47-4 How do psychologists use traits to describe personality?

Rather than focusing on thwarted growth opportunities, unconditional positive regard, and the self-actualizing person, some researchers attempt to define personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns. This perspective can be traced in part to a remarkable meeting in 1919, when Gordon Allport, a curious 22-year-old psychology student, interviewed Sigmund Freud in Vienna. Allport soon discovered just how preoccupied the founder of psychoanalysis was with finding hidden motives, even in Allport’s own behavior during the interview. That experience ultimately led Allport to do what Freud did not do—to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits—people’s characteristic behaviors and conscious motives (such as the curiosity that actually motivated Allport to see Freud). Meeting Freud, said Allport, “taught me that [psychoanalysis], for all its merits, may plunge too deep, and that psychologists would do well to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing the unconscious.” Allport came to define personality in terms of identifiable behavior patterns. He was concerned less with explaining individual traits than with describing them.

Like Allport, Isabel Briggs Myers (1987) and her mother, Katharine Briggs, wanted to describe important personality differences. They attempted to sort people according to Carl Jung’s personality types, based on their responses to 126 questions. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), available in 30 languages, has been taken by more than 2 million people a year, mostly for counseling, leadership training, and work-team development (CPP, 2008). It offers choices, such as “Do you usually value sentiment more than logic, or value logic more than sentiment?” Then it counts the test-taker’s preferences, labels them as indicating, say, a “feeling type” or “thinking type,” and feeds them back to the person in complimentary terms. Feeling types, for example, are told they are “sympathetic, appreciative, and tactful”; thinking types are told they are “good at analyzing.” (Every type has its strengths, so everyone is affirmed.)

Most people agree with their announced type profile, which mirrors their declared preferences. They may also accept their label as a basis for being matched with work partners and tasks that supposedly suit their temperaments. But growing research suggests that people should not blindly accept the validity of their test results. A National Research Council report noted that despite the test’s popularity in business and career counseling, its initial use outran research on its value as a predictor of job performance, and “the popularity of this instrument in the absence of proven scientific worth is troublesome” (Druckman & Bjork, 1991, p. 101; see also Pittenger, 1993). Although research on the MBTI has been accumulating since those cautionary words were expressed, the test remains mostly a counseling and coaching tool, not a research instrument.

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Classifying people as one or another distinct personality type fails to capture their full individuality. We are each a unique complex of multiple traits. So how else could we describe our personalities? We might describe an apple by placing it along several trait dimensions—relatively large or small, red or green, sweet or sour. By placing people on several trait dimensions simultaneously, psychologists can describe countless individual personality variations, just as researchers can describe thousands of colors in terms of their variations on just three color dimensions—hue, saturation, and brightness.

What trait dimensions describe personality? If you had an upcoming blind date, what personality traits might give you an accurate sense of the person? Allport and his associate H. S. Odbert (1936) counted all the words in an unabridged dictionary with which one could describe people. There were almost 18,000! How, then, could psychologists condense the list to a manageable number of basic traits?

Factor AnalysisOne technique is factor analysis, a statistical procedure that has also been used to identify clusters (factors) of test items that tap basic components of intelligence (such as spatial ability or verbal skill). Imagine that people who describe themselves as outgoing also tend to say that they like excitement and practical jokes and dislike quiet reading. Such a statistically correlated cluster of behaviors reflects a basic factor, or trait—in this case, extraversion.

British psychologists Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck [EYE-zink] believed that we can reduce many of our normal individual variations to two or three dimensions, including extraversion-introversion and emotional stability-instability (FIGURE 47.1). People in 35 countries around the world, from China to Uganda to Russia, have taken the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. When their answers were analyzed, the extraversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerged as basic personality dimensions (Eysenck, 1990, 1992). The Eysencks believed, and research confirms, that these factors are genetically influenced.

Biology and PersonalityBrain-activity scans of extraverts add to the growing list of traits and mental states now being explored with brain-imaging procedures. Such studies indicate that extraverts seek stimulation because their normal brain arousal is relatively low. For example, PET scans show that a frontal lobe area involved in behavior inhibition is less active in extraverts than in introverts (Johnson et al., 1999). Dopamine and dopamine-related neural activity tend to be higher in extraverts (Kim et al., 2008; Wacker et al., 2006).

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Our biology influences our personality in other ways as well. As we know from twin and adoption studies, our genes have much to say about the temperament and behavioral style that help define our personality. Jerome Kagan, for example, has attributed differences in children’s shyness and inhibition to their autonomic nervous system reactivity (see Thinking Critically About: The Stigma of Introversion). Those with a reactive autonomic nervous system respond to stress with greater anxiety and inhibition. The fearless, curious child may become the rock-climbing or fast-driving adult.

