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Fifty Years of Personality Psychology
PERSPECTIVES ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
CECIL R. REYNOLDS, Thxas A&M University, College Station ROBERT T. BROWN, University of Nurth Carolina, Wilmington
Current volumes in the series
EXPLORATIONS IN TEMPERAMENT International Perspectives on Theory and Measurement
Edited by Jan Strelau and Alois Angleitner
FIFTY YEARS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY Edited by Kenneth H. Craik, Robert Hogan, and Raymond N. Wolfe
HANDBOOK OF CREATIVITY Assessment, Research, and Theory
Edited by John A. Glover, Royce R. Ronning, and Cecil R. Reynolds
HANDBOOK OF MULTIVARIATE EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, Second Edition
Edited by John R. Nesselroade and Raymond B. Cattell
HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Edited by John A. Glover and Royce R. Ronning
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN CARDIOVASCULAR RESPONSE TO STRESS
Edited by J. Rick 'fumer, Andrew Sherwood and Kathleen C. Light
LEARNING STRATEGIES AND LEARNING STYLES Edited by Ronald R. Schmeck
THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES A Developmental Perspective
Edited by Lawrence C. Hartlage and Cathy F. Telzrow
PERSONALITY, SOCIAL SKILLS, AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY An Individual Differences Approach
Edited ~y David G. Gilbert and James J. Connolly
SCHIZOPHRENIC DISORDERS Sense and Nonsense, in Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment
Leighton C. Whitaker
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY Edited by Hans J. Eysenck and Irene Martin
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher.
Fifty Years of Personality Psychology
Edited by
Kenneth H. Craik University of California
Berkeley, California
Robert Hogan University of Tulsa Tulsa, Oklahoma
and
Raymond N. Wolfe State University of New York
Geneseo, New York
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
Llbrary of Congress Cataloglng-ln-Publlcatlon Data
Flfty years of personallty psychology / edlted by Kenneth H. Cralk, Robert Hogan, and Ray.ond N. Holfe.
p. c •. -- (Perspectlves an IndIvIdual dlfferences) A co.paratlve analysls of the 1937 textbooks Personallty by Gordon
H. Allport and Psychology of personallty by Ross Stagner. Includes blbllographlcal references and Index. ISBN 978-1-4899-2313-4 ISBN 978-1-4899-2311-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-2311-0 1. Personallty--Hlstory. 2. Allport, Gordon H. (Gordon Hl11ard),
1897-1967. Personal1ty. 3. Stagner, Ross, 1909- Psychology of personal1ty. 1. Cralk, Kenneth H. II. Hogan, Robert, 1937-III. Holfe, Ray.ond N. IV. Allport, Gardon H. (Gordon Hl11ard), 1897-1967. Personal1ty. V. V. Stagner, Ross, 1909- Psychology of personal1ty. VI. Serles.
[DNLM: 1. AII port, Gordon H. (Gordon Hl11ard), 1897-1967. 2. Stagner, Ross, 1909- 3. Personal1ty--congresses. 4. Personal1ty Assess.ent--congresses. 5. Psycholog1cal Theory-congresses. BF 698 F4691 BF698.F525 1993 155.2'09'04--dc20 DNLM/DLC for Llbrary of Congress
ISBN 978-1-4899-2313-4
92-48903 CIP
10 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York Origina11y published by Plenum Press, New York in 1993
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover lst edition 1993
All rights reserved
N o part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written
permission from the Publisher
To GoRDON W. ALLPORT AND Ross STAGNER
in celebration of their contributions to personality psychology
Contributors
Irving E. Alexander, Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27706
Roy F. Baumeister, Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
Peter Borkenau, Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, N-4800 Bielefeld 1, Germany
Bertram J. Cobler, Committee on Human Development, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
Kenneth H. Craik, Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
Bella M. DePaulo, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
Alan C. Elms, Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, California 95616
Robert A. Emmons, Department of Psychology, U Diversity of California, Davis, California 95616
Garth J. 0. Fletcher, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 1, New Zealand
David C. Funder, Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, California 92521
Robert Hogan, Department of Psychology, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104
vii
viii CONTRIBUTORS
Oliver P. John, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
Salvatore R. Maddi, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, California 92717
Gerald A. Mendelsohn, Institute of Personality and Social Research, Berkeley, California 94720
Lawrence A. Pervin, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903
Richard W. Robins, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720
M. Brewster Smith, Board of Studies in Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064
Ross Stagner, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202
David G. Winter, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Raymond N. Wolfe, Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Geneseo, New York, 14454
Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045
Preface
This volume celebrates the textbooks Personality: A Psychological Interpretation by Gordon W. Allport and Psychology of Personality by Ross Stagner, both first published in 1937. In 1987, several occasions were held to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the two volumes and to acknowledge their role in defining and establishing the identity of personality psychology as a distinctive field of scientific inquiry within the United States.
