Resilient, Overcontrolled, and Undercontrolled PersonalityTypes: Issues and Controversies

M. B. Donnellan11* and Richard W. Robins2

1 Michigan State University2 University of California, Davis

Abstract

Personality types refer to common or typical configurations of the dispositional attributes thatdefine the individual. Research over the last 20 years has identified a set of three replicable per-sonality types: resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personalities. Resilient individuals arecharacterized by self-confidence, emotional stability, and a positive orientation toward others.Overcontrolled individuals are emotionally brittle, introverted, and tense, whereas undercontrolledindividuals are disagreeable and lack self-control. In this article, we provide a brief history of cur-rent research on the three personality types and identify key areas of controversy. We also outlineseveral directions for future research and discuss the importance of maintaining both attribute- andperson-centered perspectives in contemporary personality psychology.

On January 10, 2007, President George W. Bush outlined a plan to dramatically increasetroop levels in Iraq, thereby placing the lives of thousands of young men and women atrisk. Almost 3 years later on December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama gave a speechjustifying his decision to substantially increase troop levels in Afghanistan, thereby riskingthe lives of thousands of American soldiers in a war that, like Iraq, appears fraught withperil. These two leaders, facing a complex and difficult decision with no easy options,ultimately adopted a similar policy. Yet, they did so in radically different ways, reflectingtheir distinct personality attributes.Bush, the self-proclaimed ‘Decider’, was said to make policy decisions quickly and by

characterizing seemingly intractable problems as clear-cut choices between right andwrong. Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan wrote that President Bush,‘is not one to delve deeply into all the possible policy options…Rather, he chooses basedon his gut and his most deeply held convictions’ (as cited in McAdams, 2009). One ofBush’s cardinal attributes is his certainty and his desire to insulate himself from conflictingopinions. Obama’s leadership style is quite different, as he seems to solicit a diverse rangeof views and considers the advantages and disadvantages of multiple policy options.His2 administration deliberated for months before settling on an Afghanistan policy, andthese extended discussions prompted critics to accuse him of ‘dithering’ (Cooper, 2009).What accounts for the differences between these two individuals, and the ways they

approached the challenges of the presidency? Most personality researchers would agreethat basic dispositional traits such as sociability and curiosity have a profound influenceon leadership, as well as most other domains of life. Observers of George Bush’s personal-ity have remarked that he is extremely energetic and enthusiastic and shows little interestin exploring ideas and challenging his preexisting convictions, suggesting a high level ofextraversion and a low level of openness to experience (McAdams, 2009). Barack Obama

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is often described as deliberate, thorough, comfortable with uncertainty, and willing toentertain a wide range of ideas, attributes suggesting a high level of conscientiousnessand, in contrast to Bush, a high level of openness to experience. It is easy to imaginehow these two contrasting personality configurations have produced two very differentleaders. Considered individually, each defining trait – Bush’s extraversion and Obama’sopenness – provide only a piece of the puzzle. It is only by considering how Bush’s ener-getic social dominance is channeled by his reliance on existing conviction toward quickconclusions and by considering how Obama’s tendency to consider all possible ideas andoptions intersects with his conscientiousness that we get a complete understanding oftheir radically different leadership styles.These considerations reflect a perennial debate in the field of personality: Should the

field conceptualize personality in terms of the individual attributes that vary across peopleor the overarching configuration of attributes that defines each person? This latterapproach, which considers personality in terms of broad types, has a rocky history in thefield, burdened by a legacy of methodologically dubious, conceptually muddy, andempirically unreliable typologies. This state of affairs has changed over the past two dec-ades as this person-centered approach to personality has been revitalized. A new genera-tion of research on types has helped spur an emerging consensus that the person-centeredperspective (e.g., Laursen & Hoff, 2006; von Eye & Bogat, 2006) provides an importantand even necessary complement to the attribute-centered approaches that currently domi-nate personality psychology. In this article, we (i) provide a brief history of contemporarytypological approaches to personality focusing on three replicable patterns identified inthe last 20 years, (ii) describe current issues of debate and ongoing controversy regardingthese types, and (iii) outline directions for future research.Given space limitations, our review focuses on issues surrounding the three types that

