Dimensions of Humanity:

Measuring Personality
Scott McGreal, MSc, BA – Hons
 What is personality?
oPersonality refers to enduring features of a person’s
psychological makeup manifested in the
characteristic patterns of their thoughts, feelings, and
behaviour.
oIn some respects, all humans are alike in that there
are universal features of our psychological makeup. In
other respects, all humans are unique, because
people vary in their individual characteristics, and
each person has a distinctive pattern of personal
characteristics. This distinctive combination is what is
referred to as someone’s personality.
 Approaches to understanding personality
oOne of the most widely used approaches, considers
personality in terms of its component traits.
oTraits are enduring features of character that describe
what someone is like in a particular life domain.
oAny trait can be thought of as a continuum along
which a person can vary, rather than a distinct
personality type.
 Trait Models
o There may be hundreds of narrow band traits, however, many traits
are closely related to other traits, and these tend to cluster together
into broader factors that can be thought of as super-traits.
o There is debate about how many factors best describe personality.
o The “Big Five” is currently one of the most widely used models,
consisting of the following independent factors:
 Openness to experience
 Conscientiousness
 Extraversion
 Agreeableness
 Neuroticism
o Someone’s personality profile can be described – very broadly - in
terms of their standing on each of these five factors.
 The function of personality
o One view of personality, is that personality traits are
adaptations that help a person meet their needs as humans
(or not, in the case of extreme or maladaptive traits).
o For example, traits can influence the strategies that people use
to meet their social needs. People have a need to get along
with others, yet they also have a need to get ahead (i.e.
compete with others for social status and access to resources).
Some people place more emphasis on one or the other.
o Social traits may be broadly prosocial or antisocial. Similarly,
people can develop social strategies that are broadly either
mutualistic – cooperating with others for shared goals – or
antagonistic – competing with others for personal gain.
o People vary in their preferred mix of social strategies.
 The Interpersonal Circumplex
o The interpersonal circumplex is an earlier model focusing
particularly on social behaviour, that remains popular today.
o Circumplex models of personality examine the interactions
between two different dimensions of personality.
o The two interpersonal dimensions are agency (aka power,
dominance vs. submission) and communion (aka affiliation,
friendly vs. hostile, love vs. hate, warm vs. cold). These two
dimensions combine features of extraversion and
agreeableness.
o Using these two dimensions, it is possible to map out a variety
of ways that people typically interact with others. Note that it is
definitely possible for an individual to display a way range of
combinations at various times. However, most people tend to
have a most preferred style that could be considered their
default position.
 Fun Fact
oOne of the pioneers in the
development of the ICC was Dr
Timothy Leary, who wrote an
influential book on the subject in
the 1950s.
oIn later years, he became both
famous and notorious for his
interest in psychedelic drugs such
as LSD.
Leary’s full depiction of the interpersonal
circumplex
oLeary developed a
complex and
sophisticated model of
interpersonal traits.
Simplified ICC model
oIn more recent research,
a simplified model is
used, involving eight
main positions.
oA given person might
occupy any of these
positions at particular
times, but usually they will
have a general
preference that best
describes them.
Understanding the dark side of personality
o This model provides a way of
understanding the “dark-side”
personality traits, i.e.
characteristics that are socially
aversive.
o The “dark triad” of personality -
three offensive personality
traits:

 Narcissism – grandiose sense of admiration and feelings of superiority;

 Machiavellianism – cynicism and willingness to manipulate others;
 Psychopathy – callous disregard for the rights of others.
oThe dark triad have a common core of high agency and low communion
–the “arrogant-calculating” part of the ICC - indicating self-
aggrandisement and the use of antagonistic social strategies.
oIn terms of the Big Five, they share a common core of low agreeableness.
 Social desirability of personality traits
o Most traits have a socially desirable pole that is generally
preferred to the opposite pole.
o E.g. most people prefer people to be kind than to be mean, to
be emotionally stable rather than neurotic, and so on.
o To some extent social desirability biases reflect the terms used
to describe particular traits, e.g. is someone simply “lazy” or just
“laid back”?
o Self-serving biases can also influence judgments. E.g. people
high in openness to experience think that this is a good trait to
have and that people low in it are “uncultured”; people low in
openness tend to sneer at this trait, regarding people high in it
as “impractical dreamers”.
o However, despite these biases, in general, some traits seem to
be more highly valued by society than others.
 A “Big One” of personality?
o Personality models such as the Big Five propose that
personality involves the interaction of a number of
separate components.
o A General Factor of Personality? Some theorists have
argued instead that all the various personality factors can
be integrated into a single underlying tendency known as
a general factor of personality (GFP).
o A GFP forms a single broad continuum with one end that
is highly socially desirable, prosocial and adaptive, while
the opposite end is socially unacceptable, antisocial and
maladaptive.
o JP Rushton claimed that a high GFP represents a “good
personality,” while a low GFP represents a “difficult
personality.”
 A GFP has problems
› Debate about this is still ongoing, but I consider that
the idea of a GFP has conceptual difficulties.
Why have personality differences evolved?
o Since so many personality features have a socially desirable dimension, why aren’t
people much more uniform in their personalities? And why do so many people
exhibit dark traits? Would not natural selection eliminate undesirable traits?
o The answer to these questions is not fully understood. However, even desirable traits
have costs as well benefits.
o High levels of extraversion tend to be associated with popularity and with having
more sexual partners. On the other hand, highly extraverted people tend to take
more social and sexual risks that can put them in danger, e.g. violent retaliation for
adulterous affairs, increased risk of disease.
o High levels of agreeableness are particularly associated with moral goodness and
virtue, yet highly agreeable individuals run the risk of being exploited by
unscrupulous peers, and may be perceived by others as overly passive and naïve.
o In contrast, a high level of neuroticism is generally maladaptive and is associated
with increased risk of mental illness. Yet, it has been argued that a certain level of
neuroticism confers emotional sensitivity and helps people avoid danger.
Short-term mating and the allure of the
dark side
oSome theories argue that people
vary in their preferences for short
vs. long-term mating.
oSome theories suggest that dark
traits may facilitate short-term
mating. Narcissists and
psychopaths are perceived as
highly attractive by some people.
oFictional hero James Bond has
many classic narcissistic and
psychopathic traits, yet is widely
admired.
 Diversity in the evolution of personality
oPerhaps individual differences in personality have
developed because during human history people
have developed many different ways to survive.
oStrategies for survival do not all work equally well in
different times and places. Hence, from an
evolutionary standpoint, diverse differences may be
expected to flourish.
oThe diversity in personality reflects the diversity of
humanity.