At any given time, the textbooks of a science offer revealing information about its intellectual structure and research program. Even more so, its ''founding'' textbooks provide a temporal anchor for gaining a historical perspective on the field and a source of insights concerning its subsequent development and current situation.
In spring 1987, at the University of California's Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) (now the Institute of Personality and Social Research) in Berkeley, Ross Stagner was invited to offer his personal perspective on these two textbooks and the subsequent development of personality psychology. In addition, a special symposium was devoted to an appreciation of the life and works of Gordon W. Allport. In a third series of talks, invited speakers offered commentaries on issues that were central to personality psychology in 1937 and that continue to warrant our attention today. A£, part of its annual meetings in August 1987, the American Psychological Association's Division of Personality and Social Psychology held a special marathon four-hour symposium that was an expanded version of !PAR's celebrations.
In this volume, we offer highlights of these occasions as well as additional contributions developed especially for this publication. The
ix
X PREFACE
book is organized into four sections. First, the introductory chapter presents a comparative analysis of the 1937 textbooks by Allport and Stagner and then uses this context to describe the origins and conceptualization of our volume and to give a detailed account of its organization and contents. The second section of the volume includes three chapters dealing with the historical and personal background of the two textbooks. The third section groups three chapters concerning the current state of personality psychology and its contemporary textbooks. In the fourth section, we devote twelve chapters to gaining a present-day perspective on such abiding issues in personality psychology as the individual and the single case, motives and the self, judging persons, and personality assessment and prediction. Finally, the epilogue offers an optimistic view of the future of our field.
This volume has three aims. First, we see it as a contribution to our ongoing task of gaining a historical perspective on the development of personality psychology as a scientific endeavor. Beyond its intellectual importance, such collective remembering holds the promise of serving valuable social functions for a community of researchers. For example, narrative accounts of a community's origins can generate vivid reminders of its members' shared aspirations. Second, we hope that the volume will bring about more explicit and concerted discussion of the possible forms and substance of contemporary textbooks in personality psychology. Many pertinent issues have been raised in rather fragmented fashion over the years in textbook reviews published in Contemporary Psychology and elsewhere. This volume constitutes a beginning forum for reflecting on and joining opposing views on these matters. The third aim of the volume is to employ a historical vantage point as one means of gaining a comprehensive overview of our current research agenda in personality psychology. Has a particular research topic now perceived as "trendy'' in fact been an enduring concern of our field from the outset? Have some topics and methods fallen by the wayside that should not have been abandoned after all? The comparative analysis of textbooks over time can afford us a broad picture of such continuities and discontinuities in our field's research directions.
Given these purposes, we have been remarkably fortunate in gaining the cooperation of an array of contributors who are authorities in the fields of their individual assignments. We greatly appreciate their willingness to take time away from their own research programs to aid in this effort at historical perspective taking. The logistics of assembling papers delivered at several different gatherings and arranging for additional new works for the volume have combined with our own geographical separation to cause some delays in publication. At times we
PREFACE xi
feared that the materials for this book would themselves have become ''historic" by the time of their publication. We appreciate the patience and goodwill of our contributors in this regard. We also want to acknowledge the dispatch with which publication has been facilitated once the final manuscripts became available-thanks are due here to Eliot Werner and Patrick Connolly and their colleagues at Plenum and to Robert Brown and Cecil Reynolds, coeditors of Plenum's series Perspectives on Individual Differences. Finally, we salute the sustaining interest and support of Ross Stagner throughout this project.