Personality differences among dogs (in energy, affection, reactivity, and curious intelligence) are as evident, and as consistently judged, as personality differences among humans (Gosling et al., 2003; Jones & Gosling, 2005). Monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutans, and even birds also have stable personalities (Weiss et al., 2006). Among the Great Tit (a European relative of the American chickadee), bold birds more quickly inspect new objects and explore trees (Groothuis & Carere, 2005; Verbeek et al., 1994). By selective breeding, researchers can produce bold or shy birds. Both have their place in natural history: In lean years, bold birds are more likely to find food; in abundant years, shy birds feed with less risk.

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47-6 What are personality inventories, and what are their strengths and weaknesses as trait-assessment tools?

If stable and enduring traits guide our actions, can we devise valid and reliable tests of them? Several trait assessment techniques exist—some more valid than others. Some provide quick assessments of a single trait, such as extraversion, anxiety, or self-esteem. Personality inventories—longer questionnaires covering a wide range of feelings and behaviors—assess several traits at once.

The classic personality inventory is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Although the MMPI was originally developed to identify emotional disorders, it also assesses people’s personality traits. One of its creators, Starke Hathaway (1960), compared his effort to that of Alfred Binet. Binet, the founder of modern intelligence testing, developed the first intelligence test by selecting items that identified children who would probably have trouble progressing normally in French schools. Like Binet’s items, the MMPI items were empirically derived. From a large pool of items, Hathaway and his colleagues selected those on which particular diagnostic groups differed. They then grouped the questions into 10 clinical scales, including scales that assess depressive tendencies, masculinity-femininity, and introversion-extraversion.

Hathaway and others initially gave hundreds of true-false statements (“No one seems to understand me”; “I get all the sympathy I should”; “I like poetry”) to groups of psychologically disordered patients and to “normal” people. They retained any statement—no matter how silly it sounded—on which the patient group’s answer differed from that of the normal group. “Nothing in the newspaper interests me except the comics” may seem senseless, but it just so happened that depressed people were more likely to answer True. Today’s MMPI-2 also has scales assessing, for instance, work attitudes, family problems, and anger.

In contrast to the subjectivity of most projective tests, personality inventories are scored objectively. (Software can administer and score these tests, and can also provide descriptions of people who previously responded similarly.) Objectivity does not, however, guarantee validity. For example, individuals taking the MMPI for employment purposes can give socially desirable answers to create a good impression. But in so doing they may also score high on a lie scale that assesses faking (as when people respond False to a universally true statement such as “I get angry sometimes”). The objectivity of the MMPI has contributed to its popularity and to its translation into more than 100 languages.

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47-7 Which traits seem to provide the most useful information about personality variation?

Today’s trait researchers believe that simple trait factors, such as the Eysencks’ introversion-extraversion and stability-instability dimensions, are important, but they do not tell the whole story. A slightly expanded set of factors—dubbed the Big Five—does a better job (Costa & McCrae, 2011). If a test specifies where you are on the five dimensions (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion; see TABLE 47.1), it has said much of what there is to say about your personality. Around the world—across 56 nations and 29 languages in one study (Schmitt et al., 2007)—people describe others in terms roughly consistent with this list. The Big Five may not be the last word. Some researchers report it takes only one or two or three factors—such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion—to describe the basic personality dimensions (Block, 2010; De Raad et al., 2010; Rushton & Irwing, 2011). But for now, at least, five is the winning number in the personality lottery (Heine & Buchtel, 2009; McCrae, 2009). The Big Five—today’s “common currency for personality psychology” (Funder, 2001)—has been the most active personality research topic since the early 1990s and is currently our best approximation of the basic trait dimensions.

     Big Five research has explored various questions:

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By exploring such questions, Big Five research has sustained trait psychology and renewed appreciation for the importance of personality. Traits matter.

47-8 Does research support the consistency of personality traits over time and across situations?

Are our personality traits stable and enduring? Or does our behavior depend on where and with whom we find ourselves? In some ways, our personality seems stable. Cheerful, friendly children tend to become cheerful, friendly adults. At a recent college reunion, I [DM] was amazed to find that my jovial former classmates were still jovial, the shy ones still shy, the happy-seeming people still smiling and laughing—50 years later. But it’s also true that a fun-loving jokester can suddenly turn serious and respectful at a job interview. The personality traits we express can change from one situation to another.

The Person-Situation ControversyOur behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner disposition with our environment. Still, the question lingers: Which is more important? When we explore this person-situation controversy, we look for genuine personality traits that persist over time and across situations. Are some people dependably conscientious and others unreliable, some cheerful and others dour, some friendly and outgoing and others shy? If we are to consider friendliness a trait, friendly people must act friendly at different times and places. Do they?

