PS2050 Lecture 2 Personality Traits PDF

Department of Psychology Remember you must log your attendance at all learning sessions here (links to Campus Connect) Drop In sessions: Pop by to speak with any member of staff about your learning and development (links to when/where) Anonymous feedback: Let us...

Department of Psychology Remember you must log your attendance at all learning sessions here (links to Campus Connect) Drop In sessions: Pop by to speak with any member of staff about your learning and development (links to when/where) Anonymous feedback: Let us know what we are doing well and where we can continue to improve (links to form) Please keep teaching spaces nut free so everyone can learn in a safe environment Personality Traits Dr. Philip Solomon-Turay Learning Objectives Introduction & exploration into personality theory Exploration of factor approaches ○ 3 Factor: Eysenck ○ 5 Factor: O.C.E.A.N ○ 6 Factor: H.E.X.A.C.O ○ The big One Measuring personality traits Criticisms of the factor approaches Responses of criticisms : Five factor theory Preparing for Assignments/Exams Coursework Exam (70%) (30%) Due: 10am, 11th January 2024. November 2024. In-person. 2000-word essay. 2/5 questions. Lots of detailed Lots of detailed guidance on 9th guidance available December (exam prep lecture) on Moodle. and available on Moodle.  The lecture and Your Assignment Week 3: Personality Traits ○ Taught by Philip ([email protected]). ○ From this lecture, students should: Provide an overview of the core understanding of personality traits and what comprises personality (e.g., HEXACO); Any questions about the lecture content, Critique how personality traits are perceived/understood please contact the relevant lecturer. Critique how personality is measured.  Sage College Student: Tye Tye is a student at Sage college and he has an older brother. They both grew up in the same household. Tye is extroverted and enjoys socialising. Tye's older brother however is naturally introverted and prefers solitary activities. Despite having the same parents and similar upbringing, their personalities are quite different. Question: Are Tye and his brother's differing personalities more likely a result of inherited traits or their unique environmental experiences? Defining Personality Traits “a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that creates the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings” - Allport (1961). A trait is a dimension of personality used to categorise people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic (Burger, 1997). Defining Personality Traits Two assumptions underlie trait theory. - Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time - Traits show stability across situations Development of trait theories in psychology: Lexical Hypothesis Initially associated with Galton (1822 – 1911). Used a dictionary and/or thesaurus to elicit words describing personality Assumptions: The most meaningful traits will tend to be used in language as single terms The number of words in a language that refer to the trait correspond to its importance in describing personality ○ e.g., 'honest' has 30+ synonyms in a thesaurus If the lexical hypothesis is a valid theory, then it should apply across different cultures and languages (Norman, 1963) Development of trait theories in psychology: Lexical Hypothesis Lexical researchers were limited to counting the terms used, identifying synonyms and producing lists of these words. One of the first psychologists to produce such a list was the American Gordon Allport (1897– 1967). He identified 18,000 words, of which 4,500 described personality traits  Nomothetic Strategy: Focus on similarities between groups of individuals. Individuals are unique only in the way their traits combine. Goal: To identify the basic structure of personality and the minimum number of traits required to describe personality universally. Methodology: Quantitative methods to - Explore the structures of personality - Produces measures of personality - Explores the relationship between variables across groups Data Collection: Self- report personality questionnaires Advantages: Discovery of general principles that have a predictive function Disadvantages: Can lead to a fairly superficial understanding of any one person. Training needed to analyse personality profiles accurately. Cattell and factor analysis (16 PF) Factor Analysis: A way of reducing the data from many variables to their underlying dimensions. ○ e.g., variables ‘determined’,‘persistent’ and ‘productive’ are highly correlated with each other ○ They form a cluster or factor that could be called 'achievement- oriented'. Cattell (1965) defined personality as being the characteristics of the individual that allow prediction of how they will behave in a given situation. Cattell and Factor Analysis (16 PF) Traits are stable, long-lasting building blocks of personality Factor analysis revealed 16 personality factors. Cattell’s 16PF came from the factor analysis of the list of 4,500 trait names identified by Allport and Odbert (1936). Problems with replication attempts (Conn and Rieke, 1994).  