Nomothetic Approaches to Personality PDF

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Summary of Nomothetic Approaches to Personality in Introduction to Individual Differences ...

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Introduction to Individual Differences- Lecture 3" Nomothetic approaches to personality: Trait and biological theories and questionnaires" Trait verse type:"

- Types are when characteristics are viewed as discrete categories- can be defined by some combination of several traits"

- Traits are characteristics viewed as part of a continuum- A dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree they manifest a particular characteristic "

- You either have a personality type or not, everyone has traits but to varying degrees" General issues with trait approach:" - Often very good at describing individual differences in personality "

- But does not always provide an explanation " - Must distinguish between the internal qualities and behaviour otherwise we are left with a circular argument "

- Must move beyond describing typical group behaviour and say how or what causes behaviour" - Where and how to we get traits? How do they develop?" Fundamentals of trait approach:"

- Personality differs on a small basic set of linear scales- if its a trait you have to be able to measure it on a scale "

- To discover and classify what these scales are- to do so it to know and understand personality " - Devise ways of measuring individual differences in personality traits- to know these is to know -

someone’s personality " Use these measures to predict behaviour "

History of trait approach:"

- Ancient Greece- Aristotle (384-322 BC)- First written description of traits (dispositions)" - Enlightenment- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)- 4 personality types based on feeling and active" - Birth of Psychology- Wundt (1874)- Types become trait dimensions (emotional- unemotional; changeable to unchangeable)" The humours:"

- Hippocrates (460-377BC) proposed the idea that the dispositions could be explained via bodily fluids "

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Galen was the first to write about this" Black bile= sluggish personality, autumn, earth and adulthood- melancholic type" Yellow bile= summer, anger, fire and youth- choleric type" Blood= spring, passion, air and childhood- sanguine type " Phlegm= winter, melancholy, water and old age- phlegmatic type" These types tended to remain but with different explanations "

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Kant:" Melancholic- weak feeling" Sanguine- Strong feeling " Phlegmatic- low activity " Choleric- High activity "

Early explanations- Somatotypes:"

- William Sheldon (1899-1977)" - Beginning of psychometrics " - Ectomorph- Nervous system and brain- Light bones and slight musculature- cerebrotonia-

need for privacy, restrained, inhibited" Mesomorph- Musculature and circulatory system- Large, bony with defined musclessomatotonia - Physically assertive, completive, enjoys physical activity "

- Endomorph- Digestive system- Rounded body, tending towards fatness- viscerotonia- Loves relaxing and comfort, sociable and likes food "

- There is a correlation between schizophrenics and ectomorphic bodies" - Endomorphs are more likely to have depression" Psychometrics- Process: "

- Create a large ‘item pool’, from which a shortlist will be eventually selected for the questionnaire"

- Decide on a rating scale " - Get a sample of participants to complete all the pool items " - Then run a set of statistics to help select a shortlist of items " -

Using data from your sample: " Check factorial structure- run factorial analysis- Select items that load on primary factor(s)" Check inter-item correlations- after selecting your items for the final version " Check test-retest reliability- using Cronbach’s alpha- Alpha should be over 0.7, less than 0.9 for each trait"

Psychometrics: " - Content validity- is what you’re measuring a real measurable thing"

- Concurrent/ Convergent validity- Lots of things should cover the same point" - Discriminant validity- Does is clearly discriminate between both groups" - Predictive validity- Can it predict behaviour" Two processes of discovering the different traits:" Lexical Approach:"

- Proposing traits on the basis of words or concepts from out everyday language " - First proposed by Galton" - Logical assumption"

- Common personality traits would be expressed in single or small set of word(s)" - If differences in that trait, we should have a large number of synonyms that reflect subtle variations (dimensions)" Factor Analysis: "

- A statistical tool used to identify clusters of behaviours that are highly correlated with one another, but not with behaviours in other clusters"

- Correlated observable variables reflected the variation of fewer, often unobserved variables" - In terms of personality- clusters of characteristic reflect a basic factor (a trait) e.g extraversion really refers to a group of cluster traits" Gordon Allport (1937)" - Allport (1937) and Allport and Obert (1936) established trait approach" Explanation: "

