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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 PERSONALITYWhat 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

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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. LAUG. PART. INSE ANXI. TENS.

OUTGOING 1 .0 .70 .84 .10 .05 .10

LAUGHS 1 .0 .75 .15 .10 .05

PARTIER 1 .0 .10 .06 .05

INSECURE 1 .0 .76 .80

ANXIOUS 1 .0 .75

TENSE 1 .0

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Factors obtained from these correlations:

E x t r a v e r s i o n N e u r o t i c i s m

O u t g o i n g L a u g h s P a r t y Insecure A n x i o u s T e n s e

O L P Ins A x T

. 7 . 8 . 8 . 9 . 7 . 7

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HISTORY OF LEXICAL PERSONALITYRESEARCH

Allport & Odbert (1936)

Webster’s II unabridgedTraits States Evaluations Doubtful4,504 4,541 5,226 3,682

Cattell (1943)Norman (1963)FIRST FACTOR ANALYSIS EFFORTS:

5 Factors !!

Norman (1967)

Webster’s IIITraits States Social Roles Evaluative Physical Ambiguous Obscure2,800 2,638 1,476 761 882 4,796 3607

Goldberg (1990, 1992)John (1984, 1989) FIVE FACTORS !Costa & McCrae (1985) REPLICATED IN DIFFERENTMORE FACTOR ANALYSES SAMPLES, LANGUAGES, AGES,

ETC.

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Big Five:O C E A N

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Openness to Experience --------- Conventionality

How about Vanilla ice-cream!

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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 !

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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

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

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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 5Agreement between self- and observer-reports on the Big 5? (John & Robins, 1993)

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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

EVALUATION OF THE BIG FIVE

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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!)

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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

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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 !!

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HISTORY OF LEXICAL PERSONALITYRESEARCH

Allport & Odbert (1936)

Webster’s II unabridgedTraits States Evaluations Doubtful4,504 4,541 5,226 3,682

Cattell (1943)Norman (1963)FIRST FACTOR ANALYSIS EFFORTS:

5 Factors !!

Norman (1967)

Webster’s IIITraits States Social Roles Evaluative Physical Ambiguous Obscure2,800 2,638 1,476 761 882 4,796 3607

Goldberg (1990, 1992)John (1984, 1989) FIVE FACTORS !Costa & McCrae (1985) REPLICATED IN DIFFERENTMORE FACTOR ANALYSES SAMPLES, LANGUAGES, AGES,

ETC.

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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 NOT TALKATIVE TALKATIVE LONER ANIMATED RESERVED PEPPY QUIET NEGATIVE EMOTIONALITY (NEUROTICISM) IRRITATED NOT EASILY UPSET SORRY FOR MYSELF RELAXED JITTERY NOT OVERWORRYING UPSET CALM CONSCIENTIOUSNESS WELL ORGANIZED IMPULSIVE PROMPT DISORGANIZED CAUTIOUS CARELESS ORDERLY WILD AGREEABLENESS LENIENT ARGUMENTATIVE LIKES TO PLEASE STUBBORN DISLIKES ARGUMENT QUARRELSOME POLITE SARCASTIC CONVENTIONALITY (OPENNESS) TRADITIONAL PROGRESSIVE OLD-FASHIONED CURIOUS PRO-DISCIPLINE ODD CONVENTIONAL UNUSUAL

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‘BIG SEVEN’ : Big Five plus two independent evaluative dimensions

POSITIVE VALENCE Outstanding OrdinaryImpressive Average Excellent Not exceptional POWERExceptionalAdmirable Important

ESTEEM NEGATIVE VALENCEWicked Awful Dangerous MORALITY Disgusting Vicious Treacherous

(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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Agreement between self- and observer-reports on the Big 5 and Big 7?

CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE BIG 5

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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

Conscientiousness (C) -.01 - .06 - .21 .14 .55 .07 .27

Agreeableness (A) .07 - .04 - .13 - .06 .12 .50 .13

Conventionality (CN) - .13 .00 - .07 .06 .25 .14 .59

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, CLower 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 )