3 Factor Approach (Eysenck, 1947; 1952) Observe responses in specific situations Specific Response 1 Typical responses = habitual response Habitual Specific response 1 Response 2 Particular traits emerge Specific Response 3 Habitual response 2 Specific Response 4 TRAIT Specific Habitual Response 5 response 3 Specific Response 6 Habitual Specific response 4 Response 7 Specific Response 8 Traits TRAIT: activity TRAIT: liveliness SUPERTRAIT TRAIT: assertiveness  Eysenck: 3 BASIC TRAITS First suggested, personality reducible to 2 supertraits 1. Sociability 2. Neuroticism.. Later, added 3. Psychoticism Measurement tool developed: Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (1975) Idea of PERSONALITY TYPES Criticisms: TOO reductionist.. Too few factors Costa and McCrae (1992) Build on the foundation of the lexical hypothesis Statements that participants agree/disagree with can better access components of personality Analysed the data Data-driven hypothesis, not one based on a theory that there are 5 factors, which is then tested Costa & McCrae (1985 onwards..) Openness O Conscientiousness C Extraversion E Agreeableness A Neuroticism N Costa & McCrae (1985 onwards..) Openness Intellectual curiosity, new ideas Conscientiousness Self-discipline, control, order, dutifulness Extraversion Warmth, excitement-seeking Agreeableness Trusting, sympathetic, helpful Neuroticism Emotional stability 3 FACTORS or 5 FACTORS? VERSUS Who won?  Costa & McCrae (1985) in the Workplace Can be beneficial for roles requiring creativity and Openness innovation Conscientiousness Often linked to job performance, reliability, and organisational skills. Can be important for roles involving teamwork and Extraversion customer interaction. Agreeableness Can be beneficial for roles requiring teamwork and conflict resolution. Neuroticism Often preferred in high-stress jobs.  Forming a Sixth Factor USA, Germany, Italy, Korea, Hungary, and Poland  Adjectives Forming a Sixth Factor Positively Loaded on Factor Negatively loaded on factor Truthful Untruthful Truth-loving Dishonest Arrogant Honest Fair Conceited Just Sincere Pompous Greedy Faithful Natural Grasping Sly Corrupt Trustworthy Hypocritical Humane  HEXACO Model Honesty-humility Emotionality Openness Extraversion Conscientiousness Agreeableness  HEXACO (Ashton & Lee, 2007) Model Adjectives contribute to a sixth factor of honesty- humility 3 traits: honesty/humility, agreeableness & emotionality contribute to altruism 3 traits: extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience relate to biological separate areas of behaviour. See Table 7.5, p185  3 or 5 or 6? Somewhat depends on your own opinion Eysenck’s 3 seem to have lost the debate HEXACO might be a useful revision to the Five factor model Difficulties in determining the “truth” may reflect the use of factor analysis Multiple methods may be needed Personality Traits in the Working World Google is known for its rigorous hiring process. They use personality tests to assess traits like 1, conscientiousness 2, 3 agreeableness openness Google found that high levels of these traits were strong predictors of success in team-based roles. Personality Traits in the Working World IBM uses personality assessments as part of their recruitment process. They focus on traits such as openness emotionality IBM's research indicated that these traits made employees more adaptable and innovative, which is crucial for their fast-paced, technology- driven environment. Measuring Personality Self-report Other report (e.g., observer report) Behaviour observation Physiology - hormones - brain activity - genetics (see later in course) Measuring Personality Ten item personality inventory Loads of very similar ways to measure personality traits BFI-2 (Soto) TIPI (Gosling) HEXACO (Ashton & Lee) 32 TIPI Debrief EXTRAVERSION AGREEABLENESS CONSCIENTIOUSNESS EMOTIONAL STABILITY OPENNESS EXTRAVERSION AGREEABLENESS CONSCIENTIOUSNESS EMOTIONAL STABILITY OPENNESS  The Big one? The general factor of personality (Musek , 2007) When someone scored high on one of the factors (e.g. extraversion) they were likely to score high on one of the others. This finding suggested to Musek that there may be a further key trait underlying all these measures. The general factor of personality emerging is not the result of evolutionary adaptations, rather it’s the result of the way people answer questionnaires (social desirability; Ferguson, 2011).  