From observations of individual behaviour to social representations of personality: Developmental pathways, attribution biases, and limitations of questionnaire methods

Uher, Jana; Werner, Christina S.; Gosselt, Karlijn

doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2013.03.006

Cited by 44 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Likely because of this, people psychically represent individualspecific behaviours in much simpler and more consistent structures than can actually be found in ethological measurements (as empirically demonstrated in Uher et al 2013a). These findings reflect the very function of psychical constructions and representations of individual-specificity and their lexical encodings: they facilitate the ability to differentiate between highly similar individuals (Lahlou 1998;Uher 2014a in this trilogy).…”

Section: A) Nomination Approachesmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…The TPS-Paradigm defines behaviours as the "external changes or activities of living organisms that are functionally mediated 8 by other external phenomena (Millikan 1993) in the present moment" (Uher 2013;Uher et al 2013a, Uher, Werner & Gosselt 2013b. Thus, not all external changes or activities are behaviours (e.g., mere chemical by-products such as heat) and behaviours are not just movements (e.g., freezing behaviour in prey animals).…”

Section: Behaviours: Metatheoretical Properties and Methodological Rementioning

confidence: 99%

“…6-10, cf. Desiderata 2a, 2b; for comprehensive empirical demonstrations, see Uher et al 2013a). Importantly, both individual patterns and individual-specific patterns can be scientifically quantified only through stepwise analyses of the data collected using nunc-ipsum methods.…”

Section: Behaviours: Metatheoretical Properties and Methodological Rementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scientific quantifications thus-obtained (e.g., time-relative probabilities) must then be compared post-hoc between individuals to identify differential patterns. These differential patterns must be shown to be stable across time periods longer than those in which the measurements were first ascertained and in ways that are considered to be meaningful (e.g., defined by the strength of statistical correlations over specified time periods (for details, see Uher 2013, Desiderata 1d, 2a, 2b;Uher et al 2013a). Thus, individual-specificity is an abstract idea, a construct denoting particular constellations of patterns in the occurrences of events.…”

Section: "Personality" As Individual-specificity: a Metatheoretical Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rationale of the BR X BS-Approach specifies a multi-step procedure for researchers to systematically select behavioural and situational events from their known universes (as previously categorised by behavioural scientists) and to generate therefromrather than from people's (including researchers') implicit ideas about "personality"-working constructs of contextualised individual-specific behaviours (for details, see e.g., Uher et al 2013a). Anthropo-and ethno-centric biases can thus occur in the demarcation, description and categorisation of events of behaviours and behavioural situations established by the behavioural scientists, but not in the "personality" researchers' generation of constructs of individual-specificity in these events.…”

Section: The Behavioural Repertoire X Behavioural Situations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles

Uher

2014

Integr. psych. behav.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Taxonomic "personality" models are widely used in research and applied fields. This article applies the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) to scrutinise the three methodological steps that are required for developing comprehensive "personality" taxonomies: 1) the approaches used to select the phenomena and events to be studied, 2) the methods used to generate data about the selected phenomena and events and 3) the reduction principles used to extract the "most important" individual-specific variations for constructing "personality" taxonomies. Analyses of some currently popular taxonomies reveal frequent mismatches between the researchers' explicit and implicit metatheories about "personality" and the abilities of previous methodologies to capture the particular kinds of phenomena toward which they are targeted. Serious deficiencies that preclude scientific quantifications are identified in standardised questionnaires, psychology's established standard method of investigation. These mismatches and deficiencies derive from the lack of an explicit formulation and critical reflection on the philosophical and metatheoretical assumptions being made by scientists and from the established practice of radically matching the methodological tools to researchers' preconceived ideas and to pre-existing statistical theories rather than to the particular phenomena and individuals under study. These findings raise serious doubts about the ability of previous taxonomies to appropriately and comprehensively reflect the phenomena towards which they are targeted and the structures of individual-specificity occurring in them. The article elaborates and illustrates with empirical examples methodological principles that allow researchers to appropriately meet the metatheoretical requirements and that are suitable for comprehensively exploring individuals' "personality".Key words: personality assessment; lexical approach; standardized questionnaire methods; traits; Big Five Model and Five Factor Model; psychometrics; scientific quantification, contextualised methodologies; quantitative methods; phenomenon-methodology matching; emic approach and etic approach. . Developing "personality" taxonomies: Metatheoretical and methodological rationales underlying selection approaches, methods of data generation and reduction principles. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 49,

