Sense of direction: General factor saturation and associations with the Big-Five traits

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe ability to locate and orient ourselves with respect to environmental space is known as sense of direction ("SOD"). While there is considerable evidence for the predictive utility of self-report measures of this psychological construct, relatively little research has investigated the psychometric properties of the self-report scale by which it is most commonly measured -the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale (SBSOD, Hegarty et al., 2002) -or the broader personality correlates. The present study evaluated the factor structure of the SBSOD following administration to 12,155 individuals and situated it among prominent sources of individual differences, specifically the Big Five personality traits and intelligence. Findings suggest that the SBSOD scale has relatively high general factor saturation, and that a considerable portion of the variance in SBSOD scores is explained by other personality traits, including Conscientiousness (r = 0.33), Intellect (r = 0.27), Emotional Stability (r = 0.26), and Extraversion (r = 0.23). Cognitive ability was less highly correlated with SBSOD scores when measured at the level of general intelligence (r = 0.11) and in terms of mental rotation ability (r = .07). Recommendations are given for revision of the SBSOD scale based on item-level analyses.

Tracing a Route and Finding a Shortcut: The Working Memory, Motivational, and Personality Factors Involved

“… Wyllie and Smith (1996) found that adolescents scoring high in extroversion were more likely to explore the environment and spend their leisure time in places farther from home than their less extrovert counterparts. Condon et al (2015) found a correlation between scores for extroversion and self-reported SOD, and also with other personality traits, such as conscientiousness, intellect, and emotional stability.…”

“…In line with these assumptions the literature supports a relationship between certain personality traits and performance in spatial and WF tasks. Extroversion is one of the personality traits most often studied, and findings indicate that extroverts are more likely to have an exploratory behavior ( Wyllie and Smith, 1996 ), and to score higher for self-reported SOD ( Condon et al, 2015 ), a measure that predicts performance in environment tasks ( Hegarty et al, 2006 ). Wyllie and Smith (1996) found that adolescents scoring high in extroversion were more likely to explore the environment and spend their leisure time in places farther from home than their less extrovert counterparts.…”

Individual variation in human navigation

“…Additionally, Integrators may be good navigators because they are adventurous, and relish the challenge of learning a new environment. Silcton performance has not been related directly to personality factors, but SBSOD scores are related to Openness on the Big 5 personality test, which is a measure of curiosity, ingenuity and adventurousness, and to Extraversion, which measures energy, enthusiasm and approach behavior (Condon et al, 2015).…”

Sense of direction and conscientiousness as predictors of performance in the Euclidean travelling salesman problem

“…Moreover, both SA and SOD were found to be significant predictors of spatial learning, i.e., both via video and/or within a virtual environment. Interestingly, Condon et al (2015) showed that some of the variance in SOD scores can be explained by participant conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is the human tendency to plan ahead and think with caution before acting on a given task ( John et al, 2008 ), and relates to rule-based behavior and long-term planning.…”

“…The experiment considered occurrence of crossing-avoidance violations, i.e., solutions containing crossed edges, as a measure of ETSP performance. In this study we were interested in whether conscientiousness correlates to variance in SOD scores, as suggested by Condon et al (2015) . Moreover, using Principal Component Analysis, we were interested in whether a formed dimension could be used to predict the occurrence of a cross-avoidance violation; which is a strong indicator of graph optimality.…”