Temperamental Contributions to the Development of Psychological Profiles: I. Basic Issues

Kagan, Jerome

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-394427-6.00013-3

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 112 publications

(90 reference statements)

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“…Second, we should ask more precise questions about the plasticity of the behavioral traits that compose what we usually think of as personality characteristics. There is strong evidence that personality factors are at least somewhat plastic, supported by both age-related changes [67] and those resulting from traumatic or otherwise meaningful events [68], and more broadly by the logic that, because personality traits quantify patterns of behavior, their manifestation must be influenced by the affordances provided by the physical and social environment [29,27,25,26,31,28,47,48]. However, most prior studies of personality plasticity have assumed the phenotypic reality of personality factors such as the Big Five and HEXACO traits (e.g., [46,47,48]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, a growing number of researchers have rejected the theory that inductively derived personality dimensions correspond directly to latent psychological traits, and have adopted an alternative paradigm that views patterns of personality trait covariance as emerging dynamically from many distinct psychological mechanisms and processes [19,20,14,21,4,22,5]. This "emergentist" perspective argues that personality trait factors reflect patterns of specific behaviors, which are influenced by other aspects of an individual's phenotype as well as by the physical and social environment [23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31]. From the emergentist perspective, there is no theoretical basis for expecting universal personality trait factors; in principle, many different behavioral covariance patterns could be elicited within a local ecology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure

et al. 2019

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The structure of personality refers to the covariation among specific behavioral patterns in a population. Statistically derived models of personality-such as the Big Five or HEXACO models-usually assume that the covariance structure of personality characteristics is a human universal. Cross-cultural studies, however, have challenged this view, finding that less complex societies exhibit stronger covariation among behavioral characteristics, resulting in fewer derived personality factors. To explain these results, we propose the niche diversity hypothesis, which predicts that a greater diversity of social and ecological niches elicits a more diverse set of multivariate behavioral profiles, and hence lower trait covariance, at the population level. We formalize this hypothesis as a computational model in which individuals assort into niches, which influence their behavioral traits. The model provides strong support for the niche diversity hypothesis and reproduces empirical results from recent cross-cultural studies. The model also provides a novel prediction for which we find support empirically: individual trait variation increases with niche diversity. This work provides a general explanation for differences in personality structure between populations in both humans and other animals. It also suggests a radical reimagining of personality trait research: instead of reifying statistical descriptions of manifest personality structures, research should focus more attention on modeling their underlying causes.

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