FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY:Factor Analysis, The Nature of Personality

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Personality Psychology PSY 405

Lesson 28

FACTOR ANALYTIC TRAIT THEORY

(Raymand Cattell)

Core Concepts (Part I)

1- Factor Analysis

2- Biographical Sketch

3- The Nature of Personality

4 - A Structure of Traits

Unique traits

ii)

Common traits

iii)

Surface traits

iv)

Source traits

Constitutional traits

vi)

Environmental traits

vii)

Ability and Temperament

viii)

Dynamic

4- Important Dynamic Traits

The important dynamic traits, in Cattell's system, are of three kinds:

Attitudes,

ii)

Ergs

iii)

Sentiments--Self

5-Major Sources of Data About Personality

In Cattell's view, there are three major sources of data about personality:

1- The Life Record, or L- Data;

2- The Self-Rating Questionnaire, Q-Data;

3- The Objective Test or T-Data

6-The Specification Equation

What is personality ?

According to Cattle personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given

situation.

R = f (P,S)

7- The Development Of Personality

8- Heredity-Environment Analysis

9- Search Methods

R-Technique and P-Technique

ii)

Sixteen Personality Factors (16PF)

iii)

Culture Fair Intelligence Tests

10- Summary

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11- Evaluation

Factor analysis is of course widely used as an everyday empirical tool by contemporary investigators. Other

theorists working in the area of personality have also used this technique H. J. Eysenck, J. P. Guilford,

Cyril Burt, L. Thurstone, and W. Stephenson. Cattell's theory is by far the most comprehensive and fully

developed theory of personality based on factor analysis, and therefore, we need to acquaint ourselves

briefly with the method of factor analysis itself.

1- Factor Analysis

Cattell's theory of personality is based on factor analysis. The corner stone of the factor analysis is the

concept of correlation. When two things vary together, they are said to be correlated e.g. there is a

relationship between height and weight because when one increases, the other will also tend to increase.

The stronger the tendency for two variables to vary together, the stronger is the correlation between them.

The strength of the relationship between the two variables is expressed mathematically by a correlation co-

efficient that can vary in magnitude from +1 to -1.

A score of -1 indicates perfect negative correlation and +1 indicate a strong positive correlation. Cattell's

procedure was to measure a large number of individuals in as many ways as possible e.g. he records the

every day behavior of various individuals, such as how many accidents they have, the number of

organizations to which they belong and the number of social contacts they had. He calls the information

gathered by such observations L Data, the L for Life Record, Q Data, the Q for Questionnaire information

and lastly the T Data, the T for the Test Information.

The next step is to inter-correlate all of the test scores, creating correlation matrix. In this matrix clusters of

correlation are searched. Such a search is called cluster analysis. An ability discovered in such a cluster is

called a factor and in Cattell's theory, the term factor is equated with the term trait. For Cattell factor

analysis is a method used to discover traits which he consider the building blocks of personality.

The procedures in Factor Analysis Technique can be summarized as follows.

Measure a large number of people in a variety of ways.

Correlate performance on each measure with performance on every other measure. This creates a

correlation matrix.

Determine how many factors (traits) need to be postulated in order to account for the various inter-

correlations (Clusters) found in the correlation matrix.

2- Biographical Sketch

Cattell was born in Stanford shire in England in 1905, his childhood was a happy one with a huge number

of activities as exploring, swimming and sailing. England entered in World War 1 when Cattell was nine

years old and it had a major effect on his life. He saw hundred of wounded soldiers being treated in a near

by house which was converted into a hospital. Cattell studied sychology at the University of London from

where he did his masters and Ph. D. From 1938 to 1941, Cattell was professor of genetic psychology at

Clark University in Worcester. In 1941 he moved to Harvard. In 1945 at the age of 40 Cattell moved to

University of Illinois as research professor and director of the laboratory of personality and group analysis.

In 1953, he received a price given by New York Academy of Science and he held Darwin fellowship for

genetic research. In 1973, he moved to Colorado and worked their at a research institute.

3- The Nature of Personality:

A Structure of Traits

The system of constructs proposed by Cattell is among the most complex of any of the theories.

Traits

The trait is by far the most important of Cattell's concepts. Except perhaps for Gordon Allport, Cattell has

considered this concept and its relation to other psychological variables in greater detail than any other

current theorist. For him a trait is a "mental structure," an inference that is made from observed behavior to

account for regularity or consistency in this behavior.

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1-Unique traits,

2-Common traits

The traits that are shares by all people of the community are common traits and traits which characterize

the single individual are unique traits. The kind of Factor analysis used in which many subjects are

measured on the many variables and the scores intercorrelated is called R-Technique. The kind of Factor

analysis that traces the strengthof several traits over a period of time for the same individual is called the P-

Technique.

3- Surface Traits

4- Source Traits

For Cattell there are two other types of traits surface traits, which represent clusters of manifest or overt

variables that seem to go together, and source traits, which represent underlying variables that enter into the

determination of multiple surface manifestations. Thus, if we find a number of behavioral events that seem

to go together we may prefer to consider them as one variable. In a medical setting, this would be referred

to as a syndrome but here it is labeled a surface trait. Source traits on the other hand are identified only by

means of factor analysis which permits the investigator to estimate the variables or factors that are the basis

of this surface behavior.