The Big one? The general factor of personality Musek’s factor analysis of the five-factor model of personality identified two main factors: stability (conformity) and plasticity General Factor (non-conformity). These two factors further reduced to a single factor, termed the General Factor of Stability Plasticity Personality. The general factor of personality is a blend of positively Low High High High valued aspects of High Extraversion Neuroticism Conscientiousness Agreeableness Openness personality dimensions. The general factor measures the factors that Musek, 2007, see textbook 186, Figure 7.6 are cross culturally highly valued Evaluation of trait approaches Do they predict behaviour? Are they stable over time? Are the methods used problematic? Why? Evaluation of trait approaches: Self-reports Advantages -Quick and easy; cheap -You yourself (arguably) have the best insight Disadvantages -Biases in responding: social desirability and dishonesty -Not measuring the biological basis e.g., neuroticism at the level of self-report may be masked by learned strategies Evaluation of trait approaches: other reports Advantages - Quick and easy; cheap - Close peer has good insight into mind of their friend - Can provide a convergent perspective Disadvantages - Peer has no access to inner thoughts (despite perception that they do) /although perhaps not important for Big Five but for other more intimate aspects of personality e.g. sexuality - Some traits MUCH harder to judge externally (e.g. smiling/laughing marker of extraversion, neuroticism harder to access)  Evaluation of trait approaches (Mischel, 1968 & 2009) Discrepancy between what he had observed and the assumptions of trait theory. Trait models largely descriptive and did not neccesarily predict behaviour. Problems arise when looking for cross-situational consistency of behaviour that can be predicted on the basis of traits. This was characterised as the person-situation debate.  Evaluation of trait approaches (Mischel, 1968 & 2009) "If introvert and extrovert types do exist, they do not show any distinction that is clearly measurable by such means of recording observed behavior as were used in this study” Supported by (Newcomb, 1929)  Evaluation of trait approaches (Funder, 2007) Any measurement of a person’s personality is only a very modest predictor of what a person will do in a given situation (<.30 -.40) Situations are of greater importance than traits in determining behaviour. Implies personality assessment is a waste of time and intuitions we have about peoples’ traits are flawed.  Evaluation of trait approaches: Responses Inconsistency is a result of measurement error Need to aggregate across several situations to access the “true” state of affairs. Variability due to the situation is “noise” which must be factor  Evaluation of trait approaches: Responses Trait theorists’ response (2) 0.30-0.40 is NOT a small predictor Basing a decision on a correlation of 0.3 means that if you are making a binary decision, you will be right in about 65% of cases. That is a good bit better than chance at 50%  Evaluation of trait approaches: Responses –100 employees picked at random £10,000 to train each employee Half will fail £20,000 total cost per successfully trained employee However, knowing something about the predictors of success… Only 30% fail (.40 relationship between personality and behaviour) Now, only £14,300 total cost per successfully trained employee  Evaluation of trait approaches: Responses Just because one personality trait doesn’t predict behaviour doesn’t mean that the rest of the variance is situational Behaviour has never been claimed to be the product of a single personality trait! Behaviour may be the manifestation of many traits “working in unison” Criticisms and study findings were synthesied to create the five factor theory (McCrae & Costa, 1999) Mirabel Madrigal Five Factor Theory Linked to myriad life outcomes (more later) e.g. agreeableness - positively linked to religious beliefs - positively linked to gratitude - positively linked to romantic satisfaction REPLICABLE - effect sizes for most of these remain stable (Effect sizes are a way of describing the size of an effect regardless of the units you are measuring in) (Soto, 2019) Learning Objectives Introduction & exploration into personality theory Exploration of factor approaches ○ 3 Factor: Eysenck ○ 5 Factor: O.C.E.A.N ○ 6 Factor: H.E.X.A.C.O ○ The big One Measuring personality traits Criticisms of the factor approaches Responses of criticisms : Five factor theory Post Lecture Activity Applying concepts taught to Sage College Department of Psychology Remember you must log your attendance at all learning sessions here (links to Campus Connect) Drop In sessions: Pop by to speak with any member of staff about your learning and development (links to when/where) Anonymous feedback: Let us know what we are doing well and where we can continue to improve (links to form) Please keep teaching spaces nut free so everyone can learn in a safe environment