1. Traits and Trait Taxonomies
Chapter 3
Traits and Trait Taxonomies

2. Some textbooks are entirely this one chapter !

3. Three fundamental questions
How should we conceptualize what a trait is?
How can we identify which traits are most important from among the many ways that individuals differ?
How can we formulate a comprehensive taxonomy of traits—a system that includes within it all the major traits of personality?

4. Summary View of Traits
Causal View of Traits
Jerry Wiggins
Paul Costa

5. “Causal” view of traits
Presumed to be internal in that individuals carry their desires, needs, and wants from one situation to next.
Desires and needs, dispositions to act that can serve as explanations of the behavior
Scientific usefulness of viewing traits as causes of behavior lies in ruling out other causes

6. “Summary” View of Traits
Trait= behavor trend (summary of behav.)
No assumption about internality
No assumption that it is a cause of anything
Scientific goal should be identify and describe behavior trends (traits)
Afterward, develop casual theories that explain these trends (traits)
According to the Summary point of view, a trait is NOT an explanation of anything.

7. Traits = categories of acts
Example of the“Summary” view of traits: Act Frequency approach to trait measurement
Traits = categories of acts
Therefore the way to measure traits is…
Identify central “acts” for a trait category
Measure how frequently someone does those acts.

8. Act Frequency Research Program
1) Act nominations: Designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories
2) Prototypicality judgements: Involves identifying which acts are most central or prototypical of each trait category
Classical view of categories:
clear boundary: “features”
Prototype view of categories
fuzzy boundary: “family resemblance”

9. Which is the more prototypic “dog”? Why?
(NOTE: They possess dog features equally!)

10. Golden Lab’s are “prototypic”

11. Benefits of Act Frequency approach
Makes explicit the behavioral referents of a trait
Helpful to illuminate the meaning of some traits that are difficult to study, e.g., impulsivity, creativity

12. Limitations
Doesn’t say how much context is needed for act descriptions
Weak approach for traits having few observable referents
Weak approach for complex traits

13. Which traits are important?
3 approaches to answering this:
Lexical Approach
Statistical Approach
Theoretical Approach

14. The "Lexical" Approach
Sir Francis Galton’s (1885) "Lexical hypothesis" "All individual differences that are socially important enough for people to want to talk about them will over time become registered in the natural language (e.g., as an adjective or noun). "

15. Lexical Approach How identify important traits?
If group members need to talk about an individual difference a lot….
Trait words will be invented to faciliate easier communication about that. Therefore:
Dictionaries define the universe of possible traits that are socially important

16. Lexical Approach 2 criteria of importance Synonym frequency
Kind, warm, nurturant….
Cross-cultural universality
Kind (yes, universal)
Unokai (NOT universal)
e.g., Yanomamo language has a culturally specific trait: Unokai
“Achieving manhood via killing a man”
Frequency of AGREEABLNESS words are most common in all languages
Eg kind, warm… do on board….
EXAMPLE ON NON-UNIVERSAL:
Yanomamo word ooonakay ("UNOKAI") has achieved manhood by killing another man.

17. Yanomami
Frequency of AGREEABLNESS words are most common in all languages
Eg kind, warm… do on board….
EXAMPLE ON NON-UNIVERSAL:
Yanomamo word ooonakay ("UNOKAI") has achieved manhood by killing another man.

18. Advantage of Lexical Approach
Good starting point for identifying important differences (But, should not be only approach)
Very valuable to as a finite pool of terms to sample from for statistical approaches to traits
Cannot representatively sample an infinite pool of terms

19. Limitations
Many traits are ambiguous, metaphorical, obscure, or difficult
Personality is conveyed through many different parts of speech
Assessment via single words (adjectives) lacks context
I..E., FEW KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN!!!
EXAMPLE: "wily" See website: phrontistery.info/ihlstart.html
Galimatias gal-i-may'shi-us, n (French, gibberish)
Nonsense; a confused mixture of unrelated things. This very cordial-sounding word is extraordinarily useful in contexts where one wishes to inform someone that their ideas are bafflingly ridiculous and incoherent without seeming overly impolite.