have been derived empirically from broad assessments of individual differences in personal-ity. We do not discuss theoretical types (e.g., Jung’s personality types), types defined byextreme scores on a single dimension (e.g., Kagan’s types), or types based on characteristicpatterning of attachment dynamics (e.g., Cooper, Shaver, & Collins, 1988; Fraley & Waller,1998). Likewise, we do not cover research that uses taxometric methods (Ruscio, Haslam,& Ruscio, 2006) to investigate whether certain clinical disorders (e.g., psychopathy) shouldbe conceptualized as discrete types of people apart from ‘normal’ members of the population(e.g., Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, & Poythress, 2006). Moreover, we do not delve deeplyinto the methodological and meta-theoretical considerations associated with the person-centered approach (e.g., Bergman & Magnusson, 1997; Magnusson & Stattin, 2006).

A Brief Review of Contemporary Research on Personality Types 3

Common language descriptions of people often reflect typological thinking about individ-uals such as ‘people person’, ‘bully’, and ‘narcissist’. Formal interest in personality typescan be traced to the ancient Greeks and Romans. For example, Theophrastus (a studentof Aristotle) provided a description of 30 character types such as ‘The Surly Man’ and‘The Flatterer’. Much later, Galen extended Hippocratic ideas about the psychologicalimportance of the four bodily humors into a typology of nine temperament types thatreflected different mixtures of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Galen’s well-known sanquine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic temperament types were thoughtto arise from a preponderance of one of these humors. The 16 types derived from theMyers-Briggs inventory (Myers & McCaulley, 1985) represent a more recent example oftypological approaches to personality derived from Jung’s theorizing. However, these

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theoretically and intuitively derived typologies seldom hold up to the rigorous empiricalstandards of replicability, construct validity, and generalizability across diverse populationsthat characterize modern personality research.Much of the contemporary interest in personality types can be traced to Jack Block’s

(1971) seminal book, Lives Through Time. One of Block’s goals was to use empiricallysound methods to identify a set of basic categories of personality organization and person-ality development. Block was convinced ‘none of us [are] so exquisitely different as todefy a rather useful categorization’ (1971, p. 110) and he identified personality types usinginverse factor analysis of Q-sort ratings made by clinicians. The Q-sort procedureinvolves sorting a set of cards with personality descriptions (e.g., ‘is competent, skillful’,‘is self-assertive’) into a fixed, quasi-normal distribution of multiple piles (usually 9) rang-ing from most characteristic to least characteristic (Block, 2008). Inverse factor analysis isbased on the matrix of the inter-correlations between people on these ratings rather thaninter-correlations between personality items or scales as is the case in more traditional fac-tor analysis. The factors that emerge in an inverse factor analysis capture similarities inpersonality profiles and thus capture groups of people that share something in common –their personality profiles. Inverse factor analysis is an appropriate statistical technique forpersonality descriptions obtained through the Q-sort method because such a sortingprocedure imposes a forced distribution on the underlying data (Asendorpf, Borkenau,Ostendorpf, & van Aken, 2001, p. 173). Ultimately, Block identified five personalitytypes among the 84 men in his sample and six personality types among the 86 women.Block’s typology provided a starting point for future empirical research on personality

types (e.g., Pulkkinen, 1996; York & John, 1992). However, subsequent research failedto clearly replicate the specific types identified by Block. Instead, research accumulatingover the past 20 years suggests that there are three replicable types. These types, whichwere first identified by Robins, John, Caspi, Moffitt, and Stouthamer-Loeber (1996), areego resilients, overcontrollers, and undercontrollers. Robins et al. (1996) derived theirtypes in a diverse community sample of boys aged 12 and 13 who participated in thePittsburgh Youth Study using Q-sort procedures similar to the one used by Block(1971). Individuals were actually classified into one of the personality types based on thefactor loadings for their respective types (see Robins et al., 1996, p. 161). Resilient ado-lescents (66% of the sample) were characterized by self-confidence, self-direction, emo-tional stability, and energy. Overcontrolled adolescents (14%) were emotionally brittle,sensitive, introverted, tense, but dependable. Undercontrolled adolescents (20%) werestubborn, physically active, disobedient, and impulsive. The same three types have sincebeen reported for children in Iceland (Hart, Hofmann, Edelstein, & Keller, 1997), Ger-many (Asendorpf & van Aken, 1999), and the United States (Weir & Gjerde, 2002) instudies based on the inverse factor analyses of Q-sort personality descriptions. Of note,these later studies found evidence for the three types in samples that included both boysand girls.Researchers have replicated the three personality types using cluster analysis instead of