- Believed personality ‘imprinted’ onto the nervous system" - One day we would be able to identify a trait by inspecting a person’s nervous system" Metholody: "

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Lexical approach " Trawled though 550,000 terms in Webster’s New International Dictionary, identified:" 18,000 personality-related terms" Then reduces these to 4,500 relatively enduring trait-terms" Distinguished between different kinds of personal dispositions;"

Cardinal Dispositions:"

- Dominate and shape behaviour in some people " - Almost takes every aspect of their behaviour " - Not everyone has this " Central Dispositions: "

- 5-10 which describes the individual " - More important how the traits come together than scored on individual traits" Secondary Dispositions: "

- Preferences, and only emerge in some situations" - Become dominant in situations that require them, and then fade away after until needed again " Also saw the self and identity as important" Raymond Cattell (1905-1998) and Factor Analysis: "

- Knowledge of traits allow predictions of behaviour in any given situation- later in life became more interested in trait-situation interaction " Methodology: " - Reduced Allport & Odbert’s list of 4,500 to 171 clusters"

- Asked people to rate others on each of the 171 clusters, yielding a matrix of 14,535 correlations"

- Utilised factor analysis to identify 16 basic behaviour factors- 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) developed by Cattell to measure individual differences on each of his dimensions "

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Wanted to capture some traits in a variety of different ways:" Q-data= self-report measures (questionnaires)" T-data= test situation (observations)" L-data= life data from records "

Cattell’s 16 personality factors (16PF):"

- Ability traits, such as intelligence " - Temperament traits, such as easy going" - Dynamic traits, such as attitudes, sentiment " Surface traits:"

- Cluster together and correlate with each other " Source traits: "

- Underlying traits, responsible for variance in surface traits " Hereditary vs. Environment: " - Developed Multiple Abstract Variance Analysis (MAVA)- a statistical procedure to determine constitutional traits- genetic- and environmental mould traits "

- Would measure your traits and your parents traits and look for a correlation " - Factors B (thinking) and H (sociability) are more strongly inherited than factors based on family similarities "

- E (submissive/dominant) and Q4 (relaxed/tense) are more determined by the environment " - Based on statistical significant similarities between parent and offspring" Criticisms: "

- Questionable use in profiling " - Theory has not been entirely replicated " - Howarth and Brown’s (1971) factor analysis of the 16 Personality Factor Model found 10 factors that failed to relate to items present in the model " It does not measure the factors in claims to at a primary level (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1987)"

- Some research has verified 4 of the 16 (Noller, Law and Comrey, 1987)" - Reliability of self-report measures (Schuerger, Zarella and Hotz, 1989)" - Original studies may be skewed due to computation errors (all done by hand)" Limitations of factor analysis: " What goes in, comes out"

- You decide what goes into your questionnaire item pool, and thus into the factor analysis" - It must be selective from the start, and this requires some guiding concepts or theory"

- You can take things out at the end too if it doesn’t fit e.g. religiosity (Paunonen and Jackson, 2000)" Hans Eysenck (1916-1997):"

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Our specific responses make up our habitual response " These habitual responses make up traits" Some traits are correlated, (e.g., sociability, liveliness, assertiveness) " This collection of traits makes up a super-traits or personality type" Initially proposed to super-traits: Extraversion and neuroticism "

" Super-traits or personality types:" Extraversion:"

Neuroticism:"

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Sensation seeking " Sociable " Carefree" Lively " Dominant " Active" Surgent " Assertive" Venturesome "

Tense" Anxious" Irrational " Depressed" Shy" Guilt feeling " Moody " Low self-esteem" Emotional

Temperament: "

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Individual differences in emotional and behavioural styles " Appears so early in life that they are assumed to have a biological basis " Emotionality, activity level, sociability, impulsivity " Biological building blocks that influence the later development of personality " E.g. a more active, engaging child is more likely to get appropriate responses from othersthese traits become reinforced and the child’s extraversion chrysalises "

