Karen J. Prager, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.

Professor of Psychology and  Program Head for Gender Studies

Diplomate in Family Psychology

The University of Texas at Dallas

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TRAIT APPROACHES TO PERSONALITY

BASIC PREMISE:

Human behavior can be summarized by a few TRAITS.

What is the goal of research from a trait theory perspective?

WHAT IS A TRAIT?

**dimension of personality used to categorize people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic.

TWO ASSUMPTIONS OF TRAIT APPROACH

**characteristics are stable over time

**characteristics are stable across situations

PRECURSORS OF TRAIT THEORIES: PERSONALITY TYPOLOGIES

William Sheldon & Carl Jung:

Tried to classify people into types.

This approach was abandoned: why?

TRAITS ARE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS

What is the "trait continuum?"

Explain each of these aspects of the trait continuum:

1) TRAITS ARE CONTINUOUS

2) TRAITS DESCRIBE INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

3) TRAITS ARE BIPOLAR.

4) TRAITS CAN BE DISTINGUISHED FROM STATES.

HOW DOES TRAIT THEORY DIFFER FROM THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH?

 

IMPORTANT TRAIT THEORISTS

GORDON ALLPORT

Highlights of Theory:

*Personality is dynamic. Adult motivation is different from children's.

*A few traits can explain behavior.

*Healthy personality is as important to understand as neurosis.

*Conscious values shape personality.

*Also a humanistic theorist

 

Structure of Personality:

Traits

**Are there brain structures or physiological processes associated with traits?

**In what way do our traits make each of us unique?

**Traits are organized hierarchically on what basis?

Central traits – vs.

Cardinal traits

Vs. Secondary dispositions

 

The Proprium -- **The dynamic, central organizing structure of personality.

Functions of the proprium:                                                                              

Propriate striving

**How is this idea like the "self?"

A New Research Method

Allport developed a method of personality research:  the Idiographic approach

How does this differ from the more commonly used nomothetic approach?

Development of personality.

**Allport emphasizes discontinuity.

Functional autonomy is:

Maturity and mental health

**Personality theory should address maturity.

**Examples from his concept of maturity:

*Extension of sense of self: like Adler's social interest.

*Emotional security and self-acceptance: Able to accept one's own emotions. Like Horney's ideal vs. real self.

 

HENRY MURRAY

Two important contributions:

1) A typology of psychological needs.

2) The Thematic Apperception Test and the assessment of motives

 

A Need:

*A force in the brain that . . .

Structure of Personality: a hierarchy of needs

*Which needs do we have?

*How strong are our needs, relative to one another?

*Prepotent needs are , , ,

Press:

*Environmental constraints that affect behavior and need fulfillment.

Alpha press:

Beta press:

The study of lives in depth.

*The complexity of the person is most interesting.

*The study of needs (and motives) reveals personality.

*The Thematic Apperception Test reveals motives. . . .

Raymond B. CATTELL

Great empiricist & developer of factor analysis for study of personality.

Highlights of his theory

*Traits explain behavior.

*Traits are "mental structures" that explain consistency.

*Traits are organized hierarchically.

*Some traits are inherited.

**Cattell used factor analysis to study personality

Source traits

    What are they?

    Why should the goal of personality research be to identify source traits?

Surface traits are

 

Factor analysis:

1) Derives source traits from surface traits.

2) Summarizes large data sets with a few dimensions.

3) Dimensions are called factors & represent intercorrelations among multiple personality traits.

Cattell's data sources:

1) self-ratings

2) life records (observations of behavior in every day situations),

3) objective tests (experimental situations elicit behavior that would allow prediction to other situations).

 

Factor analysis in action

THE IDENTIFICATION OF "SOURCE TRAITS:" FIVE-FACTOR THEORY

PREMISE: All individual differences can be summarized by 5 uncorrelated dimensions of personality.

**The 5 factors:

1) Extraversion

2) Agreeableness

3) Conscientiousness

4) Emotional stability/Neuroticism

5) Openness to Experience/Intellect

 

What are the "surface traits" associated with each of the five

factors? (Hint: see Table 7:3).

**WHY FIVE?

**STEP 1: CORRELATIONAL ANALYSIS**

To discover associations among measures.

For example, do people who score high on one measure also score high on another?

A strong association (high correlation) means:

1) that people with one trait are likely to have the second trait (or its opposite),

2) that the measures may overlap. That is, they may, in part or wholly, be measuring the same trait or set of traits.

 

Replication is important

Why? Helps to interpret measure overlap.

Common sources of high correlations between measures:

1) Common method variance

2) Common items

3) Common "source traits"

**STEP 2: FACTOR ANALYSIS**

*Examines scores that cluster together along a single dimension.

*Examines associations between scores and "underlying" dimensions.

*Can identify uncorrelated or correlated dimensions.

SO WHY 5?

Repeated studies, using different measures, keep identifying the same 5 dimensions.

WHY DO SOME RESEARCHERS NOT ACCEPT THE "BIG 5"?

There is always variation.

**There is debate about what the five factors mean

    *They may reflect quirks of the English language as much as the structure of personality.

    *They may reflect limitations in our thinking (i.e., the complexity of information people can understand) rather than limitations in the complexity of personality.

**Not all studies yield the same number of factors.

**Scores do not always correlate with the same factors.

**Researchers do not always give factors the same label. Related perhaps? No strong theory explains the existence of this particular five.

**Researchers decide whether factors will be correlated (by how they conduct their factor analysis).

GENERAL CRITICISMS OF TRAIT THEORY AND PERSONALITY TESTS

1. Tests are often misused.

What are some ways tests can be misused?

2. Tests do not predict behavior very well.

What is "situationism?"

What does it mean that person & situation interact to produce behavior?

3. There is not much evidence for cross-situational consistency.

Burger suggests that personality psychologists could do a better job identifying consistency across situations than they now do.

How would they do that?

They could also do a better job of identifying the appropriate traits to study.

How would they do that?

PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

**quantitative, orderly study of individual differences

**innovations in measurement

**innovations in hypothesis testing

CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONALITY TESTS

Basic assumption: If personality traits can be quantified, they can be measured.

1) Traits must be "scalable."

2) People can be "scored" on traits.

3) Scores are most meaningful when compared with norms.

4) People can describe themselves accurately.

5) Personality tests should be objective.

Objectivity is achieved through . . . .

Things are standardized because . . . .

MEASURES OF PERSONALITY

1) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: MMPI

 

 

MMPI was the first personality test to include CONTROL SCALES. These scales attempt to correct for test-taking styles that bias results in self-report inventories.

SELF-REPORT INVENTORIES – e.g., The MMPI is a self-report inventory

5 Characteristics?

5 Problems?

The MMPI corrected for some of the problems of self-report inventories:

1) Lie Scale (L):

2) Validity Scale (F):

3) Correction Score (K):

Profiles are: 

MORE TYPICAL PERSONALITY TESTS MEASURE ONE TRAIT

For example: Trait anxiety.

Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale measures a generalized tendency to experience anxiety in the face of stress, or, one's tendency to feel somewhat anxious all the time.

For example: Internal-external locus of control

Rotter's I-E Scale. Measures people's tendencies to attribute their good/bad fortune to luck, ability, hard work, or external circumstances. People who attribute their outcomes to ability and hard work make INTERNAL attributions while those who attribute their outcomes to luck or external circumstances make EXTERNAL attributions.