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FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY:The Specification Equation, Research Methods

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Personality Psychology ­ PSY 405
VU
Lesson 29
FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY
(Raymond Cattle)
Core Concepts
1- Factor Analysis
2- Biographical Sketch
3- The Nature of Personality
4 - A Structure of Traits
ix)
Unique traits
x)
Common traits
xi)
Surface traits
xii)
Source traits
xiii)
Constitutional traits
xiv)
Environmental traits
xv)
Ability and Temperament
xvi)
Dynamic
4- Important Dynamic Traits
The important dynamic traits, in Cattell's system, are of three kinds:
iv)
Attitudes,
v)
Ergs
vi)
Sentiments--Self
5-Major Sources of Data About Personality
In Cattell's view, there are three major sources of data about personality:
1- The Life Record, or L- Data;
2- The Self-Rating Questionnaire, Q-Data;
3- The Objective Test or T-Data
6-The Specification Equation
What is personality ?
According to Cattle personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given
situation.
R = f (P,S)
7- The Development Of Personality
8- Heredity-Environment Analysis
9- Search Methods
iv)
R-Technique and P-Technique
v)
Sixteen Personality Factors (16PF)
vi)
Culture Fair Intelligence Tests
10- Summary
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Personality Psychology ­ PSY 405
VU
11- Evaluation
6- The Specification Equation
What is personality?
According to Cattle personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given
situation.
R = f (P,S)
In this formula R is person's reaction, f is the function, P is the person's personality, S is the situation, now
how a person behaves is a function of both the person's personality and the given situation.
where are the traits ? They are within the person. Now it becomes clear to predict a persons behavior we
must know what traits he posses and how important they are to situation of interest. Cattle calls it the
specification equation.
Pj = sjaA...+ sjtT ...+ sjeE....+ sjmM....+ sjrR....+ sjsS
Pj = Performance in a Situation
A= Ability Traits
T = Temperament Traits
E = Ergic Tensions Present
M = Meta Ergs (sentiments and attitudes)
R = temporary body states fatigue, illness. anxiety
Sj= A weight or loading indicating the importance of each of the above influences in
situation j.
This formula simply restates that if you want to know how a person will react to a situation list all his traits
and weigh each one of them in terms of their relevance. For example if a person is in problem solving
situation, the ability trait of intelligence will be given great weight or a high factor loading as compared to
other traits.
7- The Development of Personality
Personality development is the result of motivation and learning. Motivation is responsible for many
changes in perceptual and behavioral capacities.
Cattell distinguishes at least three kinds of learning that play important roles in personality development.
1- Classical-(Respondent)
2- Instrumental (Operant)
3- Structured ( Integration)
The first two are the familiar classical and instrumental (operant) conditioning of the experimental
psychologist. Cattell's treatment of these is fairly conventional: classical conditioning is held to be of
importance in attaching emotional responses to environmental cues and instrumental conditioning for
establishing means to the satisfaction of Ergic goals. Instrumental conditioning plays a substantial role in
building up the dynamic lattice, which, it will be recalled consists of subsidiation (that is, means-end)
relations (attitudes and sentiments serve as the means of achieving ergic goals). A form of instrumental
conditioning of special interest in personality learning is what Cattell calls confluence learning, in which a
behavior or attitude simultaneously satisfies more than one goal. Thus one attitude comes to be linked to
several sentiments, and one sentiment to several ergs, giving the dynamic lattice its characteristic structure.
The third kind of learning is called integration learning. It appears to be essentially a more elaborate form
of instrumental learning. In integration learning, the individual learns to maximize total long-term
satisfaction by expressing some ergs at any given moment and suppressing, repressing, others. Integration
learning is a key aspect of the formation of the self and superego sentiments.
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Personality Psychology ­ PSY 405
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According to Cattell, personality learning is best described as a multidimensional change in response to
experience in a multidimensional situation. A way of studying personality learning empirically is by means
of a procedure called adjustment path analysis. One begins with two things: first, with information about
trait changes occurring in a number of people, possibly in response to a period of ordinary life adjustments;
and second, with a theoretical analysis of various possible paths of adjustment (such as regression,
sublimation, fantasy, neurotic symptoms) that people may take in response to conflict life situations.
8- Heredity-Environment Analysis
Cattell has for a number of years been actively interested in assessing the relative weight of genetic and
environmental influences on source traits. He has developed a method for this purpose, which he calls
Multiple Abstract Variance Analysis, or MAVA (1960). MAVA involves gathering data on the
resemblances between twins and siblings reared together in their own homes or adopted into different
homes, and then analyzing the data to estimate the proportions of individual variation on each trait that are
associated with genetic differences, with environmental differences.