- The more passive, less impulsive child left to one devices- therefore introversion becomes more of a core trait" Biological Basis of Personality: "

- Eysenck proposed a biological, genetic basis for personality tiara" - Differences in customary levels of arousal; introverts are over aroused and extraverts are under aroused"

- Suddenness of shifts in arousal- Unstable (neurotic) people show large and sudden shifts in arousal; stable people do not"

- Neurotics very unpredictable as behaviour depends on how they feel that day "

Extraversion and Neuroticism and the Nervous System: "

- N measures how strongly your nervous system reacts to aversive stimuli" - The stronger your responses, the more extreme your emotional changes" - High N-scores are also hard to condition " At a dinner party: "

- Introverts would need less people than extroverts to reach desired arousal levels" Psychoticism: "

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Eysenck later added a third dimension (P)- High P scores tend to be:" Cold" Uncaring " Solitary" Aggressive " He also believed P to be largely genetically determined " Eysenck’s theory predicts that people who have high E, N and P will run a higher risk of offending "

- Principally because it is difficult for them to learn to control their immature impulses " Psychoticism: "

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Impulsive" Aggressive " Unempathetic " Cold " Creative " Egocentric " Touch-minded" Impersonal " Antisocial "

Eysenck’s personality theory of criminality:"

- Biological= functioning of the nervous system" - Psychological= stable psychological traits or behaviour in situations where criminal behaviour is a possible outcome "

- Social= responses to socialisation (reinforcement and punishment) " Evaluating Eysenck’s Theory: " Evidence: " - Fairly consistent supper for high N and P scored but not high E scores "

- Response bias from self-report measures " - Sampling bias when using convicted offenders" - All tests done in prisons but prisoners tend to make out they’re crazier than they actually are"

- What about criminal that were never caught?" Concepts: "

- Circular definitions- what does P measure?" - Personality trait may not be stable across situations" Usefulness:"

- Links behaviour and normal/abnormal behaviour " - Makes broad statements about criminal in general; does not address specific crimes" - May assist in identifying those at risk of later offending, so prevention can take place " BAS/BIS Theory: " Gray (1987):"

- Based on animal studies" - Originally a modification of Eysenck’s theory, but not considered an alternative " - Basic idea is that biological mechanisms more towards things they desire" Model: "

- Personality based on the interaction between two basic systems in the brain " - The Behavioural Approach System (BAS) and the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS)" The five-factor model: "

- Fiske (1949) and Tupes and Christal (1961) simplified Cattell’s variables to five recurrent factors known as: "

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Extraversion (or surgency)" Agreeableness " Consciousness" Emotional Stability " Intellect or Openness" (Pervin and John, 1999)" Robust evidence, including lexical approach, factor analysis and other evidence" Five-Factor Model (FFM; McCrae and John, 1992)"

Infinite number?:"

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5 factores (each with 6 sub factors)= 15,625 combinations " But each of the six measured on a scale of 1-10 or 1-100" 30 to the power of 10= five hundred ninety trillion, four hundred ninety billion" But this is significantly reduced as the 30 traits are not all independent from each other " But still has millions of subtle variations- shades and hues rather than colours "

When do variations matter?:"

- If someone scored 58 and another scores 62 and another 65- is there a distinct difference in observable behaviour? Probably not "

- Dimensions may be useful for statistical analysis and comparing inter and intra group differences, perhaps even intra-personal differences but not inter-personal "

- Perhaps we need categorical systems?" - Or further research to explore meaningful boundaries or look at the outliers" OCEAN:" Neuroticism (N):"

- Low: calm, even-tempered, and emotionally stable " - High: anxious, easily depressed, and irritable " Extraversion (E):"

- Low: sober and taciturn " - High: lively, cheerful, and sociable " Openness to Experience (O):"

- Low: conventional and down-to-earth " - High: curious, original and artistic" Agreeableness (A): "

- trust, compassion, and modesty" Conscientiousness (C): " - organisation, punctuality, and purposefulness " NEO-PI-R:"

- Devised by Costa and McCrae" - 240 questions in total" - Each trait measured has having 6 facets" Alternative way of measuring the big 5:" Fleeson (2001):"

