Transcript CLASSIFYING TRAITS (II): THE ‘BIG FIVE’ DEVELOPMENT OF THE ‘BIG 5’ TAXONOMY: • LEXICAL APPROACH • FACTOR ANALYSIS BIG 5: FORMAL DEFINITIONS & EXAMPLES OF.

CLASSIFYING TRAITS (II): THE ‘BIG FIVE’
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ‘BIG 5’ TAXONOMY:
• LEXICAL APPROACH
• FACTOR ANALYSIS
BIG 5: FORMAL DEFINITIONS & EXAMPLES
OF TRAITS
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ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BIG FIVE
SEARCH FOR THE BASIC UNITS OF PERSONALITY
What are the most basic dimensions of personality?
Is this basic structure universal?
--->Long-lasting debate over the number and nature of the fundamental
dimensions of personality
possible solution?
LEXICAL APPROACH
Fundamental Lexical Hypothesis
“Those personality traits that are most salient and socially relevant in
people’s lives have become encoded into their language; the more
important such a trait, the more likely is it to become expressed as a
single word”
(Goldberg, 1982, p.204)
-> DICTIONNARY: ideal point of departure to develop a comprehensive inventory of 2
traits
FACTOR ANALYSIS
• Statistical tool that looks at the correlations among
many variables (e.g., trait descriptors) and groups
these variables in clusters (called factors or
dimensions).
•Each factor (or dimension) includes all the variables
that correlate (i.e., covariate) highly with each other
(ie., co-exist in people).
• Each dimension is interpreted as a psychological
disposition or trait.
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Example: Correlations among 6 traits
OUTGO.
OUTGOING
LAUGHS
PARTIER
INSECURE
ANXIOUS
TENSE
1.0
INSE
LAUG.
PART.
.70
.84
.10
.05
.10
.75
.15
.10
.05
.10
.06
.05
.76
.80
1.0
1.0
1.0
ANXI.
1.0
TENS.
.75
1.0
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Factors obtained from these correlations:
Ne u rot ic is m
Ext rav e rs io n
.7
.7
.7
.8
O
L
P
Outgo ing
La ug hs
Pa rty
Ins
.8
Ax
Insecure A nx io us
.9
T
T e nse
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HISTORY OF LEXICAL PERSONALITY
RESEARCH
Allport & Odbert (1936)
Webster’s II unabridged
Traits
4,504
States
4,541
Evaluations
5,226
Doubtful
3,682
Cattell (1943)
Norman (1963)
FIRST FACTOR ANALYSIS EFFORTS:
5 Factors !!
Norman (1967)
Webster’s III
Traits
2,800
States
2,638
Social Roles
1,476
Evaluative
761
Goldberg (1990, 1992)
John (1984, 1989)
Costa & McCrae (1985)
MORE FACTOR ANALYSES
Physical
882
Ambiguous
4,796
Obscure
3607
FIVE FACTORS !
REPLICATED IN DIFFERENT
SAMPLES, LANGUAGES, AGES,
ETC.
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Big Five:
OCEAN
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How about Vanilla ice-cream!
Openness to Experience --------- Conventionality
8
I will do it tomorrow !
Laziness is warm. Laziness is comfort.
Laziness is the promise of sleep. The promise
of rest. Laziness demands a new day.
A new day to do what you didn't do today.