inverse factor analysis (e.g., Akse, Hale, Engels, Raaijmakers, & Meeus, 2004; Asendorpfet al., 2001; Chapman & Goldberg, 2010; Dubas, Gerris, Janssens, & Vermulst, 2002;Hart, Atkins, & Fegley, 2003; Steca, Alessandri, & Caprara, 2010). Cluster analysis is a setof related mathematical tools for organizing cases with similar profiles on set of attributesinto different classes (i.e., clusters; see Everitt, Landau, & Leese, 2001). These tools arefairly flexible and have potentially less stringent data requirements than inverse factoranalysis. The goal of a cluster analysis is to find a way to divide a dataset in a way thatmaximizes between-cluster variance and minimizes within-cluster variance. In other

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words, the objective is to find a way to divide a dataset to ensure that the different classesare distinct from one another and that elements within a class are similar to each other(Henry, Tolan, & Gorman-Smith, 2005). Using this approach, for example, Asendorpfet al. (2001) found evidence for the three types in several different datasets that includedmeasures of the Big Five traits; across four studies (e.g., Panel E, p. 183), the resilientcluster was marked by low Neuroticism and relatively high levels of the other traits, theovercontrolled cluster was high in Neuroticism and low in Extraversion, and the under-controlled cluster was low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. These Big Five pro-files correspond well with the Big Five profiles reported by Robins et al. (1996) for thethree personality types identified in their adolescent sample. Table 1 provides an overviewof the Big Five profiles associated with each type based on these sources.The three personality types have been linked to a wide range of developmental out-

comes. Table 1 provides an overview of the findings. For example, Robins et al. (1996)found that undercontrolled boys had lower IQ scores, lower achievement at school,worse conduct, and more juvenile delinquency than overcontrolled and resilient boys.The types also differed in terms of psychopathology. Resilient boys were generally freefrom both internalizing (e.g., symptoms of depression and anxiety) and externalizingproblems (e.g., aggression, attention problems). Overcontrolled boys were more at riskfor internalizing problems, whereas undercontrolled boys were at risk for both problemsand especially externalizing problems. Similar findings have been reported for samples ofchildren and adolescents (Akse, Hale, Engles, Raaijmakers, & Meeus, 2007; Asendorpf &van Aken, 1999; Hart et al., 1997, 2003; Hart, Burock, London, Atkins, & Bonilla-Santi-ago, 2005; Klimstra, Hale, Raaijmakers, Branje, & Meeus, 2010; Van Leeuwen, De Fru-yt, & Mervielde, 2004) and older adults (Steca et al., 2010).

Table 1 Big Five trait profiles and developmental correlates for the three replicable personality types

Personality type

Resilient Overcontrolled Undercontrolled

Big Five domainsExtraversion High Low –Agreeableness – – LowConsciousness High – LowNeuroticism Low High –Openness – – –

OutcomesIQ High Medium LowSchool performance High Medium LowSchool conduct High High LowInternalizing problems Low High MediumShyness Low High LowLoneliness Low High LowGlobal self-esteem High Medium LowExternalizing problems Low Low HighDelinquency Low Low HighAggressiveness Low Low HighHostile attribution Low High High

–, Unexceptional scores based on a composite interpretation of Figure 2 in Asendorpf et al. (2001)and Figure 1 in Robins et al. (1996).

