McCrae & Costa

• The renowned psychologist Robert McCrae is recognized for having significantly influenced personality psychology through his contributions, which include developing the popular Five Factor Model (OCEAN).
• The Five-Factor Theory is often referred to as the Big Five, this theory includes neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
• An important figure in the early years of psychometrics who had an indirect influence on McCrae and Costa.

  Raymond Cattell
• Understanding Cattel's trait theory enhances the comprehension of McCrae and Costa's five-factor theory.
• Cattel, McCrae, and Costa used an inductive method.
• The inductive method, gathers data without preconceived bias, whereas the deductive method, preconceived hypotheses in mind before starting the data collection process.
• Cattel utilized three observation methods: life record (L data) gathered from observations by others; self-reports (Q data) obtained from questionnaires and other techniques allowing people to make a description of themselves; and objective tests (T data) to measure performance like intelligence and response speed to challenge individuals' maximum performance.
• Cattel categorized traits into common traits (shared by many) and unique traits (peculiar to one individual).
• Traits of temperament refer to how a person behaves, motivation deals with why one behaves, and ability refers to how far or how fast one can perform.
• Cattel's approach to personality traits identified 35 primary traits, primarily focusing on temperament. Out of these, 23 are normal, while 12 measure the pathological dimension.
• It is a mathematical method used to express the degree of correspondence between two sets of scores.

  correlation coefficient
• Factor analysis, which is a method used to account for a large number of variables with fewer basic dimensions, known as traits.
• Factor M represents mathematical ability, while other factors or units of personality can be identified through factor analysis, although the number of factors will be smaller than the original number of observations.
• Factor loadings are correlations between scores and factors.
• Unipolar traits scaling from zero to large amounts like height, weight, and intellectual ability, and Bipolar traits extending from one pole to another, exhibiting traits like introversion versus extraversion, liberalism versus conservatism, and social ascendancy versus timidity.
• Advocates of the Five Factor Theory prefer orthogonal rotation.
• Cattel's oblique method assumes a positive or negative correlation, with an angle of less than or more than 90°.
• Orthogonal rotation typicaly yields only a few meaningful traits, while oblique methods usualy produce a larger number.
• Taxonomy: a classification of things according to their natural relationships.
• McCrae and Costa's Five-Factor Model (FFM) originated as an attempt to identify basic personality traits through factor analysis.
• McCrae became intrigued by factor analysis as a straightforward method for identifying structural traits in a dictionary.
• Costa and McCrae focused initially on the two main dimensions of neuroticism and extraversion.
• Almost immediately after they discovered N and E, Costa and McCrae found a third factor, which they called openness to experience.
• The NEO-PI was a revision of an earlier unpublished personality inventory that measured only the first three dimensions: N, E, and O. In the 1985 inventory, the last two dimensions — agreeableness and conscientiousness — were still the least well-developed scales, having no subscales associated with them.
• ·Neuroticism (N) and extraversion (E) are the two strongest and most ubiquitous personality traits, and Costa and McCrae conceptualize in much the same way as Eysenck defined them.
• 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
• Agreeableness Scale distinguishes soft hearted people from ruthless ones.
• The two core components (rectangles) are basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations (including self-concept).
• The three peripheral units (ellipses) of the model are biological bases, objective biography, and external influences.
• The central or core components are represented by rectangles, whereas the peripheral components are represented by ellipses.
• Objective biography (life experiences) is the outcome of characteristic adaptations as well as external influences.
• Biological bases are the sole cause of basic tendencies (personality traits).
• The personality system can be interpreted either cross-sectionally (how the system operates at any given point in time) or longitudinally (how we develop over the lifetime).
• Basic Tendencies are one of the central components of personality, along with characteristic adaptations, self-concept, biological bases, objective biography, and external influences.
• McCrae and Costa defined basic tendencies as the universal raw material of personality capacities and dispositions that are generally inferred rather than observed.
• Characteristic Adaptations is acquired personality structures that develop as people adapt to their environment and include habits, skills, and beliefs.
• Basic tendencies are stable and enduring whereas characteristic adaptations fluctuate, making them subject to change over a person’s lifetime.
• Characteristic adaptations are the consequences of basic tendencies/traits.
• Self-Concept is actually a characteristic adaptation, but it gets its own box because it is such an important adaptation.
• Biological Bases - The principal biological mechanisms that influence basic tendencies are genes, hormones, and brain structures.