McCrae and Costa’s Five

Factor Trait Theory

Dr. Elvira C. David, RPm., RPsy., RGC.

The Pioneering Work of
Raymond B. Cattell
• Comparison between Cattell
and McCrae & Costa
• They used inductive method
of gathering data; that is,
they began with no
preconceived bias
concerning the number or
name of traits or types.
The Pioneering Work of Cattell
• Comparison between Cattell and McCrae &
Costa
• Cattell used three different media of
observation to examine people from as many
angles as possible.
• L data- derived from observations made by other
people
• Q data – self-reports obtained from
questionnaires
• T data – objective tests which measure
performance such as intelligence, etc.
• In contrast, McCrae and Costa’s 5 bipolar factors
is limited to responses on questionnaires
The Pioneering Work of Cattell
• Comparison between Cattell and McCrae &
Costa
• Cattell divided traits into
• common traits (shared by many) and unique
traits (peculiar to one individual).
• source traits and surface traits (trait
indicators)
• Temperament (how a person behaves)
• Motivation (why one behaves)
• Ability (how far or how fast one can perform)
The Pioneering Work of Cattell
• Comparison between Cattell and McCrae &
Costa
• Cattell’s multifaceted approach yielded 35
primary, or first-order, traits. Of these factors,
23 characterize the normal population and 12
measure the pathological dimension.
• The largest and most frequently studied of the
normal traits are the 16 personality factors
found on the 16 PF Scale.
• Whereas the NEO-PI yields scores on only five
personality factors.
Basics of Factor Analysis
• To use factor analysis, one begins by making specific
observations of many individuals.
• Assume that we have1,000 measures on 5,000 people.
Our next step is to determine which of these variables
(scores) are related to which other variables and to
what extent. To do this, we calculate the correlation
coefficient between each variable and each of the
other 999 scores.
• A correlation coefficient is a mathematical
procedure for expressing the degree of
correspondence between two sets of scores.
• 1,000 x 999 produces 499,500 individual correlations
Basics of Factor Analysis
• Factor Analysis
• can account for a large number of variables with a
smaller number of more basic dimensions called
traits - factors that represent a cluster of closely
related variables.
• Traits may be either unipolar or bipolar
• Unipolar traits are scaled from zero to some large
amount.
• Ex. height, weight, and intellectual ability
• Bipolar traits extend from one pole to an opposite
pole, with zero representing a midpoint.
• Example: Introversion versus extraversion, liberalism
versus conservatism
Basics of Factor Analysis
• Rotation
• Orthogonal Rotation

• Oblique Method (preferred by Cattell)