Conscientiousness----------- Unreliability
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Extraversion ---------------- Introversion
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Agreeableness ---------------- Hostility
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Neuroticism ----------- Emotional Stability
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TAXONOMIES
Big Five Taxonomy = 5 Groups of traits
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FORMAL DEFINITIONS OF BIG 5
DIMENSIONS & EXAMPLES OF TRAITS
WITHIN EACH DIMENSION
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BIG 5 DIMENSIONS:
• BASIC BROAD CATEGORIES OF CO-OCCURRING
TRAITS
• HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION (EACH
DIMENSION INCLUDES MANY SUB-TRAITS WHICH
IN TURN CONTAIN NARROWER TRAITS)
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ENGLISH NATURAL LANGUAGE
FACTORS
FACETS
O
C
O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6
E
E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
TRAITS
A
N
N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N6
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6
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BIG 5 DIMENSIONS:
• BASIC BROAD CATEGORIES OF CO-OCCURRING TRAITS
• HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION (EACH DIMENSION INCLUDES
MANY SUB-TRAITS WHICH IN TURN CONTAIN NARROWER
TRAITS)
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USEFUL METAPHOR
BIG 5 DIMENSIONS = The five
continents of personality (ie., five basic
domains that reliably organize the huge
existing universe of personality traits)
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PHYSICAL CRITERIA : BY CONTINENT
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POLITICAL CRITERIA: BY NATION
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ECONOMY CRITERIA: BY GDP
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VERONICA’S CRITERIA: BY WHERE THE GOOD WINE IS !
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THE ‘BIG FIVE’ (continuation)
EVALUATION OF THE BIG 5
• Advantages and disadvantages
• Alternative # factors? Big Seven
CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE BIG 5
Agreement between self- and observer-reports
on the Big 5? (John & Robins, 1993)
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EVALUATION OF THE BIG FIVE
Strenghts of the 'Big Five' Model:
• Broad-level, representation of major dimensions of personality
 allows economical, parsimonious descriptions of personality
• Conceptual framework (taxonomy) to organize and summarize
personality findings from other studies  high heuristic value
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Big 5 = economical and parsimonious sketch of someone’s
personality
(e.g. Ana is E+ N- C- A+ O+)
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Ideally = super-detailed, in-depth portrait of personality (expensive!)
27
In reality = many personality theories/instruments have provided detailed
but incomplete personality portraits based on theorists’ domain preferences
(e.g., psychoanalytic measures provide a lot of info about N and C)
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again ….. Big 5 = sketchy but parsimonious description of
someone’s personality
29
Example of how the Big 5 can help organize
and summarize personality findings from
other studies:
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Remember York & John four personality types ?
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TYPES
Integration of typologies and taxonomies
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EVALUATION OF THE BIG FIVE
Limitations of the Big Five:
• Primarily descriptive (rather than explanatory)
• Focuses on variables, ie. nomothetic (rather than on individuals)
• Global, molar level of description (rather than narrow level)
• Are five enough?
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Objection to the Big Five:
Listing of terms from which the Big Five originated had excluded
evaluative and many state-mood descriptors ....... (see next slide)
--> Do the Big Five fully represent the domain of personality?
Tellegen & Waller’s (1987) Re-Examination of the English
Personality Lexicon:
Method:
•No a-priori excluding criteria is used in the selection of
personality descriptors from the dictionary
•Stratified sampling of personality descriptors (1 term from every
4-pages).
Results:
•Representative (rather than exhaustive) sample of 299
personality descriptors
Seven-Factors !!
34
HISTORY OF LEXICAL PERSONALITY
RESEARCH
Allport & Odbert (1936)
Webster’s II unabridged
Traits
4,504
States
4,541
Evaluations
5,226
Doubtful
3,682
Cattell (1943)
Norman (1963)
FIRST FACTOR ANALYSIS EFFORTS:
5 Factors !!
Norman (1967)
Webster’s III
Traits
2,800
States
2,638
Social Roles
1,476
Evaluative
761
Goldberg (1990, 1992)
John (1984, 1989)
Costa & McCrae (1985)
MORE FACTOR ANALYSES
Physical
882
Ambiguous
4,796
Obscure
3607
FIVE FACTORS !
REPLICATED IN DIFFERENT
SAMPLES, LANGUAGES, AGES,
ETC.
35
What happens if you don’t
exclude evaluations, states, and
social roles?
