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

2 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 traits

3 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.

4 Example: Correlations among 6 traits

5 Factors obtained from these correlations:

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7 Big Five: O C E A N

8 Openness to Experience Conventionality How about Vanilla ice-cream!

9 Conscientiousness Unreliability 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. I will do it tomorrow !

10 Extraversion Introversion

11 Agreeableness Hostility

12 Neuroticism Emotional Stability

13 TAXONOMIES Big Five Taxonomy = 5 Groups of traits

14 FORMAL DEFINITIONS OF BIG 5 DIMENSIONS & EXAMPLES OF TRAITS WITHIN EACH DIMENSION

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16 BIG 5 DIMENSIONS: BASIC BROAD CATEGORIES OF CO-OCCURRING TRAITS HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION (EACH DIMENSION INCLUDES MANY SUB-TRAITS WHICH IN TURN CONTAIN NARROWER TRAITS)

17 ENGLISH NATURAL LANGUAGE O C E A N O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 N1 N2 N3 N4 N5 N6 FACTORS FACETS TRAITS

18 BIG 5 DIMENSIONS: BASIC BROAD CATEGORIES OF CO-OCCURRING TRAITS HIERARCHICAL ORGANIZATION (EACH DIMENSION INCLUDES MANY SUB-TRAITS WHICH IN TURN CONTAIN NARROWER TRAITS)

19 USEFUL METAPHOR BIG 5 DIMENSIONS = The five continents of personality (ie., five basic domains that reliably organize the huge existing universe of personality traits)

20 PHYSICAL CRITERIA : BY CONTINENT

21 POLITICAL CRITERIA: BY NATION

22 ECONOMY CRITERIA: BY GDP

23 VERONICA’S CRITERIA: BY WHERE THE GOOD WINE IS !

24 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)

25 EVALUATION OF THE BIG FIVE

26 Big 5 = economical and parsimonious sketch of someone’s personality(e.g. Ana is E+ N- C- A+ O+)

27 Ideally = super-detailed, in-depth portrait of personality (expensive!)

28 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)

29 again ….. Big 5 = sketchy but parsimonious description of someone’s personality

30 Example of how the Big 5 can help organize and summarize personality findings from other studies:

31 Remember York & John four personality types ?

32 TYPES Integration of typologies and taxonomies

33 EVALUATION OF THE BIG FIVE

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36 What happens if you don’t exclude evaluations, states, and social roles?

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38 ‘BIG SEVEN’ : Big Five plus two independent evaluative dimensions POSITIVE VALENCE Outstanding Ordinary Impressive Average Excellent Not exceptional POWER Exceptional Admirable Important ESTEEM NEGATIVE VALENCE Wicked Awful Dangerous MORALITY Disgusting Vicious Treacherous (Tellegen & Waller, 1987; Benet-Martinez & Waller, 1995)

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40 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)

41 Agreement between self- and observer- reports on the Big 5 and Big 7? CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE BIG 5

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43 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

44 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 )