This is the Chapter 11 of the book The Individual (de Bruin, E., 1st Edition). Which is content for the exam of the Theory component of Module 4 (The Individual) of the University of Twente, in the Netherlands

Chapter 11:

Traits and Trait Taxonomies:

What is a trait? 2 basic formulations:

1. as internal properties of a person that cause behaviour

• Internal: desires and needs, presumed to be causal, hence explaining behaviour of those who posses the trait

2. to describe the enduring aspects of a person’s behaviour

• Descriptive summaries of attributes of persons, make no assumptions about internality/ causality --> Olaf is jealous, trait jealousy accurately summarizes general trend of Olaf’s expressed behaviour, yet no assumptions are made about the causes of his behaviour

• Personality coherence: even though behaviours different at different ages, they nevertheless express same underlying trait --> accounts for elements of continuity and of change
• Traits Vs States:

• Traits: represent typical behaviour of person over prolonged periods of time
• States: very across time and situations, regarded as within-subject variations of behaviour

The Act frequency formulation of traits:

• Act frequency approach: traits are categories of acts (trait categories such as “dominance” or “impulsivity” have specific acts as members)

• Frequency formulation: trait descriptive summary of general trend in a person’s behaviour --> how often does that person usually show behaviours that fall within that specific category?

• Act frequency approach key elements:

• Act nomination: identify which aspects belong in which trait categories
• Prototypicality Judgment: identify which acts are most central to, or prototypical of, each trait category
• Recording of act performance: consists of securing information on the actual performance of individuals in their daily lives --> use self-reports/reports from close ones

• Evaluation of the act frequency formulation:

• Does not specify how much context should be included in the description of a trait-relevant act

Identification of most important traits:

• Lexical approach: all trait listed/defined in dictionary --> starting point: natural language

• Lexical hypothesis: all important individual differences have become encoded within the natural language

• Synonym frequency: “the more important is such an attribute, the more synonyms and subtly distinctive facets of the attribute will be found within any language”
• Cross-cultural universality: “the most important phenotypic (observable) personality attributes should have a corresponding term in virtually every language”

• Represents good starting point, but should be combined with statistical approach

• Statistical approach: statistical procedures, such as factor analysis, to identify major personality traits --> goal: identify major dimensions, or “coordinates”, of the personality map.

• Factor analysis: identifies groups of items that covary (go together), but tend to not covary with other groups of items
• Factor loading: indexes of how much of variation in item “explained” by factor

• Theoretical approach: rely om theories to identify important traits

• Sociosexual orientation: theory determines 2 alternative sexual relationship strategies:

1. Seeking single committed relationship
2. Greater degree of promiscuity

• Dictates that the mating strategy one pursues is a critical individual difference

• Strengths approach = strengths theory

Taxonomies of Personality:

• Eysenck’s Hierarchical model of personality: rooted in biology, based 3 super traits (PEN) highly heritable, which each summarises large number of narrow traits (sociable, …), which then contain habitual acts (talking on the phone), which then contain specific acts (I talked on the phone with a friend)

• Psychoticism (P)
• Extraversion-Introversion (E)
• Neuroticism-Emotional stability (N)
• Biological underpinning

• Heritability: traits have moderate heritabilities
• Identifiable physiological substrate:  one can identify properties in the brain and CNS that correspond to the traits, and presumed to be part of causal chain that produces those traits

• Limitation: only consider trait if there were sufficient physiological evidence to explain its existence

• Cattell’s 16 personality factor system: strong empirical strategy for identifying basic dimensions of personality and shaping trait approach to personality

• Criticized, since no one has been able to replicate the 16 factors that Cattell found

• Circumplex taxonomies of personality:

• Jerry Wiggins: circumplex model with modern statistical techniques --> lexical assumption (has been obsolete, because of its intuitive appeal)

• Intrapersonal traits: what people do to and with each other
• Advantages:

1. Explicit definition of intrapersonal behaviour, with the resources love and status
2. Specifies relationship between each trait and every trait within the model

• Adjacency: how close the traits are to each other --> adjacent variables, + correlation
• Bipolarity: located at opposite sides of the cercle, - correlation
• Orthogonality: perpendicular to each other, 0 correlation

• Five factor model: combination lexical/statistical approach

1. Surgency/Extraversion

• Great impact on their social environment (social attention)

2. Agreeableness

• “let’s all get along”

3. Conscientiousness

• Hard work, punctuality, reliable behaviour

4. Emotional Stability

• Way people cope with stresses

5. Openness-Intellect

• Difficulty ignoring previously experienced stimuli --> perceptual and information processing “gates” are open to receiving info

• HEXACO model: variants of the Big Five, plus Honesty-Humility

• Can predict scores of Big Five, because it’s an extension of the model

• Alternative approaches to the Big Five:

• Personality-descriptive nouns: 8 factors within the domain of personality

1. Dumbbell: dummy, moron
2. Babe/Cutie: beauty, doll
3. Philosopher: genius, artist
4. Lawbreaker: drunk, rebel
5. Joker: clown, comedian
6. Jock: sportsman, tough

• Metatraits: higher order factors, helps us understand basic structure of personality --> lack specificity

• Stability: Agreeableness, conscientiousness (low), neuroticism
• Plasticity: Extraversion and openness