Developing individual in society Lecture 1 : 15/02/2021 Nomothetic Approaches Lecturer: Ava Horowitz What is a personality trait? According to Allemand et al (2013), a personality trait is defined as a: "relatively enduring pattern of behaviour, thought, and feeling that are relatively consistent across a variety of situations and contexts" Traits vs States E.g Anxiety as defined by Spielberger & Gorsuch, 1966. Trait of anxiety: The disposition to respond with anxiety to situations that are perceived as threatening State of anxiety: A condition of the organism characterized by a subjective feelings of apprehension and heightened autonomic nervous system activity Anyone can be in a state of anxiety, but not everyone has the trait of anxiety. Multi-trait theory fundamentals - The idea that any trait you may have, such as shyness or introversion would have a normal distribution. - This means most people will be 'average' in their traits. Average shyness, trustingness, etc. - However, some are above or below average in some traits. Some are above average in anxiety; others are below average. - However, is there a structure, or just a random mixture of traits within one person? How are they related? - It has been theorised that traits may exist in 'clusters' . These clusters would be named be theorists and form your basic traits in some way. 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 34.1% 34.1% 2.1% 0.1% 13.6% -30 -20 -10 2.1% 13.6% 0.1% I 0 1g 20 30
Cattell's Trait theory - 'Bottom-up' theory of traits - Began with what life is like and developed his theory around this. He honed down where the patterns of traits are, to create a theory of personality. - Utilised a dictionary to find words which described personality and used factor analysis. - Cattell did this and discovered 16 factors of personality, leading to the 16 PF test. - Cattell argued these were the 16 'basic traits' of personality. Which he called source traits. - These traits were ordered, with the highest traits being the most 'divisive' and the lower being less so. For example, the 16th trait would be the least differentiative trait. 1 Reserved 2 Concrete-reasoning vs. vs. 3 Reactive 4 Deferential vs. Dominant 5 Serious 6 Expedient 7 Shy 8 Utilitarian 9 Trusting vs. Emotionally stable vs. Lively vs. Rule-conscientious vs. Socially-bold VS. Sensitive vs. Vigilant 10 Practical 11 Forthright vS. Private 12 Self-assured vS. Apprehensive 13 Traditional vs. Open to change 14 Group-orientated 15 Tolerates disorder 16 Relaxed vs. Imaginative vs. Self-reliant vs. vs. Warm Abstract-reasoning Perfectionist Tense - It has since been revised 4 times, factors supported by 60+ studies, and still in use today. Eysenck's Trait theory - In contrast to Cattell, a 'top down' theory. - Began with the theory, then attempted to apply it to life. Looked at ancient ways of personality (Hippocrates & Galen) - From them, ‘melancholic, 'choleric', 'phlegmatic', 'sanguine'. Eysenck combined this with Jung's (1993) theory of extroversion and introversion. Eysenck utilised this to create the 'type' dimensions. - Extroversion