L2-Personality traits All references from the book Personality Traits · "The coherent patterning over time and space of Affect, Behavior, Cognition, and Desire" - Bill Revelle. · According to Burger (1997), 'A trait is a dimension of personality used to categorize people according to the degree to which they manifest a particular characteristic.' Fundamental units of personality Trait theory: - Personality characteristics are relatively stable over time - Traits show stability across situations The Problem · How does one characterize and organize personality traits? - Thousands of personality relevant terms . Allport & Odbert (1936) Jingle/Jangle Fallacies · Jingle fallacy - assuming (incorrectly) that two different things are the same because they bear the same name · e.g. fairness: Twi political parties saying they are fair, but this word has a different meaning for them . Jangle fallacy - assuming that two identical things are different because they are labelled differently · Decisive = assertive = proactive = forceful? - Similar but different? - Are there 1000 traits · Anxious = timid = withdrawn = shy? or can you summarize them? There are many words that can describe how someone behaves but where is the overlap? How can we create a model of personality?
The development of trait theories The dark ages of personality · 1920s-80s - Researchers used any number of different scales and measures to study personality traits. They started creating scales to try and measure personality. These scales measured different traits- too many scales- how do you compare studies if they are measuring different things? - check handout - No common language was available Raymond Cattell - Defined personality as the characteristics of an individual that allow prediction of how they will behave in certain situations. He does make a distinction between environmentally and genetically determined traits. . First one to use factor analytic approach - Sub-set of Allport & Odbert's "personal trait" terms - He worked on the stats of factor analysis - He realized that many of the words and labels describing personality were very similar and wanted to condense them into smaller numbers- through factor analysis. He studied what labels correlated with each other when measured in individuals and reduced them to one single label. He ended up with approx. 12 factors - Reported 12 factors . Later modified to form his 16PF - Significant issues: · Used only 35 terms- analysis made by hand- too long · Issues regarding the actual findings Eysenck: PEN model; 3 vs. 5 - Key advocate for empirically-led psychotherapy: Highlighted the importance of combining experimental research with theoretical approaches of looking at individual's differences. - Stressed the importance of genetic inheritance, there is a large biological determinant to personality (2/3) - - He suggests that personality is the way that someone's character, temperament, intelligence, physique and nervous system are organized. He says this organization is relatively stable and long-lasting. - He used factor-analysis, concluded in three main aspects of personality: - Ongoing body of work throughout 60s and