Editing a volume can sometimes turn into a bit of a chore, but not so in this case. We have been happy to serve as agents of a scientific community delighted in sharing a worthy and inspiring heritage. That community encompasses our contributors, our symposia audiences, and now-we trust-the readers of this volume as well.
KENNETH H. CRAIK ROBERT HOGAN RAYMOND N. WOLFE
Contents
PART I. INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 The 1937 Allport and Stagner Texts in Personality Psychology . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . .. .. . . . . . 3
Kenneth H. Craik
Allport and Stagner: Personal Backgrounds and Intentions . . . . . . . 4 Allport and Stagner: Convergences and Divergences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Cross-Generational Differences in Vantage Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A Major Contrast: An Analysis of the Individual per se versus
the Individual in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Allport: The Individual Transcendent . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Stagner: The Individual in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Planning and Organization of This Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
PART II. HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL BACKGROUND OF THE 1937 TEXTS
Chapter 2 Fifty Years of the Psychology of Personality: Reminiscences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Ross Stagner
Some Personal Backgrounds . .. . .. .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . 26 Personality and Psychoanalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
Views on Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Retrospections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Chapter 3 Allport's Personality and Allport's Personality . . 39
Alan C. Elms
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Allport's Encounter with Freud .. . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . . 40 Allport's Theory of the Clean Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 The Evolution of a Classic Textbook .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . 46 Not a Little Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Allport as Unique Individual................................... 50 Allport as an Adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Chapter 4 Allport and Murray on Allport's Personality: A Confrontation in 1946-1947.................. 57
M. Brewster Smith
Allport on Allport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 The Neglect of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . . . 58 Uniqueness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Issues of Motivational Theory . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 59
Murray on Allport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Allport in Rejoinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
PART III. CURRENT STATE OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS TEXTS
Chapter 5 Pattern and Organization: Current Trends and Prospects for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Lawrence A. Pervin The Units of Personality and Their Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Concepts of Trait and Motive in Allport and Stagner . . . . . . . . . . 70 The Goal Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Affect........................................................ 76 The Organization of the Self .. .. . .. . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . .. . .. .. . . . 79
CONTENTS XV
CUITent Status and Prospects for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 6 The Continuing Relevance of Personality Theory .......................................... 85
Salvatore R. Maddi
Psychology, the Fragmented Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 The Prevalence of Warring Factions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 The Prevalence of Middle-Level Theorizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Overspecialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Personality Theorizing as One Antidote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Tasks and Components of Personality Theorizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Integrating Potential of Personality Theorizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 The Empirical Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Teaching Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 A Final Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Chapter 7 It's Time to Put Theories of Personality in Their Place, or, Allport and Stagner Got It Right, Why Can't We? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Gerald A. Mendelsohn
The Distinction between Theorizing about Personality and Theories of Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
The Genres of Textbooks in Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 The Critique of Theories of Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Questionable Scientific Standing of the Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Questionable Contemporary Relevance of the Theories . . . . . . . . 109 Questionable Heuristic Value of the Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
What Is To Be Done? ......................................... 113 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
PART IV. PRESENT-DAY PERSPECTIVES ON BASIC ISSUES
Chapter 8 Science and the Single Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Irving E. Alexander
Study of the Individual: Inhibiting Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Study of the Individual: Sustaining Forces ...................... 123
xvi CONTENTS
The Current Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 9 Describing Lives: Gordon Allport and the "Science" of Personality ....................... 131
Bertram J. Cohler
Allport's Approach to the Study of the Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 The Interpretive Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 The Interpretive Thrn and the Nomothetic-Idiographic
Debate ................................................ 136 Personal Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Allport's Construal of Personality Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Traits ..................................................... 139 Realization of Personal Integrity: The Proprium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 References ................................................... 143
Chapter 10 Gordon Allport and "Letters from Jenny" ..... 147
David G. Winter
Gordon Allport and "Glenn" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Understanding the Case of Jenny .............................. 150 "Jenny" and Allport's Theoretical Ideas ......................... 152 Conflict and Mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
