Personality and Individual Differences: Traits and Trait Models

References

Larsen, R.J., & Buss, D. M. (2021). Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge About Human Nature (7th Edition). McGraw-Hill. Chapter 3, pp. 56-85. Maltby, J., Day, L., & Macaskill, A. (2007). Personality, Individual Differences and Intelligence. Pearson Education Limited. Chapter 7, pp.159-180.

2024-2025 Konstanze Schoeps, PhD (she, her)

Group Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to define personality traits, evaluate approaches for identifying key traits, and differentiate between major personality models.

Three Fundamental Questions in Personality Study

Conceptualizing Traits

How should we conceptualize traits? Need for definition of key concept in the field (in the same way as we define species in biology or mass, force, and gravity in physics)

Identifying Important Traits

How can we identify which traits are the most important among many ways individuals can differ? Being more or les social, Liking certain type of music.

Formulating a Trait Model

How can we formulate an appropriate model of traits? List of traits should not be a random list of elements, but need to be constructed in a coherent way (e.g., the periodic table of elements is in chemistry)

What is a Trait?

WHICH TRAITS ARE MORE OR LESS IMPORTANT? HOW MANY BASIC TRAITS ARE THERE? Mentimeter

Trait Definition

. Think about the last party you have been · Pick one new person with who you talked a bit and give 3 words that helps to describe this person and the behavior that supports that descriptive

Trait as Descriptive Adjectives

• Friendly (e.g., smiled a lot)
• Generous (e.g., the person told you to help yourself to food and drinks)
• Poised (e.g., the person was managing serving food, drinks and different demands of the guests at the same time while looking relaxed and having fun)

0 •TRAIT DEFINITION Traits (also called dispositions) are characteristics that are relatively stable over time (e.g., at other parties later on) and consistent over situations (friendliness by smiling to people on the street, generosity by bringing homeless people food, mantaining her self-assurance when called on in class).

What is a Trait? Two Basic Formulations

1. Internal Causal Properties
2. Purely Descriptive Summaries

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Trait as Internal Properties

1. Trait as internal (or hidden) proprieties/dispositions of a person that does not equate with external behavior · Trait as internal causal propriety in the way that the individual carry their desires, needs, and wants from one situation to the next (e.g., need for stimulation, wants power other others). • In this way the traits can lie dormant (i.e., their capacities remain present but their behaviors are not expressed) and are presumed to exist even in the absence of the observable behavior · E.g., Eva may have the desire to travel, explore the world and meet new people from foreign countries, even if she does not express her desire to others. She may not have the resources or opportunity to travel and instead she stays home.

Trait as Descriptive Summaries

2. Trait as descriptive summaries of enduring aspects of a person's behavior · Trait as descriptive summaries of attributes of a person without assumptions about internality or causality. · Trait describes the expressed behavior. · E.g., George may be seen as jalous, becouse his expressed behavior is: insisting that his partner wears their wedding ring visible in social situations, and requires the partner to spend all the time with him. Although they might be internal causes what is important is the expressed behavior. · Act Frequency Approach as an illustration of the descriptive summary.

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The Act Frequency Approach

Rate how often you typically perform each act on a scale form 0 (never) to 3 (very frequently):

0 12 3 0 1 2 3 1. I came up with a funny nickname for someone. 2. I sat down and drew or painted from my imagination. 0 1 2 3 3. I took photos just for fun. 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 3 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 0 1 2 3 3 4. I carried a sketchpad all day along. 3 5. I listened to a great variety of musical styles. I wrote a song. 3 6. 7. I made a card for someone. 8. I kept a journal of thoughts and turned them into poems. 9. I told a joke that made people laugh. 10. I gave self-made drawings as presents to someone's birthdays.

Act Frequency Approach: Traits as Categories of Acts

Important notion: Traits are categories of acts.

TRAIT: Creativity Caring a sketchpad all day along. Telling a joke that made people laugh. Coming up with a funny nickname for someone. Giving self-made drawings as presents to someone's birthdays.

A trait, such as creativity, is a descriptive summary of the general trend in a person's behaviour, that is performing a large number of acts within a category relative to other persons.

What is a Trait? Conclusion

. Although needs, desires and wants are important, and the descriptif formulation of traits has some criticism (e.g., issues regarding context, faillures to act) · Still behavioral acts constitue the buiding blocks of interpersonal perception and the basis for inferences about personality (Gosling, 1998). · "The study of behavioral manifestations of personality remians and essencial and indispensable part of the agenda in the field" (Furr, 2009).

