0.9 Trait theories of personality  (Page 27/41)

Discussion Question: Cattell created a great deal of controversy with his views on nationality, race, intelligence, and achievement. What effect, if any, do you think it has on the field of psychology when one of its leading scientists makes an issue of such controversy? How much worse, if at all, did it make it when he claimed he was being persecuted for comments made in the 1930s as a young man, when in fact, he had continued to publish these ideas as late as 1983!

Hans Eysenck’s Dimensions of Personality

Hans Eysenck offered a theory of personality that was much more concise than that of Cattell, suggesting that there were only three major factors. He also emphasized the importance a hereditary basis for personality and intelligence, and he applied his research to some important everyday life circumstances. Accordingly, he was a very popular and widely acknowledged researcher. In 1997, he was identified as the most widely cited living person, second only to Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx amongst the most cited individuals of all time (Jensen, 1997). In addition, he was honored with not one, but two Festschriften , the first on his sixty-fifth birthday (Lynn, 1981), and the second in honor of his eightieth birthday (Nyborg, 1997).

Eysenck was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1916. His parents divorced when he was 2, and he was raised by his grandmother, seeing his parents only once or twice a year. He was a star athlete, including being a nationally ranked tennis player. He left Germany to escape the Nazis in 1934, and spent a brief period of time studying literature and history in France and England. His grandmother, however, died in a concentration camp around 1941 or 1942. He eventually began studying psychology at University College in London, under the renowned Cyril Burt. He earned his Ph.D. in 1940, and during World War II he worked as a research psychologist using factor analysis to study personality. After the war he became a psychologist at Maudsley Hospital, where he became friends with Philip Vernon (who completed his Ph.D. with Allport; see, e.g., Allport&Vernon, 1933), then helped to form a psychiatry institute at the hospital and affiliated with the University of London. He spent the rest of his career there, though he spent some time as a visiting professor in the United States (Eysenck, 1982, 1997). Eysenck received numerous awards during his career, including a Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Psychological Association. He died in 1997.

The Structure of Personality

According to Eysenck, the sixteen primary personality factors identified by Cattell in the 16-PF test were unreliable and could not be replicated. Eysenck chose instead to focus on higher order factor analysis, and he identified three “ superfactors :” extraversion , neuroticism , and psychoticism (Eysenck, 1982). According to Eysenck, higher order factors are similar to types, and they represent combinations of primary personality traits. Thus, he considered the sixteen factors that Cattell included in the 16-PF as primary factors, whereas extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism were second-order factors (or types). Actually, even the primary factors are comprised of lower level responses that result in a hierarchical model of personality: specific responses, habitual responses, traits (or factors), and finally, types (or superfactors). Similarly, g , or general intelligence, is a higher order factor than its component intelligences (e.g., verbal, numerical, memory, visuo-spatial, and reasoning). Thus, Eysenck’s theory does not contradict that of Cattell, but rather looks at a higher level of personality structure (Eysenck, 1952, 1967, 1970).