits
• Small, specific factors, are also important to
predict outcomes measures
• Watson (2002) examined academic
procrastination
• Van Eerde (2002) used a meta-analysis to
reveal a strong, negative association
between conscientiousness and
procrastination
25
How Many Supertraits Are There?
Supertraits across Cultures
• The Five-Factor Model has gained support
through cross-cultural replication
• However, specific factors emerge in specific
regions
• Cross-cultural psychologists distinguish
between and etic approach and emic
approach
26
How Many Supertraits Are There?
Challenges for the Five-Factor Model
• McAdams (1992) criticizes the Five-Factor
Model as more descriptive than explanatory
• Authors have questioned the model’s clinical
utility
• Others challenge the model’s validity by
stating it does not capture other broad
personality traits such as honesty and
morality
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Analysis of a Key Personality Trait:
Locus of Control
• Locus of control refers to differences in
perception of internal vs. external control
over reinforcements
• Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale is a 29-item
forced choice measure
• Rotter’s scale was designed as
unidimensional measure of locus of control
• Locus of control is multi-faceted and should
be viewed as multidimensional
28
Analysis of a Key Personality Trait:
Locus of Control
Spheres of Control
• The Spheres of Control Scale (Paulhus,
1983) is a 30-item multidimensional
measure of personal control, interpersonal
control, and socio-political control
• Levenson’s IPC Locus of Control Scale
consists of eight measures
• Important to assess locus of control across
various cultures and age cohorts
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Analysis of a Key Personality Trait:
Locus of Control
The Desire for Control
• The Desire for Control Scale (Burger &
Cooper, 1979) is a 20-item measure of the
level of motivation to have control in one’s life
• Gebbhardt and Brosschot (2002) isolated
three factors
–
–
–
Desire to be in charge of and control others
Desire to establish a sense of control over
personal outcomes involving the self
Willingness to relinquish control to other
people
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