The Pioneering Work of Raymond B. Cattell

• • An important figure in the early years of psychometrics
  • had only an indirect influence on McCrae and Costa. They did, however, share techniques and ideas, even if their approaches also had some real differences.

  Raymond B. Cattell
• • A form of reasoning based on observation and measurement without preconceived hypotheses.
  • Cattell and McCrae and Costa both used this method of gathering data; that is, they began with no preconceived bias concerning the number or name of traits or types

  Inductive Method
• • Approach to factor analytical theories of personality that gathers data on the basis of previously determined hypotheses or theories, reasoning from the general to the particular.

  Deductive Method
• Cattell used three different media of observation to examine people from as many angles as possible. The three sources of data:

  1. L Data
  2. Q Data
  3. T Data
• • a person’s life record derived from observations made by other people

  L Data
• • self-reports obtained from questionnaires and other techniques designed to allow people to make subjective descriptions of themselves.

  Q Data
• • objective tests, which measure performance such as intelligence, speed of responding, and other such activities designed to challenge people’s maximum performance.

  T Data
• each of McCrae and Costa’s five bipolar factors is limited to responses on questionnaires.
• Cattell divided traits into:

  1. Common Traits - Shared by many
  2. Unique Traits - Peculiar to one individual
• Cattell also distinguished source traits from trait indicators, or surface traits.
• Cattell further classified traits into temperament, motivation, and ability.
• • Traits of this are concerned with how a person behaves.

  Temperament
• • deals with why one behaves.

  Motivation
• • refers to how far or how fast one can perform.

  Ability
• Cattell’s multifaceted approach yielded 35 primary, or firstorder, traits, which measure mostly the temperament dimension of personality.
• The largest and most frequently studied of the normal traits are the 16 personality factors found on Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factors Questionnaire.