9- Research Methods
1- A Factor-Analytic Study of a Single Individual
In the personality research area Cattell employs his favorite tool of factor analysis in it, to a study of the
dynamic traits of a single individual.
In the preceding section the distinction was drawn between R-technique and P-technique. In the R-
technique the usual factor-analytic procedure, correlations are calculated over many persons, and the fac-
tors obtained are common traits. In P-technique, however, the correlations are calculated over many
repeated measurements on a single person, and the factors can represent unique traits of that individual.
2- His most important distinction is between surface traits and source traits. Surface traits are those that are
actually measured and are, therefore, expressed in overt behavior of some kind. Source traits are those that
are the underlying causes of overt behavior. He feels that most people have about sixteen source traits.
Cattle with Saunders and Stice, constructed his famous Sixteen Personality Factors or 16 PF (1950). This
test has been widely used in predicting vocational and academic success and failure.
3- The most important ability trait is intelligence of which Cattell describes two kinds. Fluid intelligence is
general problem-solving ability and is thought to be genetically determined. Crystallized intelligence is the
cumulated knowledge of the kind learned in school and is thus gained through experience. He developed
the Culture Fair Intelligence test which is designed to measure fluid intelligence.
10- Summary
1- Cattell's approach to the study of personality first measures a large group of individuals in as many ways
as possible. The measures then are intercorrelated and displayed in a correlation matrix. The measures that
are moderately or highly correlated are thought to be measuring the same attribute. This procedure is called
factor analysis, and the attributes it detects are called factors or traits Cattell describe a number of different
kinds of traits. For example, he feels that common traits are possessed only by a specific individual.
2- Unlike Allport, Cattell is mainly concerned with common traits. His most important distinction is
between surface traits and source traits. Surface traits are those that are actually measured and are,
therefore, expressed in overt behavior of some kind. Source traits are those that are the underlying causes of
overt behavior. He feels that most people have about sixteen source traits. Some source traits are
genetically determined and are called constitutional traits. Other source traits are shaped by one's culture
and are called environmental mold traits.
3- Cattell also distinguishes among ability, temperament, and dynamic traits. Ability traits determine how
well a task is performed. The most important ability trait is intelligence of which Cattell describes two
kinds. Fluid intelligence is general problem-solving ability and is thought to be genetically determined.
Crystallized intelligence is the cumulated knowledge of the kind learned in school and is thus gained
through experience.
-Temperament traits are constitutional and determine a person's emotional make-up.
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Dynamic traits are those that set the person in motion toward a goal; in other words, they determine a
person's motivational make-up. Cattell distinguishes two categories of dynamic traits: ergs and meta-ergs.
Ergs are roughly equivalent to instincts, biological needs, or primary drives. Meta-ergs are learned drives,
divided into sentiments and attitudes. Sentiments are predispositions to act in certain ways to classes of
objects or events. Attitudes are specific responses to specific objects or events. Since ergs are at the core of
one's motivational patterns, sentiments are said to be subsidiary to ergs, and since attitudes are dependent
on sentiments, attitudes are said to be subsidiary to sentiments.
5- Cattell's describes the relationship among ergs, sentiments, and attitudes.
6- The fact that humans almost inevitably take indirect routes to satisfy ergic tensions is referred to as long
­circuiting.
7- To explain how personality develops, Cattell postulates three kinds of learning: classical and
instrumental conditioning and structured learning. The last is by far the most important kind of learning
since it involves a change in one's entire personality. Cattell exemplifies structured learning by showing
what happens at a number of choice points following the arousal of ergic tension. A series of such choice
points is called dynamic crossroads.
Prediction is made by including as much information about a person as possible in a specification equation.
Cattell's theory is probably the only theory of personality that employs a research technique as complicated
as that which it is designed to study. He has been praised for his scientific approach to the study of
personality and criticized by those who feel certain human attributes are not quantifiable.
11- Evaluation
1- Cattell's theory, like most theories of personality, has received mixed reviews. On the positive side,
many feel that too much personality research has been unscientific, and therefore Cattell's effort to quantify
personality is most welcome. There is no doubt that Cattell has been a careful researcher in one of
psychology's more complex areas. His use of factor analysis has necessitated the clear and unambiguous
definition of his concepts.
