Personality, 9e

Jerry M. Burger © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

The Trait Approach: Theory, Application, and Assessment

Chapter 7 © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

Chapter Outline

 Trait approach  Important trait theorists  Factor analysis and the search for the structure of personality  Situation versus trait controversy  Application: The big five in the workplace  Assessment: Self-report inventories  Strengths and criticisms of the trait approach © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Trait Approach

 Identifies personality characteristics that can be represented along a continuum  Trait: Categorizes people according to degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic  Assumptions - Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time and across situations © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Figure 7.1 - Trait Continuum

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Gordon Allport

 Acknowledged the limitations of the trait concept  Behavior is influenced by a variety of environmental factors  Traits have physical components in the nervous system  Promoted the concept of self © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Gordon Allport: Research Strategies

Nomothetic approach • People can be described along a single dimension according to their level of, assertiveness or anxiety • Common traits - Applies to everyone Idiographic approach • Identifies the combination of traits that best accounts for the personality of a individual • Central traits - Describe an individual’s personality • Cardinal trait - Single dominating trait in personality • Advantage - Person determines what traits to examine © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Henry Murray

 Personology  Combination of psychoanalytic and trait concepts  Needs - Basic elements of personality  Focused on psychogenic needs  Readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given conditions © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Henry Murray

 People can be described in terms of a personal hierarchy of needs  Press - Situation that influences the activation of a need  Principal contributions to personality  Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)  Stimulated extensive research on psychogenic needs © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Factor Analysis and the Search for the Structure of Personality

 Factor analysis: Technique employed by Raymond Cattell to determine the structure of human personality  Source traits - Basic traits that make up the human personality  Limitation - Procedure is confined by the type of data chosen for analysis © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Donald Fiske’s Personality Factors

 Social adaptability  Emotional control  Conformity  Inquiring intellect  Confident self-expression © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Table 7.1 - The Big Five Personality Factors Source: Copyright © 1986 by the American Psychological Association. Reproduced with permission. McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1986). Clinical assessment can benefit from recent advances in personality psychology. American Psychologist, 41, 1001-1003.

doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.41.9.1001. No further reproduction or distribution is permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association.

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Neuroticism

 Places people according to their emotional stability and personal adjustment  People with high scores are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression  Individuals with low scores tend to be calm and well adjusted © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Extraversion

 Places extreme extraverts at one end and extreme introverts at the other  Extraverts are very sociable people  Introverts are reserved and independent people © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Openness

 Involves active imagination, divergent thinking, and intellectual curiosity  People on the high end are unconventional and independent thinkers  Individuals on the low end prefer the familiar rather than the imaginative © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Agreeableness

 People with high scores are helpful, trusting, and sympathetic  Individuals with low scores tend to be antagonistic and skeptical © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Conscientiousness

 People on the high end are organized, plan oriented, and determined  Individuals on the low end are careless, easily distracted from tasks, and undependable  Referred as will to achieve or work © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Ongoing Questions Related to the Big Five Model

 Debate about what the five factors mean  Disagreement about the structure of the five factor model  Researchers have looked into the stability of the five factors over time  When to use scores from Big Five measures versus scores from specific trait scales © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Criticism of Trait Approach

 Trait measures do not predict behavior well because both the person and the situation are related to behavior  Person-by-situation approach: Individual traits as well as situations determine behavior  There is little evidence for cross-situational consistency © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Defense for Trait Approach

Measuring behavior • Strong links between personality traits and behavior is not established because researchers don’t measure behavior correctly Identifying relevant traits • Single trait can predict a person’s behavior if that trait is important, or central, for the person • Inclusion of secondary trait, dilutes the correlation between the trait score and the behavior Importance of 10% of the variance • Considering the complexity of factors that influence behavior, ability to explain 10% of variance should be considered good enough © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Situation Versus Trait Controversy

 Identifying relevant traits  Single trait can predict a person’s behavior if that trait is important, or central, for the person  Inclusion of secondary trait, dilutes the correlation between the trait score and the behavior © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Application: The Big Five in the Workplace

 Employers use scores from personality tests to make hiring and promotion decisions  Critics complain that employers misinterpret test scores when making these decisions  Research provides stronger evidence for the relationship between personality and job performance © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Application: The Big Five in the Workplace

 Research indicates that conscientiousness may be the best predictor of job performance  Highly conscientious people are organized, hardworking, persistent, and achievement oriented  People high in agreeableness are trusting, cooperative, and helpful  Work well in team jobs © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Application: The Big Five in the Workplace

 Extraverts have an edge in the business world over introverts  Test scores of applicants on the Big Five personality dimensions are useful when making a hiring decision © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Assessment: Self-Report Inventories

 Self-report inventories - Asks people to respond to a series of questions about themselves  Widely used form of personality assessment  Have greater face validity  Used by researchers, personnel managers, and clinical psychologists © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Assessment: Self-Report Inventories

 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)  Prototypic self-report inventory used by clinical psychologists  Revised version, MMPI-2, was published in 1989  Widely used clinical assessment tool  Psychologists debate the validity of scales0 © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Figure 7.2 - Sample MMPI Profile

Source: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Profile Form. Copyright 1943, 1948, (renewed 1970), 1976, 1982 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the University of Minnesota Press.

© 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Assessment: Self-Report Inventories

 Problems with self-report inventories  Faking     Test takers intentionally give misleading information on self-report inventories Fake good - Presenting themselves as better than they really are Fake bad - Making themselves look worse than they really are Test makers build safeguards into tests to reduce faking  MMPI contains scales designed to detect faking © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Assessment: Self-Report Inventories

 Carelessness and sabotage  Participants can get bored with long tests and select responses randomly  Test takers sometimes report incorrect information to sabotage a research project  Instruction explanation, surveillance and stressing the importance of the test can reduce the problem © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Assessment: Self-Report Inventories

 Response tendencies  Social desirability: Extent to which people present themselves in a favorable light  Measuring social desirability enables a tester to adjust the interpretation of other scores accordingly  Acquiescence response can be a problem on some scales  People’s tendency to agree with test items can distort the meaning of scores © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Strengths and Criticisms of the Trait Approach

 Strengths  Usage of objective measures to examine the constructs  Reduced level of the bias and subjectivity  Numerous practical applications  Educational psychologists and employers use trait measures in their work  Generated a large amount of research © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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Strengths and Criticisms of the Trait Approach

 Criticisms  No explanation on how traits develop or how to help people who suffer from extreme scores  No schools of psychotherapy have originated from the trait approach  Lack of an agreed-upon framework © 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.

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