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Personality - Lecture 6
The Essential Trait Approach continued
Eysenck - 3 Super-traits
The Big Five
Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck
• Similarities include:
• Placing great importance on biological and genetic factors
• Both adopted a nomethetic approach emphasised the scientific discovery and
measurement of psychological traits rather than using clinical methodology
• Both used factor analysis to arrive at their theories but they used it in different ways
- Cattell used oblique rotation and Eysenck used orthogonal rotation
• Both theories were primarily concerned with explaining the personality of ‘normal’ adults
• Differences Include
• Cattell
- Primary factors: source traits
- data driven - inductive
- oblique rotation - factors can be correlated with each other
• Eysenck
- Second-order factors: ‘supertraits’
- theory driven - deductive
- orthogonal rotation - factors are not correlated, they are independent of each other
Hans Eysenck (1916 - 1997)
• Theory emphasises three second-order factors called supertraits - derived from
intercorrelations between source traits
• Supertraits are genetically determined
• Focused on the temperament - the emotional, motivational and non ability related
cognitive aspects of behaviour
Eysencks Hierarchical Model of Personality
• Model of personality based on three supertraits
...
ARAS acts as gate to arousal

• Individuals high on extraversion are believed to have low levels of cortical arousal
- Extraverts: lower levels of activity in the ARAS
- The ARAS system of the extravert allows too little arousal in
...
Therefore introverts seek out contexts with
low stimulation
Hierarchical structure of neuroticism

Eysenck
• Neuroticism vs emotional stability
- includes Cattell’s source factors of emotional stability and apprehensiveness
- people who score high on the neuroticism scale are not necessarily neurotics but they
might be more susceptible to neurotic problems
• Eysenck - some people have a more responsive sympathetic nervous system (limbic
system)
...
Prepares us for
fight or flight
• High levels of neuroticism arise from hypersensitivity or excessive activity of the
sympathetic nervous system
...
This is found in both
Western and nonwestern cultures
Individuals with high E, high N and high P scores are more likely to engage in criminal
activity

The BIG FIVE
• Decades of research have converged on the big five
• Openness (to experience)
- High: tendency to be an unconventional and independent thinker
- Low: tendency to be conventional and to prefer familiar to new
• Conscientiousness
- High: tendency to be controlled and organised
- Low: tendency to be careless, easily distracted and undependable
• Extraversion/Introversion - measures arousal
- High: tendency to be sociable, energetic and assertive
- Low: tendency to be reserved, independent and even-paced
• Agreeableness
- High: tendency to be helpful, trusting, sympathetic and cooperative
- Low: tendency to be antagonistic and skeptical
• Neuroticism
- High: tendency to higher levels of emotional distress and swings in emotions
- Low: tendency to be calm and well adjusted

•

• two of the five super traits/factors, neuroticism and extraversion, are practically identical
with two of those identified by Eysenck
• The 5 factor model is commonly measured by the NEO-PI (Costa and McCrae, 1985)
• Each of the the five super traits is measured by 6 subordinate traits
- Neuroticism (eg hardly-vulnerable’ and unemotional-emotional)
- Agreeableness (eg ruthless-soft hearted and suspicious-trusting)
Supertraits and subordinate traits

The Big 5 and Behaviour
• The big 5 personality factors have emerged in studies of school children and appear to
be fairly stable over time (Soldz and Vaillant 1999)
• The big 5 have been associated with various behaviours:
• People high in extraversion excercise more, drink more alcohol and are more honest
• People high in conscientiousness get beter grades and are seen as more honest
• People high in openness are more likely to play a musical instrument
• Highly agreeable people are consistently found to smoke less
• (see Paunonen 2003)
The Big 5 and Job Performance
• Barrick and Mount (1991) The BIg Five personality dimensions and job performance: a
meta-analysis
• C showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupations
• E predicted success in management and sales (requiring social interaction)
• O and E predicted training proficiency
• A and N predic performance when employees work in groups
The Big 5 and Job Satisfaction
• Judge, Heller and Mount (2002) Five-factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A
meta-analysis
• Job satisfaction was correlated with each of the traits individually
• Only the relationships between N and E and job satisfaction generalised across all
studies

The Big 5 - Problems
• the Big Five can reproduced cross-culturally
...
They are not always
the same five, nor are there always five
- The “Big Five” plus or minus two (Briggs, 1989)
• Sex differences have been found on three of the Big Five
...
They support Eysenck’s claim, the
Big Five mixes lower order with higher order factors



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