20. Statistical Approach
Starts with a large pool of trait descriptors
Try to identify large trait dimensions
“Statistical” refers to analysis of covariation
Factor analysis of the correlations among large numbers of traits

21. Raymond Cattell (1905-1998) Statistical/Lexical Spearman's student
16PF questionnaire
Founded Lexical approach
Unbelievably prolific researcher
Career ended in scandal
Died 1998

22. Example of Lexical+Statistical Approach
Allport (1938): 28,000 trait words
Cattell (1944):
representative list
ratings
factor analysis
Cattell's results was 16 factors.

23. Theoretical Approach
Theory determines which indivdual differences are important to try to measure and study.
e.g., Sociosexual Orientation (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991)

24. Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI)
With how many different partners have you had sex in the past 12 months?
In everyday life, how often do you have spontaneous fantasies about having sex with someone you just met?
Sex without love is OK.
Strongly Strongly
Disagree Agree

25. Theoretical Approach Sociosexual Orientation
Evolutionary theory Mating strategies
SOI= Short-term vs Long-term strategies
(+) Value of the theory approach depends on the strengths of that theory
(-) Weakness of theory approach follows from weakness of that theory

26. Most use a combination of the 3 approaches.
Cattell
Eysenck
Goldberg

27. III. Taxonomies of Personality
Eysenck’s Hierarchical Model
Cattell’s Taxonomy: The 16 PF
Circumplex models
The Five-Factor Model
The AB5C model

28. Trait taxonomies How many traits? How do they covary (group together)?
Science of classification
taxonomics

29. Trait taxonomics Rational approach (clinical observ)
Freud's types, Jung's types
Empirical approach (measure traits)
1) Rise of trait measurement
Galton (1890), Binet (1912)
2) Rise of factor analysis
Guilford (1930s), Cattell (1940s) ...

30. Empirical taxonomies “Dimensions of trait covariation” Guilford (1936)
Extraversion questionnaire.
Factor analyze item correlations
Look for new factors.
Impulsivity
Thinking Introversion
Expand questionnaire.
Factor analyze item correlations.

31. Problem with bottom-up approach?
1) Proliferation
Item pools can be extended infinitely.
2) Jingle-Jangle
Different label, but same thing
Same label, but different thing
e.g. "Self-Monitoring Scale”

32. Eysenck (1916-1998) Hierarchical model of trait structure
Focus on big factors
Anchor trait theories in biology
Test by experiments
Focus on dimensions instead of types
Hierarchical model of trait structure

33. Factor Hierarchical model Trait Trait Habit Habit Habit Habit
Habits covary to form traits.
Traits covary to form broad trait dimensions.
Hierarchical model
Factor
Trait
Trait
Habit
Habit
Habit
Habit

35. Say Goodbye to “Typologies”
Galen’s Typology (400 AD)
sanguine (happy)
choleric (impulsive)
phlegmatic (relaxed)
melancholic (gloomy)

36. Gloomy
Stable
Anxious
Calm
Irritable
Relaxed
- Neuroticism +

37. Inhibited
Bold
Reserved
Lively
Quiet
Outgoing
- Extraversion +

38. E+
Sanguine
Choleric
(-) N+
Phlegmatic
Melancholic
(-)

39. What’s the difference between a type and a trait ?
Short answer:
The concept of type implies a population distribution that is distinct instead of gradual or continuous.

40. Men and women are distinct categories (types) in degree of femininity.
How test if a distinct type exists?
Examine shape of score distribution.
EXAMPLE:
Men
Wom
Men and women are distinct categories (types) in degree of femininity.

41. Say Goodbye to Jung’s Types
Thinking vs Feeling
Sensing vs Intuition
Extraversion vs Introversion
Q: Do people really come in different “types”?
Is there any way to test if that is true?

42. Concept of a type implies a bimodal distribution of scores

43. Actual Distributions…E

44. McCrae & Costa (1989

45. Type concept not completely abandoned..
Kagan et al. (1979)
Bold vs Inhibited babies
Robins et al. (1996) Consistent evidence of 3 children temperament types similar to those proposed by Block (1971)
Resilient
Overcontrolled
Undercontrolled