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Robins et al. (1996) concluded that the three personality types ‘are of sufficient breadthand generalizability to constitute a minimally necessary set of personality types’ (p. 169)and suggested that these types should emerge in most studies. Consistent with their claim,it appears that three personality types can be found in different samples, using differentways of indentifying personality types, and in studies that use different sources of person-ality information. These three types have also been found in analyses of clinical samples(e.g., Claes et al., 2006; Westen & Harnden-Fischer, 2001).All told, a growing set of studies, using different procedures and diverse samples, gen-

erally converge on a similar set of three personality types. The apparent robustness of thethree personality types provides grounds for optimism about the future of personality typeresearch. Although we do not believe this optimism is misguided, a number of contro-versies and unresolved issues continue to plague research on personality types and otherperson-centered approaches.

Issues and Controversies

Are the three types found in all personality datasets?

Despite the numerous replications described earlier, some investigators have reportedfailures to recover the three types, especially when using Big Five-based measures. Forexample, Rammstedt, Riemann, Angleitner, and Borkenau (2004) were not able toextract the three types in either informant reports or behavioral ratings of the Big Five(see also De Fruyt, Mervielde, & Van Leeuwen, 2002). Moreover, Costa, Herbst,McCrae, Samuels, and Ozer (2002) found evidence for the three types in only one ofthree samples of U.S. adults. In addition, researchers sometimes recover a ‘nondesirable’cluster instead of the undercontrolled cluster when using Big Five-based measures (e.g.,Barbaranelli, 2002; Grumm & von Collani, 2009; Van Leeuwen et al., 2004). This typehas a pattern of trait levels opposite that of the resilient type (i.e., high Neuroticism andlow levels on the other traits). In fact one of the editors of a special issue of the Euro-pean Journal of Personality dedicated to the three personality types concluded that the‘consistency of personality types across different studies is however far from beingperfect’ (Asendorpf, 2002, p. s2). Thus, the three types we have described are not foundin all datasets.It is possible that the occasional failure to detect all three personality types simply

reflects sampling error, given that most studies seem to find some version of the threetypes. One explanation is that the samples used to identify types are generally not col-lected using representative sampling methods, and biases in sample composition may affectthe ability of researchers to detect certain personality types. For example, the types associ-ated with problematic outcomes (namely the overcontrolled and undercontrolled types)are likely to be under-represented in many convenience samples.In addition, the variability in findings could reflect systematic differences in the meth-

ods used to identify types. Currently, there is no consensus concerning the optimal waysto extract types. Nonetheless, there is guidance concerning which procedures to followand which to avoid. For example, it appears prudent to employ resampling methods withconducting cluster analyses such that researchers conduct analyses across multiple itera-tions of the same dataset. This provides a way to check for the consistency of clustersolutions (see Steinley, 2003). Indeed, replication procedures of all types including bothwithin-sample procedures (e.g., bootstrapping methods) and across different samples arestrongly recommended. More advanced statistical techniques such as latent profile analysis

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might also be suitable for extracting personality types; however, such approaches arerarely used in the existing literature because they perform better with large sample sizes(e.g., Ns > 1000) and require specialized software to implement (see e.g., Muthen &Muthen, 2000; Vermunt & Magidson, 2002).Likewise, the replicability of the three types may depend on whether the personality

ratings are based on informant, self-reports, or behavioral ratings. Rammstedt et al.(2004) suggest that it is easier to find the three types in self-reports of the Big Five asopposed to informant or behavioral ratings (see also Van Leeuwen et al., 2004). How-ever, most Q-sort studies that find evidence for the three types are based on informantreports (but see McCrae, Terracciano, Costa, & Ozer, 2006). Thus, future work isneeded to fully resolve which methods of identifying personality types are optimal (ifany), how these different statistical procedures influence the nature and the number oftypes observed in a particular study, and whether issues of sample composition affect theability of researchers to detect the three types.

Do the three types predict outcomes better than traits?