The Idiographic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Therapeutic Skepticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Normal and Abnormal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Functional Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Jenny and Ross in Gordon Allport's Life ........................ 157 Jenny as Mother ........................................... 158 Ross as Double . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Chapter 11 Allport's Personal Documents: Then and Now . ................................. 165
Lawrence S. Wrightsman
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 The Purposes of Personal Documents in Psychological Research . . 166 Theoretical Perspectives-Allport's and the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Methodologies-Allport's versus the Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
CONTENTS xvii
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 References ................................................... 174
Chapter 12 Conceptions of Self and Identity: A Modern Retrospective on Allport's View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Roy F. Baumeister
Allport's Views in Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Allport's Integrative Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Natural Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 The Conceptual Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 The Action Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Chapter 13 Current Status of the Motive Concept . . . . . . . . 187
Robert A. Emmons
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Other Current Approaches .................................... 190 Recommendations ............................................. 192 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Chapter 14 The Ability to Judge Others from Their Expressive Behaviors
Bella M. DePaulo
The Consistency of Expressive Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 The Deliberate Regulation of Expressive Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Allport's Six Questions about the Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Chapter 15 Judgments of Personality and Personality Itself ............................................ 207
David C. Funder
Allport on Personality Judgment ............................... 207 Research on the Process of Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Research on lnte:rjudge Agreement ............................ 210 Criteria for Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 The Accuracy Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
xviii CONTENTS
Chapter 16 Gordon Allport: Father and Critic of the Five-Factor Model .............................. 215
Oliver P. John and Richard W. Robins
Allport-Father of the Five-Factor Model ...................... 216 Allport and Odbert's "Psycholexical Study" ................... 216 Replicating Allport and Odbert in German:
A Prototype Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Reducing the Semantic Nightmare: Five Broad Dimensions
Underlying Trait Terms ................................... 219 The Empirical Basis of the Five Factors ........................ 221
Research in the Lexical Tradition ............................ 221 Research in the Questionnaire Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 The Emerging Consensus and Heuristic Potential of the
Big Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Conceptual Status of the Factors: From the Big Five to the
Five-Factor Model ........................................ 223 Allport-Critic of the Five-Factor Model ....................... 225
Trait Theory and Personality Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Description and Explanation ................................ 225 Nomothetic and Idiographic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Molar Dimensions and Individual Traits ...................... 230
Conclusions .................................................. 231 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Chapter 17 To Predict Some of the People More of the Time: Individual Traits and the Prediction of Behavior ......................... 237
Peter Borkenau
Allport's Critique of Hartshorne and May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Bern and Allen's Elaboration of Allport's Ideas .................. 240 Was Bern and Allen's Study Truly Idiographic? .................. 242 The Replicability of Bern and Allen's Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Trait Relevance or Trait Extremity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Who Are the Trait-Consistent Subjects? ...................... 245 Was the Search for Moderators Successful? ................... 246
Conclusions .................................................. 247 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
CONTENTS xix
Chapter 18 The Scientific Credibility of Commonsense Psychology ..................................... 251
Garth J. 0. Fletcher
A Realist Theory of Psychological Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Truth as a Scientific Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 The Relation between Theory and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 A Generative Concept of Causality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Evaluating the Layperson's Social Cognition: Scientist or Simpleton? ............................................ 255
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Folk Personality-Social Psychology Theories: Touchstone
or Crock? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Dispositions as Causal Explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Caveats and Conclusions ...................................... 265 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Chapter 19 A Commonsense Approach to Personality Measurement ................................... 269
Raymond N. Wolfe
Veridicality ................................................... 272 Devising Items ............................................... 275
Preliminary Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 From the Theory to the Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 From Itemmetrics to Psychometrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 From the Item to the Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Scale Breadth versus Scale Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Constraints on the Kinds of Constructs That Can
Be Measured . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
PART V. EPILOGUE
Chapter 20 An Optimistic Forecast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Robert Hogan
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
XX CONTENTS
Author Index ............................................... 299
Subject Index .............................................. 307