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THE ‘BIG SEVEN’ FACTORS OF PERSONALITY
(Big Five plus two evaluative dimensions)
Examples of marker items (abbreviated)
POSITIVE EMOTIONALITY (EXTROVERSION)
GREGARIOUS
TALKATIVE
ANIMATED
PEPPY
NOT TALKATIVE
LONER
RESERVED
QUIET
NEGATIVE EMOTIONALITY (NEUROTICISM)
IRRITATED
SORRY FOR MYSELF
JITTERY
UPSET
NOT EASILY UPSET
RELAXED
NOT OVERWORRYING
CALM
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
WELL ORGANIZED
PROMPT
CAUTIOUS
ORDERLY
IMPULSIVE
DISORGANIZED
CARELESS
WILD
AGREEABLENESS
LENIENT
LIKES TO PLEASE
DISLIKES ARGUMENT
POLITE
ARGUMENTATIVE
STUBBORN
QUARRELSOME
SARCASTIC
CONVENTIONALITY (OPENNESS)
TRADITIONAL
OLD-FASH IONED
PRO-DISCIPLINE
CONVENTIONAL
PROGRESSIVE
CURIOUS
ODD
UNUSUAL
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‘BIG SEVEN’ : Big Five plus two independent evaluative dimensions
POSITIVE VALENCE
Outstanding
Impressive
Excellent
Exceptional
Admirable
Important
Ordinary
Average
Not exceptional
POWER
ESTEEM
NEGATIVE VALENCE
Wicked
Awful
Dangerous
Disgusting
Vicious
Treacherous
MORALITY
(Tellegen & Waller, 1987; Benet-Martinez & Waller, 1995)
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The Big Seven Factor Model:
(1) Is an independent replication of the Big Five (PE, NE,
C, A, O)
(2) Broadens the lexically-informed personality domain by
adding:
 Two evaluative dimensions (Positive and Negative Valence)
tapping esteem
 Emotional component of E and N (state terms now mixed with
trait terms)
 Conventionality component of O (evaluative terms now in
Openness)
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CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE BIG 5
Construct validity = demonstration that a particular
psychological concept (or trait) really exists and definition of
what it is and what is not (how similar/different to other
constructs is)
Construct-validation techniques:
• correlate self-reports with observer-reports
• correlate measures of construct of interest with other
measures of similar or related constructs (convergent
correlations)
• correlate measures of construct of interest with other
measures of different and unrelated constructs (discriminant
correlations)
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CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE BIG 5
Agreement between self- and observerreports on the Big 5 and Big 7?
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Correlations Between Self-Reports and Observer-Ratings on the Big Seven
Observer-Ratings
Self-Reports
PV
NV
PE
NE
C
A
CN
Positive Valence (PV)
.26
.01
.26
- .10
- .08
- .04
- .14
Negative Valence (NV)
- .11
.21
-.01
- .01
- .12
- .05
- .16
Positive Emotionality (PE)
.11
.12
.63
-.11
- .18
- .06
- .08
Negative Emotionality (NE)
.00
- .01
- .14
.46
.08
.01
.11
-.01
- .06
- .21
.14
.55
.07
.27
.07
- .04
- .13
- .06
.12
.50
.13
- .13
.00
- .07
.06
.25
.14
.59
Conscientiousness (C)
Agreeableness (A)
Conventionality (CN)
Note. N = 321 American college students. Cross-observer validity coefficients are in bold.
Each participant was rated by one close person (friend, romantic partner, parent, or sibling).
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MAIN CONCLUSION : Agreement
between self- and other- views on traits
depends on personality domain (which Big
5 trait)
As previous slide indicates:
Higher for E, O, C
Lower for N, PV, NV
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More specific information about this issue ……
John & Robins’ (1993) study
4 MORE CONCLUSIONS ABOUT DETERMINANTS OF
SELF-PEER AGREEMENT:
• SELF-PEER < PEER-PEER
• LOW OBSERVABILITY (e.g., introspective) < HIGH
OBSERVABILITY (e.g., loud)
• HIGH EVALUATIVENESS < LOW EVALUATIVENESS
(e.g., hostile, weird)
(e.g., frank, open)
• HIGH/LOW DESIRABILITY < MEDIUM DESIRABILITY
(e.g., sexy, evil)
(e.g., organized, energetic )
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