Identifying Important Personality Traits

HOW DO WE IDENTIFY THE MOST IMPORTANT OR BASIC PERSONALITY TRAITS?

Different Approaches to Trait Identification

Lexical Approach Statistical Approach I Theoretical Approach to R-T R-T DICTIONARY + 0

Lexical Approach to Trait Identification

R-T R-T DICTIONARY · All traits listed and defined in the dictionary form the basis of describing differences among people (Allport & Odbert, 1936). · Natural language as a starting point to identify important traits. . Over time differences that are important are noted and the words are invented to communicate about them. · Words such as dominant, creative, reliable, hot- tempered, self-centred, cooperative. · There is about 18000 trait-descriptive adjectives. (Normal, 1967).

Lexical Approach: Criteria and Limitations

R-T R-T DICTIONARY . There are two basic criteria to identify important traits: 1. Synonym frequency (more synonyms more important trait; e.g., dominance: bossy, assertive , powerful, pushy, domineering, influential, authoritative). 2. Cross-cultural universality (more important is the trait, the more languages will have it vs only a local relevance). · Limitations: Many traits are metaphorical, obscure, not limited only to adjectives (nouns, adverbs; e.g., birdbrain, dummy, softhead, moron). · Conclusion: The lexical approach represents a good starting point for identifying important individual differences.

Statistical Approach to Trait Identification

to 0 + 0 · Starts with a big pool of items about behaviour, experience, emotions created (e.g., from lexical approach) · Applying statistical procedures to create groups of clusters of items, identifying the major dimensions. · The most commonly used statistical procedure is Factor analysis that identifies groups of items that covary (go together) but tend to not covary with other groups of items. · E.g., cluster of professor's offices at UV (psychologists, sociologist, and physicists).

Statistical Approach: Sample Factor Analysis

to 0 + 0 Table 3.2 A Sample Factor Analysis of Personality Adjective Ratings Adjective Rating Factor 1 (Extraversion) Factor 2 (Ambition) Factor 3 (Creativity) Humorous .66 .06 .19 Amusing .65 .23 .02 Popular .57 .13 .22 Hard-working .05 .63 .01 Productive .04 .52 .19 Determined .23 .52 .08 Imaginative .01 .09 .62 Original .13 .05 .53 Inventive .06 .26 .47 Source: Larsen & Buss (2021)

Statistical Approach: Advantages and Limitations

to 0 + 0 · Advantages: Factor analysis is also useful to reduce a large array of diverse personality traits into a smaller set of underlying factors and provide a mean to organize different traits. · Limitations: You only get out of it what you put into it. critical dependence on input selection (important to not miss important items in the initial selection).

Theoretical Approach to Trait Identification

. The specific theory dictates which traits are important to measure and which items to use. · E.g. Maslow's self-actualization theory will focus on differences in motivation to self-actualize while for psychodynamic theorists it is critical to measure "oral" or "anal" personalities because they represent important theory-driven constructs. . The sociosexual orientation theory (Simpson & Gangestand, 1991; Penke & Asndorph, 2008) distinguish between two sexual relationship strategies, that dictates the mating strategy that one can pursue: 1. Seeking a single committed relationship and greater investment in children. 2. Greater degree of promiscuity, partner switching, less investment in children.

Theoretical Approach: Sociosexual Orientation Inventory

Which personality traits are important for the sociosexual orientation theory? Which other important traits do it might miss? The Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI) Item Text 1 With how many different partners have you had sex (sexual intercourse) within the past year?ª 2 How many different partners do you foresee yourself having sex with during the next five years (please give a specific, realistic estimate)?a,b 3 With how many partners have you had sex on one and only one occasion?ª 4 How often do you fantasize about having sex with someone other than your current dating partner?" 5 Sex without love is OK.ª 6 I can imagine myself being comfortable and enjoying "casual" sex with different partners.d 7 I would have to be closely attached to someone (both emotionally and psychologically) before I could feel comfortable and fully enjoy having sex with him or her.d,e

Theoretical Approach: Strengths and Weaknesses

· Advantages: the strength of the approach consist in the strength of the theory. If theory is powerful to focus on specific traits, that we can quickly identify appropriate traits. · Limitations: Similarly, it lies in possible gaps and biases of the theory that leads us to omit and/or distort certain important aspects.