Traits across the personality hierarchy differentially relate to positive and negative affect: Evidence for the predictive validity of empirically derived meta‐traits

Abstract

There is increasing interest in the construct validity of higher-order domains of the Big Five personality traits. A total of 831 persons from the Swiss population completed the International Personality Item Pool and an adaptation of the Positive and Negative Affect Scales. Using Goldberg's bass-ackwards method, we found evidence for the general factor of personality (GFP) and the two meta-traits of positive emotionality (blend of low neuroticism and high extraversion) and constraint (blend of high agreeableness and conscientiousness). In association with positive affect, the explanatory power of the GFP (r = 0.43) and positive emotionality (r = 0.37) was largely superior to extraversion (r = 0.24), conscientiousness (r = 0.18), agreeableness (r = 0.09) and openness (r = 0.04), although not neuroticism (r = -0.34). In association with negative affect, neuroticism (r = 0.41), the GFP (r = -0.36) and positive emotionality (r = -0.35) were the most powerful single predictors. We conclude that the higher-order structure of personality is best explained by the meta-traits of positive emotionality and constraint, which correspond closely to the well-established superfactors of internalizing and externalizing. We further demonstrate that these have substantial criterion validity when broad positive and negative affect is the outcome of interest. These findings help to relate Big Five meta-traits to pathological personality. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Establishing the Substantive Interpretation of the GFP by Considering Evidence from Research on Personality Disorders and Animal Personality

“…In correspondence, Latzman et al ( 2014 ) extracted a hierarchical structure of personality in chimpanzees based on 43 primary items that was very similar to humans, including two higher-order factors corresponding to externalizing and internalizing personality. Since in humans externalizing and internalizing personality commonly load onto a GFP (Wright and Simms, 2014 ; Hengartner et al, 2017 ), these findings raise the possibility of a GFP in chimpanzees, too.…”

The Evolutionary Life History Model of Externalizing Personality: Bridging Human and Animal Personality Science to Connect Ultimate and Proximate Mechanisms Underlying Aggressive Dominance, Hostility, and Impulsive Sensation Seeking

“…The construct of externalizing personality may help to resolve inconsistencies in associations between personality and LHS outlined above. An externalizing personality domain has been derived from inventories of normal (Big Five) personality (Hengartner, Graf et al, 2017), pathological personality (Kushner, Quilty, Tackett, & Bagby, 2011), and combined normal and pathological personality (Wright & Simms, 2014). Externalizing personality bears some resemblance with alpha/stability, but deviates from this metatrait as it does not include the neuroticism facets of self-consciousness and anxiousness.…”

“…Externalizing personality bears some resemblance with alpha/stability, but deviates from this metatrait as it does not include the neuroticism facets of self-consciousness and anxiousness. It does, however, cover some facets from extraversion and openness, including activity, assertiveness, excitement-seeking, and adventurousness (Hengartner, Graf et al, 2017; Wright & Simms, 2014). The most salient features of externalizing personality are anger, hostility, impulsivity, disinhibition, manipulativeness, dominance, risk-taking, opportunism, deceitfulness, rudeness, noncompliance, grandiosity, callousness, immoderation, and antagonism (Hengartner, Graf et al, 2017; Kushner et al, 2011; Wright & Simms, 2014; Wright et al, 2012).…”

“…It does, however, cover some facets from extraversion and openness, including activity, assertiveness, excitement-seeking, and adventurousness (Hengartner, Graf et al, 2017; Wright & Simms, 2014). The most salient features of externalizing personality are anger, hostility, impulsivity, disinhibition, manipulativeness, dominance, risk-taking, opportunism, deceitfulness, rudeness, noncompliance, grandiosity, callousness, immoderation, and antagonism (Hengartner, Graf et al, 2017; Kushner et al, 2011; Wright & Simms, 2014; Wright et al, 2012). The nomological network of externalizing personality therefore corresponds closely to the traits underlying the construct of psychoticism (Eysenck, 1992; Zuckerman et al, 1993), borderline, antisocial, narcissistic, and paranoid personality disorder (Samuel & Widiger, 2008) and, most importantly, psychopathy (Lynam et al, 2005; Neumann & Hare, 2008; for a review, see Hare & Neumann, 2008).…”

“…The Big Five are supposed to provide a comprehensive set of mostly independent personality traits. However, due to substantial intercorrelations between the Big Five, there is growing interest in higher-order personality domains such as stability and plasticity (DeYoung, 2006; Digman, 1997) or internalizing and externalizing personality (Hengartner, Graf, & Schreiber, 2017; Wright & Simms, 2014). Moreover, personality is not unique to humans and apparently has a long phylogenetic history.…”