Costa et al. (2002) presented a forceful critique of contemporary research on personal-ity types. They suggested that the three personality types have predictive validitylargely because they serve as proxies for trait standing. To test this idea, they evaluatedwhether personality type membership provided incremental validity to the predictionof outcomes such as social functioning and psychopathology. The basic idea was toexamine whether type membership predicted additional variance above and beyondtrait information. Using several datasets, they failed to find evidence that personalitytype information had incremental validity beyond trait information. Asendorpf (2003)largely replicated these findings using cross-sectional comparisons and likewise VanLeeuwen et al. (2004) only found limited evidence of the incremental validity of typesover traits.In contrast, two other studies have more clearly demonstrated the incremental validity

of types beyond traits. Hart et al. (2003) used data from the Children of the NationalLongitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to evaluate the utility of the three personality typesfor predicting a wide range of developmental outcomes. In two analyses predicting aca-demic outcomes, they found evidence that personality type information had incrementalvalidity over and above dimensional ratings of individual differences. Asendorpf and Den-issen (2006) found that type membership at ages 4–6 had incremental validity over traitinformation at these ages when predicting outcomes assessed at ages 17 and 22. They sug-gested that ‘types might do a better job when the time lag between predictor and out-comes is especially high’ (p. 508).As it stands, issues related to the predictive validity of types versus traits is a conten-

tious and largely unresolved issue. It is also important to distinguish several issues thatmay get conflated in the debate. One issue concerns which approach has better predic-tive validity, whereas a second issue is whether types have incremental validity overtraits. It appears that both types and traits predict consequential life outcomes and thatboth approaches to assessing personality account for much of the same variance in thelife outcomes that have been studied (see e.g., Chapman & Goldberg, 2010). Evidenceof the incremental validity of types over traits is more complicated because there areindications that evidence for the incremental validity of types is more compelling inlongitudinal comparisons rather than in cross-sectional comparisons (Asendorpf, 2003).Moreover, the debates over incremental validity often presuppose that traits are the

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default approach to understanding personality. Rather than adopt such a perspective, itmight make sense from a broader perspective to evaluate which approach does a betterjob at predicting important outcomes in various predictive contexts (e.g., cross-sectionalversus longitudinal comparisons) and then to identify the reasons behind any differ-ences.In addition, the issue of comparative validity should be viewed in the context of the

comparative parsimony of the two approaches. It is an open question as to whether traitsclearly outperform types after considering the greater efficiency of typological information(i.e., three types can be represented by two dummy-coded variables or three prototypical-ity scores). This is a conceptual issue as well as a statistical issue, and we believe that it isimportant to make distinctions between the importance of statistical prediction and con-ceptual understanding (see Bergman & Trost, 2006, p. 611). It might be the case thattypes hold an advantage over traits in terms of facilitating understanding in light of theirparsimony and descriptive efficiency.

Are the three types real?

One of the most challenging issues concerns the ontological status of the three personalitytypes. Block and Ozer (1982) made a distinction between two fundamentally differentways of thinking about the type concept. The ‘type-as-distinctive form’ entails the viewthat personality types reflect natural kinds (see Meehl, 1992 for a more technical discus-sion). In other words, from this perspective, personality types reflect qualitative differ-ences that truly exist in nature such that resilients are different from undercontrollers inthe same way that gophers are different from chipmunks. This view sees types as psycho-logical constructs that ‘carve nature at its joints’ (Meehl, 1992). In contrast, the ‘types-as-label’ approach considers types as convenient labels but makes no such claim about theontological status of types. In this usage, the type concept provides an efficient way tosummarize personality information, just as a trait label captures a single dimension of per-sonality that is unlikely to have a simple one-to-one correspondence with an underlyingbiological substrate.Most researchers who use personality types probably adopt a position that is some-

where in between these two perspectives but perhaps a bit closer to the ‘types-as-label’perspective. They recognize that personality types reflect fuzzy distinctions between peo-ple and not distinct categories that unequivocally describe all people. The three types areseen as prototypes or abstractions, and it is often recognized that a given individual willmatch one of the three types to varying degrees. Some people are close approximationsof a particular prototype, whereas others are not (York & John, 1992). Indeed, someresearchers prefer the term prototype to type given these considerations (e.g., Weir &Gjerde, 2002).

What are some advantages of a personality typology?