• Psychologically, orthogonal rotation usually results in

only a few meaningful traits, whereas oblique
methods ordinarily produce a larger number.
Biographies of Robert R.
McCrae and Paul T. Costa, Jr.
• Robert Roger McCrae was born April 28, 1949 in
Maryville, Missouri
• youngest of three children
• Had an avid interest in science and mathematics
• Took an degree in Philosophy at Michigan State
University
• He entered graduate school at Boston University
with a major in psychology.
• Found himself intrigued by the psychometric
work of Raymond Cattell, particularly on factor
analysis.
Biographies of Robert R.
McCrae and Paul T. Costa, Jr.
• Despite Walter Mischel’s contention that personality
traits are not consistent, McCrae continued his work
on traits while in graduate school.
• In 1975, he worked as a research assistant at the
Normative Aging Study at the Veterans Administration
Outpatient Clinic in Boston.
• There James Fozard referred him to Paul T. Costa Jr.
who later hired him as project director and co-
investigator.
• After 2 years, they were both hired by the National
Institute on Aging’s Gerontology Research Center,
where they continued their work on analyzing the
structure of personality.
Biographies of Robert R.
McCrae and Paul T. Costa, Jr.
• Paul T. Costa, Jr. was born September 16, 1942 in
Franklin, New Hampshire.
• He earned his undergraduate degree in
psychology at Clark University in 1964 and both
his master’s (1968) and PhD (1970) in human
development from the University of Chicago.
• After receiving his PhD, he taught for 2 years at
Harvard and at University of Massachusetts–
Boston.
• In 1978, he began working at the National
Institute of Aging’s Gerontology Research Center.
Biographies of Robert R.
McCrae and Paul T. Costa, Jr.
• He became president of Division 20 (Adult
Development and Aging) of the American
Psychological Association.
• His collaboration with McCrae has been
unusually fruitful, with well over 200 co-
authored research articles and chapters, and
several books.
In Search of the Big Five
• Started with three factors:
• N - Neuroticism
• E - Extraversion
• O – Openness to Experience
• 1985 - Five factors found which culminated in
their new five-factor personality inventory: the
NEO-PI (Costa & McCrae, 1985)
• 1992 – NEO-PI-R where A and C scales were fully
developed
Five Factors Found
• Two major and related questions in personality
research addressed by McCrae and Costa:
• First, with the dozens of different personality
inventories and hundreds of different scales, how was
a common language to emerge?
• Second, what is the structure of personality?
• Cattell -16 factors, Eysenck 3 factors, others -5
factors.
• The major accomplishment of the Five-Factor Model
(FFM) has been to provide answers to both these
questions.
• The five factors show some permanence with age
• The five factor model is an empirical fact.
Description of the Five Factors
• Neuroticism (N) and extraversion (E) are the two strongest
and most ubiquitous personality traits
• High Neuroticism - anxious temperamental, self-pitying,
self-conscious, emotional, and vulnerable to stress-
related disorders.
• Low Neuroticism - usually calm, even-tempered, self-
satisfied, and unemotional.
• Extraversion
• High Extraversion - affectionate, jovial, talkative, joiners,
and fun-loving.
• Low E scorers - likely to be reserved, quiet, loners,
passive, and lacking the ability to express strong emotion
Description of the Five Factors
• Openness to experience distinguishes people who
prefer variety from those who have a need for closure
and who gain comfort in their association with familiar
people and things.
• High Openness - consistently seek out different and
varied experiences; generally creative, imaginative,
curious, and liberal and have a preference for
variety.; tend to question traditional values
• Low Openness - typically conventional, down-to-
earth, conservative, and lacking in curiosity; tend to
support traditional values and to preserve a fixed
style of living.
Description of the Five Factors
• Agreeableness Scale distinguishes soft-hearted
people from ruthless ones.
• High Agreeableness - tend to be trusting,
generous, yielding, acceptant, and good-natured.
• Low Agreeableness - generally suspicious, stingy,
unfriendly, irritable, and critical of other people.
Description of the Five Factors
• Conscientiousness describes people who are ordered,
controlled, organized, ambitious, achievement
focused, and self-disciplined.
• High Conscientiousness - hardworking,
conscientious, punctual, and persevering.
• Low Conscientiousness - tend to be disorganized,
negligent, lazy, and aimless and are likely to give up
when a project becomes difficult.
Costa and McCrae’s Five Factor
Model
Costa and McCrae’s Five Factor
Model
Evolution of the Five-Factor
Theory
• Describing personality traits is not the same as
explaining them. For explanation, scientists need
theory
• McCrae and Costa (1996) objected to earlier theories
as relying too heavily on clinical experiences and on
armchair speculation.
• The tension between the old and new theories was
one of the driving forces behind Costa and McCrae’s
development of an alternative theory.

• So what is the difference between the Five Factor

Model (FFM) and the Five Factor Theory (FFT)?
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Behavior is predicted by an understanding of three
central or core components and three peripheral ones.

The three central components

• Basic tendencies
• Characteristic adaptations
• Self-concept

• Peripheral components
• Biological bases
• Objective biography
• External influences
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
•
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Basic Tendencies
• The universal raw material of personality capacities
and dispositions that are generally inferred rather
than observed (McCrae & Costa, 1996).
• may be inherited, imprinted by early experience or
modified by disease or psychological intervention,
but at any given period in an individual’s life, they
define the individual’s potential and direction.
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Characteristic Adaptations
• Acquired personality structures that develop as people adapt to
their environment.
• Ex: acquired and specific skills, such as the English language or
statistics
• Flexibility – the principal difference between basic tendencies
and characteristic adaptations.
• Whereas basic tendencies are quite stable, characteristic
adaptations can be influenced by external influences, such as
acquired skills, habits, attitudes, and relationships.

