Theories of Personality
McCrae and Costa’s Five Factor
Trait Theory
Presented by Alexie E. Basileyo, RPm, MSPSYCP
Lyceum of the Philippines University - Laguna
Chapter 13
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Theories of Personality
McCrae and Costa’s Five Factor
Trait Theory
Chapter 13
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Outline
• The Big Five: Taxonomy or Theory?
• In Search of the Big Five
• Evolution of the Five-Factor Theory
• Related Research
• Critique of Trait and Factor Theories
• Concept of Humanity
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-3
Overview of Factor and Trait Theories
• Utilize Factor Analytic Methods to
Determine How Many Traits or
Dispositions
• Disagreement on How Many Personality
Traits
– Cattell: Many Factors
– McCrae and Costa: Five Factors
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-4
Cattell’s Trait Theory
• Cattell’s Method
– Used inductive method to gather data
– Used three different media of observation
• L data
• Q data
• T data
– Divided traits into common and unique traits
– His approach yielded 35 primary or first-order
traits
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-5
Basics of Factor Analysis
• Correlation coefficient
• Factor analysis
• Factors
• Factor loadings
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-6
The Big Five: Taxonomy or Theory?
• Taxonomies are not theories
• The Five-Factor Model began as an attempt
to identify basic personality traits as
revealed by factor analysis
• Evolved into a taxonomy
• The model then became a theory
– It can predict and explain behavior
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-7
In Search of the Big Five
• Five Factors Found
– Costa and McCrae utilized every major personality inventory and
came up with a five-factor solution
– Most personality psychologists have opted for this model
• Cross-cultural
• Demonstrate stability over time
• Description of the Five Factors
– Extraversion
– Neuroticism
– Openness
– Agreeableness
– Conscientiousness
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-8
Evolution of the Five-Factor Theory
• Units of the Five-Factor Theory
– Core Components of Personality
• Basic tendencies
• Characteristic adaptations
• Self-concept
– Peripheral Components
• Biological bases
• Objective biography
• External Influences
• Basic Postulates
– Postulates for Basic Tendencies
– Postulates for Characteristic Adaptations
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-9
Related Research
• Personality and Culture
– McCrae (2002)
– Poortinga et al. (2000)
• Traits and Academics
– Noftle & Robins (2007)
• Traits and Emotion
– McNiel & Fleeson (2009)
– Robinson & Clore (2007)
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-10
Critique of Trait
and Factor Theories
• Trait and Factor Theories are:
– Very High on Generating Research and
Parsimony
– High on Organizing Knowledge
– Moderate on Falsifiability
– Moderate to Low as a Guide for
Practitioners and Internal Consistency
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-11
Concept of Humanity
• McCrae and Costa are not concerned with
concepts of determinism versus free choice,
optimism versus pessimism, and causality
versus teleology
• Biology over Social Influence
• Conscious over Unconscious
• Uniqueness over Similarity
© 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved 13-12