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In considering research that has followed lives through time (in longitudinal studies), some scholars (especially those who study infants) are impressed with personality change; others are struck by personality stability during adulthood. As FIGURE 47.2 illustrates, data from 152 long-term studies reveal that personality trait scores are positively correlated with scores obtained seven years later, and that as people grow older their personality stabilizes. Interests may change—the avid tropical-fish collector may become an avid gardener. Careers may change—the determined salesperson may become a determined social worker. Relationships may change—the hostile spouse may start over with a new partner. But most people recognize their traits as their own, as Robert McCrae and Paul Costa noted (1994), “and it is well that they do. A person’s recognition of the inevitability of his or her one and only personality is … the culminating wisdom of a lifetime.”

So most people—including most psychologists—would probably presume the stability of personality traits. Moreover, our traits are socially significant. They influence our health, our thinking, and our job choices and performance (Deary & Matthews, 1993; Hogan, 1998; Jackson et al., 2012; Sutin et al., 2011). Studies that follow lives through time show that personality traits rival socioeconomic status and cognitive ability as predictors of mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment (Roberts et al., 2007).

Any of these tendencies, taken to either extreme, become maladaptive. Agreeableness ranges from cynical combativeness at its low extreme to gullible subservience at its high extreme. Conscientiousness ranges from irresponsible negligence to workaholic perfectionism (Widiger & Costa, 2012).

Although our personality traits may be both stable and potent, the consistency of our specific behaviors from one situation to the next is another matter. As Walter Mischel (1968, 2009) has pointed out, people do not act with predictable consistency. Mischel’s studies of college students’ conscientiousness revealed but a modest relationship between a student’s being conscientious on one occasion (say, showing up for class on time) and being similarly conscientious on another occasion (say, turning in assignments on time). If you’ve noticed how outgoing you are in some situations and how reserved you are in others, perhaps you’re not surprised (though for certain traits, Mischel reports, you may accurately assess yourself as more consistent).

This inconsistency in behaviors also makes personality test scores weak predictors of behaviors. People’s scores on an extraversion test, for example, do not neatly predict how sociable they actually will be on any given occasion. If we remember this, says Mischel, we will be more cautious about labeling and pigeonholing individuals. Years in advance, science can tell us the phase of the Moon for any given date. A day in advance, meteorologists can often predict the weather. But we are much further from being able to predict how you will feel and act tomorrow.

However, people’s average outgoingness, happiness, or carelessness over many situations is predictable (Epstein, 1983a,b). People who know someone well, therefore, generally agree when rating that person’s shyness or agreeableness (Kenrick & Funder, 1988). By collecting snippets of people’s daily experience via body-worn recording devices, Matthias Mehl and his colleagues (2006) confirmed that extraverts really do talk more. A similar extraversion-talkativeness relationship was also found among Bolivian hunter-gatherers (Gurven et al., 2013). (I [DM] have repeatedly vowed to cut back on my jabbering and joking during my noontime pickup basketball games with friends. Alas, moments later, the irrepressible chatterbox inevitably reoccupies my body. And I [ND] have a similar experience each time I try to stay quiet in taxis. Somehow, I always end up chatting with the driver!) As our best friends can verify, we do have genetically influenced personality traits. And those traits even lurk, report Samuel Gosling and his colleagues in a series of studies, in our

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In unfamiliar, formal situations—perhaps as a guest in the home of a person from another culture—our traits remain hidden as we carefully attend to social cues. In familiar, informal situations—just hanging out with friends—we feel less constrained, allowing our traits to emerge (Buss, 1989). In these informal situations, our expressive styles—our animation, manner of speaking, and gestures—are impressively consistent. Viewing “thin slices” of someone’s behavior—such as seeing a photo for a mere fraction of a second or seeing three 2-second video clips of a teacher in action—can tell us a lot about the person’s basic personality traits (Ambady, 2010; Rule et al., 2009).

Some people are naturally expressive (and therefore talented at pantomime and charades); others are less expressive (and therefore better poker players). To evaluate people’s voluntary control over their expressiveness, Bella DePaulo and her colleagues (1992) asked people to act as expressive or inhibited as possible while stating opinions. Their remarkable findings: Inexpressive people, even when feigning expressiveness, were less expressive than expressive people acting naturally. Similarly, expressive people, even when trying to seem inhibited, were less inhibited than inexpressive people acting naturally. It’s hard to be someone you’re not, or not to be who you are.

To sum up, we can say that at any moment the immediate situation powerfully influences a person’s behavior. Social psychologists have learned that this is especially so when a “strong situation” makes clear demands (Cooper & Withey, 2009). We can better predict drivers’ behavior at traffic lights from knowing the color of the lights than from knowing the drivers’ personalities. Thus, professors may perceive certain students as subdued (based on their classroom behavior), but friends may perceive them as pretty wild (based on their party behavior). Averaging our behavior across many occasions does, however, reveal distinct personality traits. Traits exist. We differ. And our differences matter.

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