• At the heart of FFT is the distinction between basic tendencies

and characteristic adaptations - precisely the distinction needed
to explain the stability of personality.
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Self-Concept
• actually a characteristic adaptation but it is made distinct
because it is such an important adaptation.
• it consists of knowledge, views, and evaluations of the
self, ranging from miscellaneous facts of personal history
to the identity that gives a sense of purpose and
coherence to life (McCrae & Costa, 1996).
• The beliefs, attitudes, and feelings one has toward
oneself are characteristic adaptations in that they
influence how one behaves in a given circumstance.
• Includes personal myths.
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Peripheral Components
• Biological bases
• The FFT rests on a single causal influence on personality traits,
namely biology.
• The principal biological mechanisms that influence basic
tendencies are genes, hormones, and brain structures.
• Objective biography
• Defined as everything the person does, thinks, or feels across
the whole lifespan (McCrae & Costa, 2003).
• Objective biography emphasizes what has happened in
people’s lives (objective) rather than their view or perceptions
of their experiences (subjective).
Units of the Five-Factor Theory
• Peripheral Components
• External Influences
• People constantly find themselves in a particular physical
or social situation that has some influence on the
personality system.
• How we respond to the opportunities and demands of
the context is what external influences is all about.
Basic Postulates
• Postulates for Basic Tendencies
• Individuality postulate stipulates that every adult has a
unique pattern of traits.
• Origin postulate takes a clear if somewhat controversial
stance.
• Development postulate assumes that traits develop
and change through childhood, adolescence, and mid-
adulthood.
• Structure postulate states that traits are organized
hierarchically from narrow and specific to broad and
general just as Eysenck (1990) had suggested.
Basic Postulates
• Postulates for Characteristic Adaptations
• The postulate concerning characteristic adaptations
states that, over time, people adapt to their environment
by acquiring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
that are consistent with their personality traits and
earlier adaptations.
• Maladjustment postulate suggests that our responses
are not always consistent with personal goals or cultural
values.
• Basic traits may change over time in response to
biological maturation, changes in the environment, or
deliberate interventions.
Related Research
• Personality and Academic Performance
• Conscientiousness was the most important trait for predicting
GPAs in high school and college, but not for SAT scores (Noftle &
Robins,2007) .
• Traits, Internet Use, and Well-Being
• Daily Internet use is associated with higher levels of depression
and poorer well-being in teens (e.g., Van den Eijnden et al., 2008).
• Internet is not used the same way by all teens, nor does that
usage affect all teens in the same way.
• Traits and Emotions
• When people act in a certain way, their behavior does
indeed influence their mood to fit the behavior (McNiel &
Fleeson, 2006).
Critique of Trait and Factor Theories
• Very high on ability to generate research
• Advocates of the Big Five personality structure have also
generated large amounts of empirical research.
• Moderate to high rating on falsifiability
• High on ability to organize knowledge.
• Anything that is truly known about personality should be reducible
to some quantity.
• Mixed reviews on ability to guide the actions of
practitioners
• Good internal consistency
• Excellent on parsimony
• Because factor analysis is predicated on the idea of the fewest
explanatory factors possible.
Concept of Humanity
• FFT is not concerned with traditional themes
• High on consciousness
• Factor analysts see humans as being different from other animals.
Only humans have the ability to report data about themselves.
From this fact, it can be inferred that McCrae and Costa believed
that humans possess not only consciousness, but self-
consciousness as well.
• McCrae and Costa placed emphasis on genetic factors of
personality.
• They believe that traits and factors are both inherited and have
strong genetic and biological components and hence are
universal.
• Trait theories are more concerned with individual differences
than with similarities among people.