PSY 3711 1st Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I Intelligence II Early history of cognitive ability III CHC hierarchical synthesis IV Investment theory V Major distinction in I O VI Measurement of abilities VII Validity of general cognitive ability VIII Job complexity IX Ability and contextual performance Outline of Current Lecture I What do we mean by personality II History III Utility of personality traits Current Lecture I What do we mean by personality a Ending dispositions or individual attributes b Consistently distinguish people from one another c Basic tendencies to think feel and act in certain ways II History a Lexical hypothesis i Galton These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute ii Language is adaptation that helped humans survive by communicating critical info iii Human characteristics that matter will eventually become part of their language iv Personality traits should be contained in the lexicon b Allport and Odbert i Reviewed Webster s dictionary and identified 17953 relevant terms to describe human personality or behavior ii Categorized into 4 columns traits states evaluations miscellaneous person descriptions iii Traits is the most important of the 4 c Cattell i Analyzed Allport and Odbert s column 1 train descriptors of 4000 terms ii Collapsed list through subjective judgments and empirical analyses 1 Grouped synonyms into clusters 2 100 adult rated by peers and resulting correlation matrix examined 3 Lead to 60 then 35 clusters 4 Collected a new set of rating on the 35 clusters 5 Factor analysis led to 16 factors 16PF iii The analyses have not been successfully replicated computational errors may have been made d Emergence of 5 factor model i Fiske was first to obtain a 5 factor solution ii Tupes and Christal re analyzed Cattell s data on 35 clusters and 7 other data sets based on a subset of Cattell s factors Looked for a solution with small number of factors and uncorrelated factors iii Results were a 5 factor model iv Norman independently analyzed Allport and Odbert s terms and also found 5 factor solution e A near death experience i Mischel published a very influential book attacking the concept of traits argue that situations are better for explaining behavior personality traits validity ceiling of r 30 ii Guion and Gottier published an influential article that was interpreted as arguing that personality predictors were of little use iii Personality fell out of favor with I O because of concerns over invasiveness perception that faking was a problem and poor criterion related validities III Utility of personality traits a Taxonomies i 4 purposes 1 provide a common language for entities under study 2 facilitates description of similarities and differences among entities 3 allows for the measurement and prediction of variables 4 serves as the basis for theoretical concepts in a field ii Evolution of taxonomies through 3 stages 1 Relatively subjective arbitrary catalogues of convenience 2 Descriptive models based on objective similarities differences among phenomena under study 3 Theory driven casual models for entities of study iii Personality research moving from 2 to 3 currently iv Taxonomy of personality traits 1 Although other models exist FFM is the most widely used taxonomy of personality traits 2 Personality traits are hierarchically organized one integrated taxonomy across abnormal and normal personality 3 3 levels at minimum of abstraction a level 3 super domain metatraits higher order traits b level 2 domain factors dimensions c level 1 sub domain level aspects facets 4 multidimensional in nature a higher level traits are composed of the shared variance among their lower level trait dimensions b e g extraversion is constituted by the variance shared by assertiveness positive emotions sociability c higher level traits are frequently conceptualized as causal sources of subordinate traits this is debatable 5 limitations benefits of parsimony and simplicity of taxonomies come at the expense of accuracy and the reality that humans are very complex b Emotional stability neuroticism volatility withdrawal c Agreeableness politeness compassion d Conscientiousness industriousness orderliness e Extraversion assertiveness enthusiasm f Openness intellect intellect openness g Big 5 factors are not correlated but have stable higher order solutions of two metatraits alpha stability and beta plasticity h Criticism of big 5 i Not comprehensive missing traits ii Based on an overly narrow set of descriptors iii Factors are too broad or confounded