Six Approaches to Facet Interpretation

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Six Approaches to Facet Interpretation
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Item content analysis

• Questionnaire scales can be decomposed into
  constituent items that give insight into the
  nature or the trait (Grough, 1965).
• NEO-PI-R Manual (Costa and McCrae, 1992a) lists
  the items in each facet in an Appendix.
• What the scales measure is agreement or
  disagreement with these statements.

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Item content analysis
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Item content analysis

• Other conceptions of achievement striving
  attention seeking, leadership, or social
  dominance.
• Achievement striving might be closely related to
  Extraversion than to Conscientiousness.
• Item content can be relied upon as a guide but
  not the conceptions found in the NEO-PI-R.

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Defining the psychological opposite

• Bipolar and Unipolar.
• Questionnaire scales yields scores from low to
  high- the interpreters need to know what both
  ends mean.
• The dispositions underlying positive and negative
  affect are not opposites but independent
  dimensions (Costa and McCrae, 1980 Watson and
  Tellegen, 1985).

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Defining the psychological opposite

• C2
• High scores order are neat, clean, and well
  organized.
• Low scores dirty, slovenly and sloppy.
• In feedback to the client not well organized
  or not excessively neat.
• The desire to be non-judgmental may lead to
  attempts to compensate for undesirable qualities
  by attributing other, desirable qualities to the
  individual.

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Examination of empirical correlates

• Gough (1965) proposed an entire method of
  construct validation based chiefly on the
  induction of meaning from a wide-ranging sample
  of correlates.
• Adjective correlates are a useful beginning in
  understanding the meaning of a facet.
• For example C6 Deliberation
• Six strongest correlates were not hasty, not
  impulsive, not careless, not impatient, not
  immature and thorough
• Convergent validity and Discriminant validity

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Examination of empirical correlates
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Examination of empirical correlates

• The correlations confirm an intuitive
  understanding of what Deliberation measures, but
  they do little to extend understanding of the
  construct.
• We might learn more by testing hypotheses about
  more remote correlates.

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Examination of empirical correlates

• For example, deliberate people stop and think
  before acting, and one might hypothesize that
  this cognitive style is grounded in the
  individuals capacity for information processing
  at a more molecular level (cf. Ferrari, 1993).
• N803, correlations ranging from 0.02 to 0.07 -
  didn't support the hypothesis.

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Costa McCrae cont.

• Interpreting secondary factor loadings,
• Identifying equivalents in specialized languages,
  
• Case Studies

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Interpreting secondary factor loadings

• Mystery personality variable?
• Which of the 5 factors does it correlate with
  most?
• Assigning to correct domain tells us a great deal
  about its function and its other probable
  correlates.

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Traits and Facets

• However, many personality traits are related to
  more than a single factor.
• Identifying lower-level facets is based on
  looking for blends of pairs of factors (Hofstee
  et al., 1992).
• Any facet can be understood by looking at
  patterns of secondary loadings in a factor
  analysis.

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Secondary loadings

• Analysis of secondary loadings is unfamiliar to
  most personality psychologists.
• Often discard items that load onto more than one
  factor.
• Only attend to single largest loading.

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Secondary loadings

• In large samples secondary and tertiary loadings
  can be replicable (McCrae et al. 1996).
• Nuances of meaning that distinguish facets within
  a single domain can be better understood by
  considering relations to other domains.

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McCrae Costa (1997) example

• Factor loadings for C1 (competence) and C2
  (order) in seven cultures.
• Competence loaded chiefly on Conscientiousness
  (obviously) but also had substantial negative
  loadings on Neuroticism.
• Individuals who believe that they are capable,
  prudent, effective tend to be psychological well
  adjusted.

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McCrae Costa (1997) example

• Across all 7 cultures, Competence also has small
  positive loadings on Extraversion assertive
  self-confidence.
• Also small loading on Openness, which may be due
  to the overlap of these two constructs to
  self-perceived intelligence.

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McCrae Costa (1997) example

• The meaning of these secondary loadings of
  competence is better appreciated with reference
  to other facets of the same domain (i.e. Order).
• Order consistently unrelated to Neuroticism and
  has negative loadings on Extraversion and Openness

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Secondary loadings conclusion

• The facet scales of each NEO-PI-R domain have
  specific variance unrelated to any of the 5
  factors (McCrae Costa, 1992), but even within
  the common factor space they can often be
  meaningfully distinguished on the basis of
  secondary or tertiary loadings.

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Identifying equivalents in specialized languages

• Different personality psychologist use different
  labels for similar constructs.
• In applied fields (clinical, educational, health,
  industrial psychologists) the problem is
  worsened.
• Constructing a facet of personality from these
  different perspectives can deepen understanding
  of traits.

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C5 Self-Discipline

• Costa and McCrae (1992) definition Ability to
  begin tasks and carry through to completion
  despite boredom and other distractions.
• Industrial/Organisational psychologist have a
  work orientated definition.
• Educational psychologists use different
  vocabulary. Ranseen (1996) - ADHD poor
  Conscientiousness, particularly Self-Discipline.

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Specialized languages

• Clinical psychologists have many different
  languages corresponding to varieties of
  psychotherapy.
• Personality trait constructs are useful because
  they pervade so many areas of life but tracing
  them through all their ramifications requires
  attention to a number of different psychological
  variables.

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Case studies

• In psychology, case studies have been employed
  chiefly to illustrate psychopathology, but they
  are also suited to the explication of normal
  personality traits.
• Allport (1965) and Cattell (1973) have used case
  studies to illustrate common traits measured by
  their inventories.

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Case studies

• can convey trait constructs with a vividness
  that correlations and factor loadings lack.
• conceretely express abstract personality
  dispositions.
• However, Goldberg (1994) believes that case
  studies are prescientific literary allusions.

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Case studies

• Costa McCrae (1997) Case studies can suggest
  hypotheses that are empirically testable and are
  often invaluable in communicating constructs.

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C3 Dutifulness

• Now people regard Dutifulness as old-fashioned
  virtue, low on the list of priorities for self
  actualization and social improvement.
• In 18th Century Dutifulness was held in higher
  esteem.
• Example - Lord Nelson

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Case studies

• Serve as reminders to academic psychologists that
  traits are important only insofar as they
  describe real human beings
• Baumeister Tice (1996) Personality psychology
  is and ought to be at the heart of all the arts
  and sciences, helping humankind understand
  itself.

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Conscientiousness A Synthesis?

• Challenge to unity of conscientiousness (Hough,
  1992 Paunonen Jackson, 1996). Elements do
  not cohere to define a single personality factor.
• Paunonen Jackson 3 separate but overlapping
  dimensions (a) Methodical and orderly (b)
  dependable and reliable (c) ambitious and driven
  to succeed.
• E.g. found Responsibility loaded chiefly on
  agreeableness but scale used (JPI Responsibility
  scale) included a sense of duty to others.

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• Methodical and orderly, dependable and
  reliable ambitious and driven to succeed
  operationalised in NEO-PI-R as Order, Dutifulness
  and Achievement striving.
• Disputes about structure cannot be resolved by
  looking up from facets to factors, the facets
  muyst be examined to see what constructs they are
  actually measuring.
• Facets have discriminant validity, but all
  manifestations of conscientiousness show an inner
  unity grounded in the organisation and
  purposefulness of behaviour.

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Conclusion

• Personality trait constructs are not self
  evident. Lay trait adjectives imprecise and
  ambiguous.
• Even best chosen scale not completely
  informative. Necessary to study trait content,
  correlates and operation.
• Until constructs at facet level are truly
  understood, it is impossible to master the
  higher-order structure of personality