A Five–Factor Theory Perspective on Causal Analysis

Abstract

Five-Factor Theory (FFT) provides a broad but largely blank template for causal personality research. Within FFT, there are three major categories of questions: (1) How do biological structures and functions lead to trait levels? (2) how do traits and the environment give rise to acquired psychological institutions? and (3) how do personality characteristics interact with specific situations to determine behaviors and reactions? Both practical and ethical issues complicate the search for the causes of trait change. Causal explanations of the development of characteristic adaptations are likely to be incomplete, because there are many different ways in which the same adaptation may be acquired. Studies of the determinants of behavior are usually left to social, educational, or clinical psychologists-although personality psychologists may make distinctive contributions by emphasizing the role of the individual in selecting and creating situations. A causal understanding of the functioning of the personality system is possible through the integration of many lines of evidence, but it is likely to take a very long time. In the meanwhile, personality psychologists may fruitfully pursue the identification of practical causes by which individuals with a given set of traits can optimize their adaptation. If we require truth in any strict sense, we must confine ourselves to one entire state of the world. This will be the cause, and the next entire state will be the effect. There is much truth in this conclusion, but it remains indefensible.F. H. Bradley, 1893/1966, p. 48.

Positive Daily Experiences Are Associated with Personality Trait Changes in Middle–Aged Mothers

“…adulthood (Baumert et al, 2017;Geukes et al, 2018;Roberts, 2018;Roberts & Jackson, 2008;Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). In contrast, these results are more difficult to reconcile with the notion that personality traits are immune to the effects of psychological experiences, as asserted by endogenous personality theories (McCrae & Costa, 2008;McCrae & Sutin, 2018). Our results also speak against the view that the difference between 'happy and unhappy people' can be almost entirely traced back to individual differences in extraversion and emotional stability (Costa & McCrae, 1980).…”

“…However, contrary to our predictions, we found little evidence suggesting that individual differences in personality traits developmentally preceded individual differences in daily experiences. Although this finding seems to conflict with the widely held view that personality traits are distal causes of daily psychological experiences (Allport, ; Deary, ; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, ; McCrae & Costa, ; McCrae & Sutin, ; Roberts, ; Wrzus & Roberts, ), we cannot rule out alternative explanations that are consistent with this view. First, our results are consistent with the possibility that, during an earlier developmental phase, a fixed, stable component of personality produced stable individual differences in daily experiences, resulting in a stable correlation between traits and experiences during middle adulthood (Roberts, ).…”

Two levels of personality: Temperament and values and their effects on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being

“…Firstly, most conceptions of personality indicate, that stable dispositions or traits are not its only element and that culturally determined and more dynamic aspects of functioning should also be treated as an integral part of personality. This has recently been proposed in the integrative model of personality (McAdams and Pals 2006) and earlier also by McCrae and Costa (McCrae 1996;McCrae and Costa 1999;McCrae and Sutin 2018). Secondly, conceptions of well-being suggest that subjective or hedonic well-being is not the only vital area of well-being experience.…”

Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders

“…The second development was determining that normative and individual changes in traits are driven, at least in part, by environmental factors (Roberts & Jackson, ; Roberts & Jackson, ; although, see McCrae & Costa Jr, , and McCrae & Sutin, in press). One prominent model of the environmental influences on trait development is Social Investment Theory (Lodi‐Smith & Roberts, ; Roberts, Wood, & Smith, 2005), which integrates the descriptive finding that the most significant personality changes seem to occur in young adulthood with the observation that this period is a time when one's ‘social clock’ (Helson, Kwan, John, & Jones, ) sets the stage for major transitions into what become, for most people, relatively stable family and work roles.…”