PSYC20009 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Pollination Syndrome, Lexical Hypothesis, Theophrastus
14 Jun 2018
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Lecture 10 - Monday 2 October 2017
ANAT20006 - HUMAN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
LECTURE 10
INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY
WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
•(2) Regularities in behaviour and experience (DeYoung & Gray, 2009)
•A persons typical mode of response (Pervin, 1999)
•Our identity and our reputation (Hogan, 2008)
•“(a) an individual’s unique variation on the general evolutionary design for human nature,
expressed as a developing pattern of (b) dispositional traits, (c) characteristic adaptations, and (d)
self-defining life narratives, complexly and differentially situated (e) in culture and social
context.’’ (McAdams & Pals, 2006)
•(3) → DeYoung, 2015; McAdams & Pals, 2006:
•Level 3: Life Narratives
•The story we have constructed about who we are
•Highly/completely individualised
•Level 2: Characteristic Adaptations
•Concerns an individuals particular life circumstances
•Highly contextualised e.g., specific goals, social roles, educational aspirations
•Level 1: Dispositional Traits
•Broad descriptions of patterns of behavior and experience
•Relatively decontextualised
•Eg., shy, bold, warm, aloof, disciplined, impulsive, etc
•Anxiousness: seen in a range of situations, not simply public speaking for example.
DISPOSITIONAL TRAITS
•(4) Definition: Personality traits are probabilistic descriptions of regularities in behaviour and
experience.
•Eg., sociable, moody, aggressive, kind, etc...
•Arising in response to very broad classes of stimuli and situations (i.e., “relatively
decontextualised”)
•Eg., social encounters, threat/danger, etc.
•Traits are strongly contextualised.
•(5) (Very) early trait catalogues:
•The Characters of Theophrastus (c. 371 – c. 287 BC)
•The flatterer
•The reckless man
•The chatty man
•The gossip
•The surly man
•The distrustful man
•The mean man etc.
•(6) (Somewhat) early trait catalogues:
→ Allport and Odbert (1936):
•The ‘Lexical Hypothesis’: Important characteristics will, over human history, be coded in
language.
•Collected an exhaustive list of personality descriptors – about 18,000 terms (e.g., sociable,
aggressive...)
•Perhaps useful for rating personality?
Lecture 10 - Monday 2 October 2017
ANAT20006 - HUMAN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION
•Problem: Very unwieldy, more of a ‘laundry list’ than a system
•(8) What is the number and nature of basic trait “domains” required to describe the structure of
personality?
•Bare minimum?
•How is space structured?
•How is a deck of cards structured?
FACTOR ANALYSIS
•(9) → Spearman & Thurstone
•Developed a statistical method that reduces several correlated variables to
much fewer composite variables or factors.
•Developed by Spearman and Thurstone to explore the structure of mental
abilities.
→ Cattell (1943): reduced Allport and
Odbert’s list through many and varied
techniques, including factor analysis
•Eventual result was a 16 factor
solution.
CATTELL’S METHOD
•(10)
→ 18,000 descriptors
→ Sorted into 160 clusters of
synonyms/antonyms
→ Discarding near-identical
descriptors
→ Final list of 171 descriptors
→ 100 participants rate 1-2 friends
on the 171 descriptors
→ Factor Analysis 16 Personality
Factors
APPROACHING TAXONOMY
•(12) If personality was a deck of cards:
•Allport & Odbert: “there is a 2 of clubs, a 3 of clubs...”
•Cattell: “there are clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds, which vary in number...”
•We are now approaching a personality system or taxonomy for:
•Describing the structure of personality
•Organizing the universe of trait descriptors
PROBLEMS WITH CATTEL’S 16 TRAITS
•(14) Subjectivity:
•Different people reach a different reduced set of Allport & Odbert’s descriptors.
•(Poor) Replicability/Reproducibility:
•A 16 factor solution tends to be very unstable: using Cattell’s 171 personality descriptors,
many people failed to obtain his same 16 factors.
•Redundancy:
•Many of his factors correlated too highly for them to really be ‘different’ traits.
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Document Summary
Factor analysis: (9) spearman & thurstone, developed a statistical method that reduces several correlated variables to much fewer composite variables or factors, developed by spearman and thurstone to explore the structure of mental abilities. Odbert"s list through many and varied techniques, including factor analysis: eventual result was a 16 factor solution. 100 participants rate 1-2 friends on the 171 descriptors. Describing someone with high fidelity = describing them very precisely. Caspi, roberts & shiner, 2005: rank order stability vs. mean-level stability, mean level stability is relatively low. Eg if we measured agreeableness of everyone in the lecture and came back in 20 years it would probably go up. Funder et al. , 1995: trait assessments converge over multiple raters, they therefore reflect some meaningful, shared understanding of person characteristics, convergence of identity" and reputation" , extroversion is quite high in agreement levels but neuroticism isn"t. Ozer & benet-martinez, 2006: (a major theme of psyc30015, applications in.