- Used as event-sampling approach in which participants self-report on their behaviour five times a day for 13 days via a handheld device"

- Each person shows situational variability but a central tendency over time in their behaviour" - Traits measured as general tendencies in specific behaviour" Findings from Big-5 research: "

- Birth order" - First borns have higher conscientiousness than their siblings and are less likely to participate in dangerous sports "

- Later borns are more rebellious, liberal and agreeable (Paulhus et al. 1999)" - Conscientiousness can be predicted quite accurately from an individual’s bedroom or office space (Gosling et al, 2002)"

- Tidy room- high conscientiousness and vice versa "

A 6th, 7th and maybe 8th factor:" Ashton et al. (2004) compared a number of lexical studies and found evidence for a 6th factor:"

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(Di Bias and Forzi, 1998) Trustworthiness " (Peabody and Goldberg, 1989) Values " Six factor- Honesty or Humility " These are seen to be national and cultural variations in this, to what extent significance is given to either being honest or dishonest"

- A global property of personal attractiveness may be a feasible addition to the current model (Larsen and Buss, 2002)"

- Religiosity has never been studied as it highly correlated with neuroticism and other negative things" Additionally culturally specific factors?"

- The 5th factor needs to be divided- unable to concretely label the 5th factor. There has been much debate as to the validity of either intelligence or imitation as the 5th factor" Factors that reduce situational consistency: "

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Personality traits interact with other traits, as well as with characteristics of different solutions" Influenced by how important a given trait is for a person " Differences in the tendency to tailor behaviour to a given situation" Self-monitoring: people who are attentive to situational cues and adapt to what they think would be most appropriate- should be added as trait?"

Evaluation:"

- Focuses attention on the value of identifying, classifying, and measuring stable, enduring personality dispositions "

- Need to focus on how traits interact with each other " - Focuses only on description, not explanation " - Predictive value not always high " Stability of traits: " Longitudinal Studies: " - Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer (2006)"

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Meta-analysis of 92 longitudinal studies of mean-level personality trait change " Total sample of 50,120" Categorised all the studies into the Five Factor " Model framework- but broke extraversion into two traits: Social Dominance and Social Vitality"

Some personality dimensions tend to be more stable over the lifespan than others: " - Extraversion, self-esteem, emotionality and activity level remain relatively stable "

- Social dominance increases with age, while social vitality decreases" - Neuroticism, openness, and extraversion tend to decline with age" - Agreeableness and conscientiousness tend to increase with age"

Traits and Maturation: " Young children (age 4):"

- Rated as emotionally labile, aggressive, restless, disobedient and susceptible to stress" - Found more likely to use drugs at age 14 than those who were low on these characteristics " It appears that age, especially:" - From adolescence to mid-adulthood, tends to make individuals better adjusted, more altruistic, and better organised"

- But also less enthusiastic and less open to new experience (McCrae et al., 2000)" - These changes appear to be common to people everywhere " - McCrae and Costa (1990)- in terms of personality traits, 30 year olds resemble 70 year olds more than 20 year olds " Sex and Gender Differences: " Women: "

- Typically score somewhat higher than men on both N and A, as well as some specific facets of E and O (e.g. warmth, openness to aesthetics) " Men: "

- Usually score higher on other facets of E and O, namely Assertiveness and Openness to ideas" - There are few gender differences in C" Around the world: " Women score higher than men: "

- In anxiety, vulnerability, straightforwardness, and openness to aesthetics " Men score higher than women: "

- In competence, assertiveness, excitement seeking, and openness to ideas" - However, the differences are relatively small compared to variation within each gender " - That is, there are some men who score higher in anxiety than most women, and some women who score higher in assertiveness than most men " Gender Schemas:"

- Many point out that these differences too conveniently match gender stereotypes " - Mental structures that contain our understanding of the attributes and behaviours that are appropriate and expected for males and females"

- Therefore its likely these differences are part of normative gender roles that biological differences " Questionnaires and Inventories: " - 4 issues in questionnaire construction, both with a number of different meaning...