show abstract

Section: A) Nomination Approachesmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Behaviours: Metatheoretical Properties and Methodological Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Behaviours: Metatheoretical Properties and Methodological Rementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "Personality" As Individual-specificity: a Metatheoretical Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Behavioural Repertoire X Behavioural Situations Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles

Uher

2014

Integr. psych. behav.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Consistent inter‐individual differences in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in Boldness‐Shyness, Stress‐Activity, and Exploration‐Avoidance

Šlipogor

Oliveira²,

Tadić

et al. 2016

American J Primatol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The study of animal personality, defined as consistent inter‐individual differences in correlated behavioral traits stable throughout time and/or contexts, has recently become one of the fastest growing areas in animal biology, with study species ranging from insects to non‐human primates. The latter have, however, only occasionally been tested with standardized experiments. Instead their personality has usually been assessed using questionnaires. Therefore, this study aimed to test 21 common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) living in three family groups, in five different experiments, and their corresponding controls. We found that behavioral differences between our animals were not only consistent over time, but also across different contexts. Moreover, the consistent behaviors formed a construct of four major non‐social personality components: Boldness‐Shyness in Foraging, Boldness‐Shyness in Predation, Stress‐Activity, and Exploration‐Avoidance. We found no sex or age differences in these components, but our results did reveal differences in Exploration‐Avoidance between the three family groups. As social environment can have a large influence on behavior of individuals, our results may suggest group‐level similarity in personality (i.e., “group personality”) in common marmosets, a species living in highly cohesive social groups. Am. J. Primatol. 78:961–973, 2016. © 2016 The Authors. American Journal of Primatology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

show abstract

Personality assessment and model comparison with behavioral data: A statistical framework and empirical demonstration with bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Martin

Suarez

2017

American J Primatol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Interest in quantifying consistent among-individual variation in primate behavior, also known as personality, has grown rapidly in recent decades. Although behavioral coding is the most frequently utilized method for assessing primate personality, limitations in current statistical practice prevent researchers' from utilizing the full potential of their coding datasets. These limitations include the use of extensive data aggregation, not modeling biologically relevant sources of individual variance during repeatability estimation, not partitioning between-individual (co)variance prior to modeling personality structure, the misuse of principal component analysis, and an over-reliance upon exploratory statistical techniques to compare personality models across populations, species, and data collection methods. In this paper, we propose a statistical framework for primate personality research designed to address these limitations. Our framework synthesizes recently developed mixed-effects modeling approaches for quantifying behavioral variation with an information-theoretic model selection paradigm for confirmatory personality research. After detailing a multi-step analytic procedure for personality assessment and model comparison, we employ this framework to evaluate seven models of personality structure in zoo-housed bonobos (Pan paniscus). We find that differences between sexes, ages, zoos, time of observation, and social group composition contributed to significant behavioral variance. Independently of these factors, however, personality nonetheless accounted for a moderate to high proportion of variance in average behavior across observational periods. A personality structure derived from past rating research receives the strongest support relative to our model set. This model suggests that personality variation across the measured behavioral traits is best described by two correlated but distinct dimensions reflecting individual differences in affiliation and sociability (Agreeableness) as well as activity level, social play, and neophilia toward non-threatening stimuli (Openness). These results underscore the utility of our framework for quantifying personality in primates and facilitating greater integration between the behavioral ecological and comparative psychological approaches to personality research.

show abstract

From observations of individual behaviour to social representations of personality: Developmental pathways, attribution biases, and limitations of questionnaire methods

Cited by 44 publications

References 64 publications

Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles

Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles

Consistent inter‐individual differences in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in Boldness‐Shyness, Stress‐Activity, and Exploration‐Avoidance

Personality assessment and model comparison with behavioral data: A statistical framework and empirical demonstration with bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About