TRAIT PARADIGM:

GORDON ALLPORT
ARES MARI R. PADREJUAN
Gordon Allport
 Born on November 11,
1897 in Montezuma,
Indiana
 Brother of psychologist
Floyd Allport
 Entered Harvard in 1915
and graduated in 1919
 Received his Ph.D. in 1922
 Interested in developing a
psychology of personality
Gordon Allport
“ Personality is the dynamic
organization within the individual
of those psychophysical systems
that determine his characteristic

”
behavior and thought.

- Gordon Allport (1937)

Nature and View of Personality
 Emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual
 Belief that human motives are not merely
biological in nature but also future-oriented
 Allport stressed on the conscious awareness of
interaction rather than the unconscious level of
the mind
 TRAITS
 Bona fide structures within a person that influences
behavior
 A determining tendency or predisposition to respond to
the world in certain ways
 Traits are measured on a continuum and are subject to
social, environmental, and cultural influences.
 Divided into two:
 Common traits
 Personal Dispositions
 • Hypothetical construct
COMMON
TRAITS that permit people to
(TRAITS)
compare individuals
within a given culture

PERSONAL • A general determining

DISPOSITION
S characteristic, but is
(INDIVIDUAL
unique to the
TRAITS) individual who has it
 Structures of Personality

CARDINAL TRAITS CENTRAL TRAITS SECONDARY

TRAITS
• Most pervasive • The handful of • The least
and powerful outstanding important traits
human traits traits that which a person
• a ruling passion, describe a may display
a powerful force person’s inconspicuously
that dominates behavior • a minor
behavior • Traits when preference for a
writing a particular type of
recommendation music or for a
letter certain food
Example of central dispositions as assessed through factor analysis
 Motivation
The Functional Autonomy of Motives
 Allport’s view of motivation
 emphasized the influence of a person’s present
situation not only in his personality theory but also in
his view of motivation
 It is the individual’s current state that is important, not
what happened in the past during toilet training,
schooling, or some other childhood crisis.
 FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY

The idea that motives in the normal, mature

adult are independent of the childhood
experiences in which they originally
appeared.
LEVELS OF FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY

PERSEVERATIVE PROPRIATE
• The level of • The level of
functional autonomy functional autonomy
that relates tolow- that relates to our
levelandroutine values, self-image,
behaviors and lifestyle.
• behaviors continue or • PROPRIUM – the ego
persevere on their or self
own without any
external reward
Propriate Functional Autonomy

 An organizing process that maintains our

sense of self. It determines how we perceive
the world, what we remember from our
experiences, and how our thoughts are
directed.
Principles of Organizing Process
• explains how we acquire new
Organizing the motives
energy level • Ex: having new activities after
retirement
• refers to the level at which we choose to satisfy
Mastery and motives
• Ex: Adults are motivated to perform better and
Competence more efficiently, to master new skills, and to
increase their degree of competence

Propriate • describes a striving for consistency

Patterning and integration of the personality
Development of the Proprium
The Healthy Adult Personality
 STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
• Similar to existential • Criticisms due to the
humanistic theories; adherence to the
human beings are nomothetic and
future-oriented ideographic
• No relationship approaches in studying
between early personality
experiences and adult • Discontinuity of stages
personality; emphasis • Placed too much
on the present emphasis on the
conscious mind
FACTOR ANALYSIS: RAYMOND
CATTELL
Raymond B. Cattell
 Born on Steffordshire, England
 Attended University of London to
study physics and chemistry
 Began working with Charles
Spearman in 1924 and finished his
Ph.D. in 1929
 Worked full-time as a psychologist in
Colombia University
Approach to Personality Traits
 Traits - To Cattell, reaction tendencies, derived
by the method of factor analysis, that are
relatively permanent parts of the personality.
 Common traits - Traits possessed in some
degree by all persons
 Unique traits - Traits possessed by one or a few
persons
 • Traits that describe our skills and how
Ability traits efficiently we will be able to work
toward our goals.

•Traits that describe our general

Temperament
behavioral style in responding to our
traits environment

•Traits that describe our motivations

Dynamic
and interests.
traits
 • Traits that show a correlation but do
Surface traits not constitute a factor because they
are not determined by a single source.

• Stable and permanent traits that are

Source traits the basic factors of personality

•Traits that depend on physiological

Constitutional
characteristics.
traits
 • Source traits
Environmenta that are learned
from social and
l-mold traits environmmental
interactions
Dynamic Traits: The Motivating Forces

Ergs Sentiments
Permanent
constitutional source To Cattell,
traits that provide environmental-mold
energy for goal- source traits that
directed behavior. motivate behavior

pattern of learned
basic innate units of attitudes that focuses
motivation on an important
aspect of life
Cattell’s Stages of Development
Assessment in Cattell’s theory

1. L-DATA - Life-record ratings of behaviors observed in

real-life situations, such as the classroom or office
2. Q-DATA - Self-report questionnaire ratings of our
characteristics, attitudes,and interests
3. T-DATA - Data derived from personality tests that are
resistant to faking.
The 16-PF
 Based on the 16 major source traits; Intended
for use with people 16 years of age and older
and yields scores on each of the 16 scales.
 The responses are scored objectively;
computerized scoring and interpretation are
available.
 The 16 PF Test is widely used to assess
personality for research, clinical diagnosis, and
predicting occupational success. It has been
translated into some 40 languages.
BIOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY:
HANS EYSENCK
ARES MARI R. PADREJUAN
HANS S. EYSENCK
 Born in Berlin, Germany on March
4, 1916; son of two actors
 Continued his education under Sir
Cyril Burt and received his Ph.D. in
Psychology from the University of
London in `940
 Served as a psychologist at an
emergency hospital; taught at the
University of London after WWII
 Director of the psychology
department of the Institute of
Psychiatry associated with the
Bethlehem Royal Hospital in 1955
 Died on September 4, 1997
 He agreed with Cattell that personality is
composed of traits, or factors, derived by the
factor-analytic method.
 Eysenck has been a critic of factor analysis and
of Cattell’s research because of the potential
subjectivity in the technique and the difficulty
in replicating Cattell’s findings. Although
Eysenck used factor analysis to uncover
personality traits, he supplemented the
method with personality tests and
experimental studies that considered a wide
range of variables.
DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY

EXTRAVERSION NEUROTICISM PSYCHOTICISM

• Extraversion • Neuroticism • Psychoticism
vs. vs. Emotional vs. Impulse
Introversion Stability Control
• extraverts • Largely • Tend to be
have a lower inherited, aggressive,
base level of product of antisocial,
cortical genetics tough-minded,
arousal than cold, and
introverts do egocentric
FIVE-FACTOR MODEL (FFM)
ARES MARI PADREJUAN
PAUL COSTA & ROBERT MCCRAE

• Working at the Gerontology

Research Center of the National
Institutes of Health in Baltimore,
Maryland, Robert McCrae and
Paul Costa embarked on an
extensive research program that
identified five so-called robust
or Big Five factors
The NEO Personality Inventory
 The consistent finding of the same factors from different
assessment procedures suggests that these factors can
be relied on as distinguishing aspects of personality.
 Further, agreeableness and conscientiousness in the
McCrae-Costa model may represent the low end of
Eysenck’s psychoticism dimension (impulse control).
Openness shows a high positive correlation with
intelligence.
 It is important to note that even though other tests have
been proposed as ways to measure the Big Five factors,
the NEO remains the most frequently used technique.
Thank you very much
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