Surface traits are produced by the interaction of source traits and generally can be expected to be less stable

than factors. Cattell admits that surface traits are likely to appeal to the common-sense observer as more

valid and meaningful than source traits because they correspond to the kinds of generalizations that can be

made on the basis of simple observation. However, in the long run it is the source traits that prove to have

the most utility in accounting for behavior.

5-Constitutional traits

6-Environmental traits

Source traits are those that are the underlying causes of overt behavior. He feels that most people have

about sixteen source traits. Some source traits are genetically determined and are called constitutional traits.

Other source traits are shaped by one's culture and are called environmental mold traits.

7-ability and temperament,

8-and dynamic

Cattell, also distinguishes among ability, temperament, and dynamic traits. Ability traits determine how

well a task is performed. The most important ability trait is intelligence of which Cattell describes two

kinds. Fluid intelligence is general problem-solving ability and is thought to be genetically determined.

Crystallized intelligence is the cumulated knowledge of the kind learned in school and is thus gained

through experience.

Temperament traits are constitutional and determine a person's emotional make-up.

Dynamic traits are those that set the person in motion toward a goal; in other words, they determine a

person's motivational make-up. Cattell distinguishes two categories of dynamic traits: ergs and meta-ergs.

Ergs are roughly equivalent to instincts, biological needs, or primary drives. Meta-ergs are learned drives,

divided into sentiments and attitudes. Sentiments are predispositions to act in certain ways to classes of

objects or events. Attitudes are specific responses to specific objects or events. Since ergs are at the core of

one's motivational patterns, sentiments are said to be subsidiary to ergs, and since attitudes are dependent

on sentiments, attitudes are said to be subsidiary to sentiments.

Cattell's describes the relationship among ergs, sentiments, and attitudes in what he calls the dynamic

lattice.

4- Important Dynamic Traits

The important dynamic traits, in Cattell's system, are of three kinds:

Attitudes,

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Ergs

Sentiments--Self

We will now examine these three kinds of dynamic traits, an attitude is a response of an individual to a

situation or to a object, Ergs correspond roughly to biologically based drives and sentiments are acquired

attitude structures, their interrelationship in the dynamic lattice, and their role in conflict and adjustment

will be discussed.

1- Attitudes

An attitude is a response of an individual to a situation or object. Thus the attitude of a young man "I want

very much to marry a woman" indicates an intensity of interest ("want very much") in a course of action

("to marry") toward an object ("a woman"). The attitude need not be verbally stated; indeed Cattell would

prefer to measure the strength of the young man's interest by a variety of devices, direct and indirect. These

might include his rise in blood pressure to a picture of a bride, his ability to remember items from a list of

good and bad consequences of marrying, his misinformation concerning the matrimonial prospects of a

male in our society, and so forth.

Cattell and his co-workers have in fact intercorrelated some sixty or seventy different devices for

measuring attitude strength in a series of studies aimed at developing an efficient test battery for measuring

conscious and unconscious components of attitudes (see, for example, Cattell, Radcliffe and Sweney1963).

Five attitude component factors, designated Alpha through Epsilon, have been described and speculatively

related to psychoanalytic concepts (Id, ego, repressed complexes, and on). In practice, however, two

second-order components of attitude strength are usually measured--one concerned with the relatively

conscious and integrated aspects of an attitude (as measured, for instance, by information tests), and one

concerned with less "integrated or unconscious aspects (as measured, for example, by wishful thinking or

forgetting tests). To obtain a single score for the strength of an attitude, the scores for the two components

can simply be added together.

The Self

The self is one of the sentiments, but an important one, since nearly all attitudes tend to reflect the self

sentiment in greater or lesser degree. It in turn is linked to the expression of most or all of the ergs or other

sentiments. In any event, the sentiment or system of sentiments focused around the self is considered by

Cattell to play a crucial role in the integration of the personality, but interrelating the expression of the

various ergs and sentiments.

5- Major Sources of Data about Personality

In Cattell's view, there are three major sources of data about personality:

The Life Record, or L- Data;

The Self-Rating Questionnaire, Q-Data;

The Objective Test or T-Data

1-L-data, may involve actual records of the person's behavior in society, such as school records, court

records although in practice Cattell has usually substituted ratings by other persons who know the

individual in real-life settings.

2- Self-rating (Q-data) by contrast, involves the person's own statements about his or her behavior, and

thus can provide a "mental interior" to the external record yielded by L-data.

3-Objective test (T-data) is based on a third possibility, the creation of special situations in which the

person's behavior may be objectively scored. These situations may be pencil-and-paper tasks, or they may

involve apparatus of various kinds. Cattell and his associates have been extremely fertile in devising and

adapting these tests: a compendium (Cattell and Warburton, 1967) lists over 400 of them.

Cattell has sought to locate general traits of personality by conducting separate factor analytic studies using

all three of the above data sources, on the assumption that if the same source traits emerged from all three,

this would provide strong evidence that the source traits were true functional unities and not mere artifacts

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of method.

The outcome of some twenty or thirty factor analyses carried out by Cattell and his associates over the past

several decades leads to the conclusion that a similar factor structure emerges from behavior rating data and

questionnaire data, but that rather different factors tend to emerge from objective test data. The populations

sampled in these studies have included several age groups (adults, adolescents, and children) and several

countries (U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, India,

and Japan), so presumably the factors have some generality.

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