PERSONALITY COMPRISES PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS AND BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 The Fundamental Situational Error . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . 461 Problem-Specificity of Psychological Mechanisms 461 The Sociobiological Fallacy .... . . . .... . . . . . ......... . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . ..... . .. . . . ... . . . . . . . . 463 Behavioral Strategies, Tactics, and Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . .. . 463 EVOLUTIONARY FOUNDATIONS OF PERSONALITy . . . . ... .... . 464 Adaptive Problems and Their Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464 Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 Goal-Directed Tactics and Strategies as Units of Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 468 Personality as the Adaptive Landscape: The Five-Factor Model 471 Explaining the Origins of Individual Diff erences . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473 Interim Summary. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 476 CLARIFYING CORE CONTROVERSIES IN PERSONALITY PSy CHOLOGy .. . .... 477 An Evolutionary Resolution of the Personality Consistency Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477 An Evolutionary Perspective on Interactionism . . . .. . . . . . ... . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . ... . . ...... 479 Context, Situation, and Environment 481 Emotions, Desires, Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482 Culture and Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 483 CONCLUSION........ . . .... . 484

/pdf/evolutionary-personality-psychology-53pxgune5u.pdf

Evolutionary personality psychology

Dimensions of personality : 16, 5 or 3? ― Criteria for a taxonomic paradigm

Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment

Two studies evaluated personality trait measures and Big Five factor measures for their accuracy in predicting important behavior criteria. The results of both studies showed that the narrower traits and the broader factors, thought to define 2 levels of a hierarchy of personality variables, separately predicted most criterion variables. However, the incremental validity of the personality trait measures (the degree to which the traits increased the criterion prediction achieved by the factors) was generally much larger than the incremental validity of the Big Five factor measures. It was concluded that aggregating personality traits into their underlying personality factors could result in decreased predictive accuracy due to the loss of trait-specifi c but criterion-valid variance.

/pdf/hierarchical-organization-of-personality-and-prediction-of-4yyzeas2md.pdf

Hierarchical Organization of Personality and Prediction of Behavior

Many researchers support a 5- to 8-factor personality theory; Cattell urges a 16-factor system. Factoranalysis has been unable to resolve this controversy. Hence, the degree to which 6 and 16 factorsrelated to a proposed new criterion (real-life data) was evaluated in 16 data sets. When factors wereincreased from 6 to 16, 88% of the studies showed a significant (p < .01) increase in R. The percent-age of variance accounted for, after shrinking the R&, was doubled. We concluded that the 5- to 8-factor position has limited usefulness; use of more factors is strongly supported.There is a continuing controversy over the appropriate num-ber of personality factors. Theorists and researchers have pro-posed differing numbers of factors as being necessary andsufficient to describe normal personality. Although attempts tointegrate or amalgamate the new factors with existing factorsare rare, Peterson (1965) felt that many factors in different sys-tems differed in name only and that only a few personality fac-tors had truly been denned. Others suggest that more effortshould be spent on a larger number of personality factors (Buss&Craik, 1985).An agreed-on minimum number of personality factors wouldenable systematic exploration of personality's relation to othervariables. "One must be able to specify the universe of traitsthat define personality" (McCrae & Costa, 1985, p. 711) to dosuch systematic exploration. Without established personalityfactors, research efforts are fragmented.A well-defined taxonomy of personality would delineate therelations between agreed-on personality factors as the periodictable of the elements delineates the interrelationship of chemi-cal elements (Cattell, 1946). The periodic table allows chemis-try "to express all compounds in a common vocabulary. Thatis, any chemical compound can be viewed as an amalgam ofbasic elements, and compounds that are similar in their ele-ments have other important similarities" (Goldberg, 1982, pp.232-233). It is hoped that a taxonomy of personality would in-troduce similar clarity into the study of personality.In clinical practice, agreed-on personality factors are alsoneeded. Clinicians want to be as specific as possible in under-standing their clients. Whether recommending ways to increasea person's medication compliance or deciding how to handle asuicidal person, clinicians want the maximum useful informa-tion. They wish to avoid uselessly specific data on the one handand overly general information on the other. The lack of anagreed-on personality factor system is handicapping in clinicalas well as research settings.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rich-ard L. Gorsuch, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller TheologicalSeminary, 180 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, California 91182.

Number of Factors in the Personality Sphere: Does Increase in Factors Increase Predictability of Real-Life Criteria?

Critics have occasionally asserted that the number of factors in the 16PF family of tests is too large and that a more parsimonious number of factors adequately explains human personality. This pap...

The Number of Factors in the 16PF: A Review of the Evidence with Special Emphasis on Methodological Problems.

ATTEMPTS to correct questionnaire scores for distortion and instrument factor (&dquo;content&dquo;) effects have been largely based on response set (Cronbach, 1946), multi-method (Campbell and Fiske, 1959) and social desirability (Edwards, 1957) conceptions. Recently Cattell and Digman proposed subsuming most of these under a comprehensive perturbation theory (1964) with corrections indicated for questionnaires and ratings according to the specialized form of perturbation theory called trait-view theory. Trait-view theory proposes to consider the distortion as itself the

Samuel E. Krug

Papers

The Number of Factors in the 16PF: A Review of the Evidence with Special Emphasis on Methodological Problems.

A Test of the Trait-View Theory of Distortion in Measurement of Personality by Questionnaire:

Personality Factor profile peculiar to the student smoker.

Personality, Motivation, and Adolescent Drug Use Patterns.