2- However, as one may expect, there are those who look upon Cattell's attempt to quantify personality as
negative rather than positive, saying that scientific method is not appropriate to the study of human
attributes.
Allport was disturbed by Cattell's emphasis on groups rather than on individuals\. Allport felt that Cattell's
method yielded average traits which no individual actually possessed.
An entire population (the larger the better) is put into the grinder, and the mixing is so expert that what
comes through is a link of factors in which every individual has lost his identity. His dispositions are mixed
with everyone else's dispositions. The factors thus obtained represent only average tendencies. Whether a
factor is really an organic disposition in any one individual life is not demonstrated. All one can say for
certain is that a factor is an empirically derived component of the average personality, and that the average
personality is a complete abstraction. This objection gains point when one reflects that seldom do the
factors derived in this way resemble the disposition and traits identified by clinical methods when the
individual is studied intensively. (Allport 1937, P.244)
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Table of Contents:
  1. THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY THEORY:Objectives of Personality Psychology
  2. PERSONALITY MEASUREMENT:Observational Procedures, Rating Scales
  3. MAIN PERSPECTIVES:Psychometrics, observation, Behavioral Coding Systems
  4. SIGMUND FREUD: A PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY
  5. INSTINCT: WHAT MOTIVATES HUMAN BEHAVIOR?, The Oral Stage
  6. PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF SIGMUND FREUD:The Ego, Free association
  7. THEORY OF CARL JUNG:Biographical Sketch, Principles of Opposites, The Persona
  8. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES:Childhood, Young Adulthood, Middle Ages
  9. ALFRED ADLER:Biographical Sketch, Individual Psychology, Feeling of Inferiority
  10. INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY:Fictional Finalism, Social Interest, Mistaken Styles of Life
  11. KAREN HORNEY:Adjustment to Basic Anxiety, Adjustment Techniques
  12. ADJUSTMENT TO BASIC ANXIETY:Moving Towards People, Moving Against People
  13. ERIK ERIKSON:Anatomy and Destiny, Ego Psychology, Goal of Psychotherapy
  14. ERIK ERIKSON:Human Development, Goal of Psychotherapy
  15. SULLIVAN’S INTERPERSONAL THEORY:Core Concepts, The Self-System
  16. SULLIVAN’S INTERPERSONAL THEORY:Cognitive Process, Tension
  17. CONSTITUTIONAL PSYCHOLOGY:The Structure of Physique, Evaluation
  18. SHELDON’S SOMATOTYPE THEORY:The Structure of Physique
  19. MASLOW’S THEORY:Self-Actualizers Aren't Angels, Biographical Sketch
  20. MASLOW’S THEORY:Basic Concepts of Humanistic Psychology, Problem Centering
  21. ROGERS PERSON CENTERED APPROACH:Humanistic, Actualizing tendency
  22. ROGERS PERSON CENTERED APPROACH:Fully functioning person
  23. ROGERS PERSON CENTERED APPROACH:Client Centered Therapy,
  24. KELLY’S COGNITIVE THEORY OF PERSONALITY THEORY:Biographical Sketch
  25. CORE CONCEPTS OF GEORGE KELLY’S COGNITIVE THEORY OF PERSONALITY
  26. GORDON ALLPORT: A TRAIT THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Personality as a
  27. GORDON ALLPORT: A TRAIT THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Secondary Traits
  28. FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY:Factor Analysis, The Nature of Personality
  29. FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY:The Specification Equation, Research Methods
  30. HENRY MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY:Need, Levels of Analysis, Thema
  31. HENRY MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY (CONTINUED)
  32. ALBERT BANDURA’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
  33. ALBERT BANDURA’S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:Reciprocal Determinism
  34. THE STIMULUS RESPONSE THEORY OF DOLLARD AND MILLER:Core Concepts
  35. THE STIMULUS RESPONSE THEORY OF DOLLARD AND MILLER:Innate Equipment
  36. SKINNER’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Biographical Sketch, Books
  37. SKINNER’S THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Positive Reinforcement, Generalization
  38. ALBERT ELLIS THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Biographical Sketch, Social Factors
  39. THE GRAND PERFECT THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Genes and Biology
  40. PERSPECTIVES OR DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY:Dispositional
  41. PERSPECTIVES OR DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY
  42. PERSPECTIVES OR DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY:Need
  43. THE GRAND THEORY OF PERSONALITY:Psychosexual Stages of Development
  44. PERSONALITY APPRAISAL:Issues in Personality Assessment
  45. PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY: NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE DISCIPLINE