From our perspective, the three types provide an empirically grounded way to accountfor within-person organization of personality, even if they do not clearly and unequivo-cally correspond to categorical distinctions among individuals. Costa et al. (2002) evenconceded that the personality types may serve as useful and convenient labels for traitcombinations that are associated with consequential outcomes. Accordingly, we believethat a replicable and empirically validated typology of personalities can play an importantand even necessary role in personality psychology.

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Foremost, the three personality types provide an efficient classification system andtaxonomy for organizing people (as opposed to traits) at a high level of abstraction.Classification systems contribute to increased knowledge by focusing attention on clas-ses that share common features, outcomes, and developmental correlates. Critics some-times suggest that movement away from typological thinking to dimensionalperspectives is a sign of scientific progress and a mature discipline. However, typologieshave a place in other mature sciences as there are well-known systems for classifyinganimals, chemicals, plants, and stars. Personality psychology has been extremely success-ful in developing systems for classifying attributes of people (e.g., the Big Five scheme)but much less successful in terms of schemes for classifying people themselves. Thismight be an important omission. Zoologists use the Linnaean taxonomy to classifyanimals, not the attributes of animals.Second, the typological approach shifts attention to the ways that traits are organized

and integrated within individuals. Whole individuals, rather than isolated traits, engagein dynamic transactions with their social environments such as interactions with par-ents, teachers, employers, and romantic partners. Likewise, major life events (experienc-ing the loss of loved one, losing a job) and role changes (becoming a parent) happenat the level of the person. Thus, the typological approach can provide an importantfocus for research on personality development (Laursen & Hoff, 2006). Typologicalperspectives might also provide important starting points for empirical research into theorigins of individual differences. Researchers can ask why some children are resilientwhereas others are undercontrolled? Do they have different genes? Have they beenexposed to different rearing environments? Research in this vein can help to furtherlink personality psychology with developmental psychology given that the whole childis often the focus of research in human development (Hart et al., 2003; Laursen &Hoff, 2006).Third, the three personality types might serve as efficient moderator variables for

understanding why individuals have different responses to common events. To be sure, itis well known that individuals respond differently to the same objective life events. Oftenpsychologists look for moderators based on demographic characteristics such as genderwithout a strong consideration for personality differences. The three personality typesmight provide a more psychologically interesting and useful framework for predicting andexplaining these kinds of differences in reactions. For example, personality types haveshown promise for understanding why interventions like Head Start seem to have differ-ent effects on different children (Hart et al., 2003). Likewise, the three types might beuseful in understanding adjustment in the aftermath of life events and traumas such asdivorce or the loss of parent. Typological studies may therefore further illustrate theimportance of personality attributes for understanding adjustment and adaptation acrossthe life span (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007).Finally, typological perspectives are useful for helping to describe personality research

to the general public. Typological notions have a long intellectual history and seem tohave considerable intuitive appeal. Research using personality types might prove veryuseful for stimulating broader interest in the sub-discipline of personality psychologyeven if membership in one of the three types does not predict outcomes above andbeyond trait standing. The three types provide a way of characterizing individual dif-ferences that may resonant more strongly with those outside of academic psychologythan say the Big Five dimensions. Indeed, it is our experience that individuals outsideof academic psychology can readily identify ‘people like that’ when describing thesethree types. This fact also makes them useful for theorizing about the origins and

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outcomes associated with personality. In sum, the three personality types might proveto be practically useful even if they do not fully capture reality. In this way, typesmight prove to be useful fictions.

Future Directions for Research on Personality Types

Recent research has demonstrated that personality types can be studied in a systematicand methodologically rigorous manner. Personality types can be held to the same stan-dards that are used to evaluate research on personality traits by demanding evidence ofreplicability, generalizability, and construct validity using multiple and independentsources of data. Accordingly, we hope that interest in personality types does not die apremature death in light of some of the current criticisms of the approach. Here, wehighlight several important areas for future study.

