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MPC 003 - Personality
MPC 003 - Personality
SECTION - A
Answer the following question in about 1000 words each.
People have long struggled to understand personality and numerous theories have been
developed to explain how personality develops and how it influences behavior. One such
theory was proposed by a psychologist named Raymond Cattell. He created taxonomy of
16 different personality traits that could be used to describe and explain individual
differences between people's personalities.
Cattell's personality factors have been included in the Sixteen Personality Factor
Questionnaire (16PF) that is widely used today. It is used for career counseling in
education and vocational guidance. In business, it is used in personnel selection, especially
for choosing managers. It is also used in clinical diagnosis and to plan therapy by assessing
anxiety, adjustment, and behavioral problems.
Raymond Cattell
Born in 1905, Cattell witnessed the advent of many 20th-century inventions such as
electricity, telephones, cars, and airplanes. He was inspired by these innovations and was
eager to apply the scientific methods used to make such discoveries to the human mind
and personality.
Personality, he believed, was not just some unknowable and untestable mystery. It was
something that could be studied and organized. Through scientific study, human
characteristics and behaviors could then be predicted based on underlying personality
traits.
Cattell had worked with psychologist Charles Spearman, who was known for his
pioneering work in statistics. Cattell would later use the factor analysis techniques
developed by Spearman to create his own personality taxonomy.
The Trait Approach to Personality
Psychologists have long debated exactly how personality should be defined and described.
One of these key ideas is known as the trait theory of personality. According to trait
theory, human personality is composed of a number of broad traits or dispositions.
Some of the earliest of these trait theories attempted to describe every single trait that
might possibly exist. For example, psychologist Gordon Allport identified more than 4,000
words in the English language that could be used to describe personality traits. While this
approach was good at identifying different types of traits, it is unwieldy and difficult to
infer meaning. Many of these traits, for example, are highly similar, making it difficult to
distinguish some traits from others. Such ambiguity also makes it difficult to study these
personality traits.
The 16 Personality Factors
In an effort to make Allport’s list of 4,500 traits more manageable, Raymond Cattell took
the list and removed all the synonyms, reducing the number down to 171. However,
saying that a trait is either present or absent does not accurately reflect a person’s
uniqueness, because (according to trait theorists) all of our personalities are actually
made up of the same traits; we differ only in the degree to which each trait is expressed.
As with all of his work, Cattell took a statistical, measurable approach to studying
personality rather than utilizing observational and qualitative data. He wanted to apply
factor analysis to personality. To do this, he categorized data into three parts to achieve a
large, comprehensive method of sampling. The three data types were:
Life Data (L-data): Information about an individual's everyday behaviors and their
behavioral patterns. This included things such as the grades they received in school,
their marital status, social interactions, and more.
Experimental Data (T-data): Recorded reactions to standardized experiments in a
lab setting, designed to test study participant's response to certain situations.
Questionnaire Data (Q-data): Responses to questions about the participant's
behavior and feelings. This data was introspection based and provided a deeper
look at the person's personality that is not always clear through behavioral data.
The goal of Cattell's personality theory was to establish a "common taxonomy" of
personality traits. He refined previously established lists of personality traits and narrow
it to simplify the descriptions of personality even further than his predecessors. The
previously established taxonomy, created by psychologists Gordon Allport and Henry
Odbert in 1936, contained thousands of personality traits divided into four categories. But,
this taxonomy contained some "ambiguous category boundaries," that reduced the
significance of the work. Raymond Cattell's personality theory sought to both refine the
previous taxonomy and create more rigid boundaries that added to the significance of the
theory.
Cattell believed it necessary to sample a wide range of variables to capture a full
understanding of personality. The first type of data was life data, which involves collecting
information from an individual’s natural everyday life behaviors. Experimental data
involves measuring reactions to standardized experimental situations, and questionnaire
data involves gathering responses based on introspection by an individual about his or
her own behavior and feelings. Using this data, Cattell performed factor analysis to
generated sixteen dimensions of human personality traits: abstractedness, warmth,
apprehension, emotional stability, liveliness, openness to change, perfectionism,
privateness, intelligence , rule consciousness , tension, sensitivity, social boldness, self-
reliance, vigilance, and dominance.
Based on these 16 factors, he developed a personality assessment called the 16PF. Instead
of a trait being present or absent, each dimension is scored over a continuum, from high to
low. For example, your level of warmth describes how warm, caring, and nice to others
you are. If you score low on this index, you tend to be more distant and cold. A high score
on this index signifies you are supportive and comforting. Despite cutting down
significantly on Allport’s list of traits, Cattell’s 16PF theory has still been criticized for
being too broad.
The following personality trait list describes some of the descriptive terms used for each
of the 16 personality dimensions described by Cattell.
1. Abstractedness: Imaginative versus practical
2. Apprehension: Worried versus confident
3. Dominance: Forceful versus submissive
4. Emotional Stability: Calm versus high-strung
5. Liveliness: Spontaneous versus restrained
6. Openness to Change: Flexible versus attached to the familiar
7. Perfectionism: Controlled versus undisciplined
8. Privateness: Discreet versus open
9. Reasoning: Abstract versus concrete
10. Rule-Consciousness: Conforming versus non-conforming
11. Self-Reliance: Self-sufficient versus dependent
12. Sensitivity: Tender-hearted versus tough-minded.
13. Social Boldness: Uninhibited versus shy
14. Tension: Impatient versus relaxed
15. Vigilance: Suspicious versus trusting
16. Warmth: Outgoing versus reserved
The 16PF Personality Questionnaire
Cattell also developed an assessment based on these 16 personality factors. The test is
known as the 16 PF Personality Questionnaire and is still frequently used today, especially
in career counseling, marital counseling, and in business for employee testing and
selection.
The test is composed of forced-choice questions in which the respondent must choose one
of three different alternatives. Personality traits are then represented by a range and the
individual's score falls somewhere on the continuum between highest and lowest
extremes.
The pencil and paper version of the test takes around 35 to 50 minutes to complete, while
the computer version of the questionnaire takes around 30 minutes.
Once complete, the scores can be interpreted using a number of different systems,
depending upon why the test is being used. Some interpretive reports take a clinical
approach looking at personality, while others are more focused on topics such as career
selection, teamwork development, and leadership potential.
Social Persuasion
Activities where people are led, through suggestion, into believing that they can cope
successfully with specific tasks. Coaching and giving evaluative feedback on performance
are common types of social persuasion.
Physiological and Emotional States
The individual’s physiological or emotional states influence self-efficacy judgments with
respect to specific tasks. Emotional reactions to such tasks (e.g., anxiety) can lead to
negative judgments of one’s ability to complete the tasks.