Refining and expanding the typology

Robins et al. (1996) suggested that the three types were a part of minimally necessary set.This conjecture does not mean that there are only three types but simply that the threetypes described here should be robust. An important task for the future is to evaluatewhether there are robust types beyond the three described here. Additional and some-times alternative types have appeared in a given study (e.g., Barbaranelli, 2002; Block,1971; Caspi & Silva, 1995; York & John, 1992), but these types have not proven robustacross multiple samples, populations (e.g., women versus men), and statistical proceduresfor extracting types. As it stands, more work is needed to determine whether there arereplicable subtypes within each of the three types.The three types represent a fairly broad classification scheme in the same way that

mammals are a broad class of animals that are meaningfully distinct from fish and reptiles.Nonetheless, there are important sub-types of mammals such as marsupials and placentals.Work is needed to make the current typology hierarchical in the way that the Linnaeantaxonomy of animals is hierarchical (e.g., families are nested within orders which arenested within classes). A complete typology should provide a way to classify people intobroad categories and more specific subtypes. Thus far, however, progress in this area hasbeen slow.

Cross-cultural generalizability

Cross-cultural studies are useful for testing the universality of personality research. Find-ings that do not hold across disparate cultures provide clues about which aspects of per-sonality are strongly shaped by cultural factors, whereas findings that are robust acrosscultures point to human universals. Much of the exiting research on personality typeshas been conducted in industrialized Western countries such as Germany, Iceland, theNetherlands, and the United States. However, Avdeyeva and Church (2005) identifiedpersonality types in large samples of Filipino college students. Several of their typesoverlapped with the resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled types although theyalso found evidence of nonreplicable types in particular samples. Thus, there are a fewhints that the types described here may generalize across diverse cultures. Nonetheless,further research may identify types that reflect constellations of personality attributesthat are unique to a given culture. Accordingly, additional cross-culturally research is apressing need.

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A second issue concerns cultural differences in the relative prevalence of each type.The question of whether the types can be uncovered in all cultures is separate from ques-tions about base rates, just like questions of whether the Big Five emerge in all culturesare separate from questions about potential mean-level differences in the Big Five acrosscultures. Researchers currently have limited understanding of the base rates of the differ-ent types given that most existing studies use convenience samples. Differences in baserates across samples may reflect differences in sample selection procedures rather than truecultural differences. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of samples that are generated usingprobability-based methods in personality psychology.A related issue concerns the outward expression of the three types in different cultural

contexts. The same basic types might exist across different cultures but the types them-selves might have different expressions, patterns of development, and associations withvariables like achievement and psychopathology. For example, overcontrollers in Spainmight be more disagreeable than overcontrollers in Germany (Boehm, Asendorpf, &Avia, 2002). Undercontrolled adolescents growing up in cultures with stronger levels ofsocial control might exhibit fewer signs of antisocial behavior than adolescents growingup in less restrictive countries. Thus, cross-cultural research might provide importantinsights into how environmental factors work with personality attributes to shapebehavior.

Developmental considerations

There seems to be abundant evidence that personality type membership is related to con-sequential life outcomes (see again Table 1). Thus, researchers know a considerableamount about the potential outcomes of types. In comparison, researchers know relativelylittle about the origins of the three types (Hart et al., 2003). This is unfortunate because abetter understanding of their developmental origins might prove invaluable for interven-tion and prevention efforts designed to reduce psychopathology, enhance academicachievement, and otherwise bolster psychological well-being and health. At a broad level,it is easy to predict that both genetic and environmental factors will contribute to thedevelopment of personality types as these factors are a significant source of variation innearly all human attributes (Turkheimer, 2000). Beyond that facile prediction, it is muchmore difficult to explain why one individual has a resilient personality whereas anotherhas an undercontrolled personality.Classic psychodynamic accounts implicate experiences with caregivers as an important

factor in personality development, and it may be that a complex interaction betweenrearing conditions and biologically based temperamental dispositions channel individualsinto one of the three broad personality types. Research on attachment dynamics might beuseful for informing specific hypotheses about the kinds of family environments linkedwith the development of particular personality types. In particular, Cooper et al. (1988) 4studied the correlates of attachment styles in adolescents and noted parallels between thethree common types of attachment styles and the three replicable personality typesdescribed here. Secure adolescents resembled the resilient personality type, anxious-ambivalent adolescents resembled the undercontrolled type, and the avoidant type resem-bled the overcontrolled type. The rearing conditions that are thought to give rise to thesethree different attachment styles may provide clues as to the environmental factors thatmight foster the development of certain personality types. For example, inconsistent anderratic caregiving in conjunction with certain temperamental dispositions may contributeto the development of the undercontrolled type.

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In addition to questions about the developmental origins of the three types, there areunanswered questions about the long-term stability of type membership and whether dif-ferent types emerge at different stages of life. As we discussed in the context of culturalissues, developmental periods may also affect the behavioral expression of personality.The concept of heterotypic continuity seems particularly important to keep in mind. Thisconcept refers to consistency in the underlying personality tendencies despite changesacross developmental periods in the way these tendencies are manifested in behavior. Forinstance, the behaviors of an undercontrolled toddler may have little superficial corre-spondence with the behaviors of an undercontrolled adult. One might throw tempertantrums and bite classmates, whereas the other may drink excessively and break laws.These different behaviors, however, may be tied to the same underlying personalityconfiguration.The consequences of type membership may also vary across developmental periods.

For example, a certain amount of delinquency, excessive drinking, and general misbehav-ior may characterize adolescence and emerging adulthood for many individuals (see e.g.,Moffitt, 1993). Thus, it might be more difficult to see clear differences between resilientsand undercontrollers in terms of externalizing problems during this time of the life span.Consistent with this concern, Asendorpf and Denissen (2006) found that personality typeinformation at age 4–6 predicted aggression more successfully at age 22 than at age 17.They speculated that normative expressions of antisocial behavior during adolescence lim-ited the ability of personality information to predict outcomes.A final issue concerns the processes that link type membership to consequential life

outcomes. That is, why do personality types predict life outcomes? Very little systematicevidence is available to answer these important questions. Hart et al. (2005) providedimportant initial data linking type membership to cortisol levels and cortisol reactivity aswell as hostile attributions of intent. They found, for example, that both undercontrolledand overcontrolled children were more likely to attribute hostility to others in ambiguoussocial situations than resilient children. These differences in social-cognitive processesmight help to explain why type membership is associated with externalizing and internal-izing psychopatholgy. Research in this vein is useful for developing process models link-ing personality to real-world outcomes.

Conclusion – Toward a Personality Psychology That Embraces Both Attribute-Centered and Person-Centered Approaches

As we noted in the opening, typological research is an important example of person-cen-tered approaches to personality. Regardless of the ultimate fate of the three typesdescribed here, we believe that the person-centered approach is an important comple-ment to the attribute-centered approach that dominates much of psychology (Bergman &Magnusson, 1997). One of the motivating assumptions of the person-centered approachis the idea that traits should not be studied in isolation. This insight helps to remindresearchers to pay at least some attention to the constellation of attributes that worktogether in an integrated and dynamic system to define the individual. Appreciation andattention to this complexity can clarify how and why personality attributes are linked toconsequential life outcomes, provide insights into why people respond differently to thesame environmental conditions, and lead to more nuanced theorizing about the develop-ment of personality.Personality psychologists have long debated the most appropriate units of analysis and

research strategies for the discipline (see e.g., Donnellan, Lucas, & Fleeson, 2009). It

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might not be too much of a stretch to argue that there are a number of competing agen-das confronting the field. At the same time, personality psychology has always maintaineda broad and inclusive focus, given Gordon Allport’s (1946) maxim that ‘No doors shouldbe closed in the study of personality’ (p. 133–134). In line with Allport’s views, we thinkthat both attribute-centered and person-centered approaches have an important role toplay in contemporary personality psychology. Both approaches can inform each other andfurther the mission of personality psychology to understand the psychological triad ofthoughts, feelings, and behavior (Funder, 2009). Rather than debating whether typologi-cal or trait approaches are better, we believe it is more productive and valuable to moveahead on both fronts and determine the circumstances under which one perspective ismore useful or appropriate than the other.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Jennifer Slane for helpful comments.

Short Biography

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5.

Endnote

* Correspondence address: M. B. Donnellan, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing,MI 48823, USA. E-mail: donnel59@msu.edu.

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