In this present chapter we will be concerned with the technique of factor analysis, and with a theoretical position whose development has been heavily dependent on the use of that method-the personality theory of Raymond B. Cattell. Cattell's theory is the most elaborate theory of personality based on factor-analysis.
The essential ideas of factor-analysis were understood by Spearman (1904), a distinguished English psychologist who is best known for his work with mental abilities. The method of factor analysis was developed as a means of determining the existence of general factors such as verbal fluency, general intelligence, educational level and aiding in their identification. Spearman's technique for isolating single factors was revised with Thurstone's (1931) introduction of multiple-factor analysis. This opened the way to studying much more complex problems and has since remained the principal method of factor-analysis.
The factor theorist begins the study of behaviour with a large number of scores for each of a large number of subjects. Given these surface indices, the investigator then applies the technique of factor-analysis to discover what the underlying factors are that determine or control variations in the surface variables. Thus, he hopes to identify a small number of basic factors whose operations accounts for most of the variation in the very large number of measures with which the investigator began.
The outcome of factor analysis isolates the fundamental factors and provides for each measure an estimate of the extent to which this measure is contributed to, by each of the factors. This estimate is referred to as the factor loading or saturation of the measure and is an indication of how much of the variation on this particular measure is to be attributed to each of the factors. The psychological meaning of a factor is determined by the nature of the particular measures that have high loadings on this factor. Having identified the basic factors, it is possible for the factor theorist to attempt to devise means of measuring these factors more efficiently than can be done by means of the original measures.
Thus the factor theorist commences with a wide array of behavioural measures, identifies the factors underlying these measures, and then attempts to construct more efficient means of assessing these factors. The factors of the factor-analyst are in conception little different from the components or underlying variables of other personality theorists. They are merely attempts to formulate variables that will account for the diserve complexity of surface behaviour. It is in the technique employed in deriving these variables that the movelry of this approach lies.
Surface traits are expressive of behaviours in a superficial level may appear to go together but in fact do not always move up and down together and do not necessarily have a common cause. The represent clusters of manifest or overstock variables that seem to go together. Surface traits are produced by the interaction of source traits and generally can be expected to be less stable than factors. Surface traits can be discovered through subjective methods such as asking people which personality characteristics they think go together.
A source trait express an association among behaviour that do vary together to form a unitary, independent dimension of personality. Source traits represent underlying variables that enter into the determination of multiple surface manifestations. Source traits are identified only by means of factor analysis, which permits the investigator to estimate the variables or factors that are the basis of this surface behaviour. The source traits promise to be the real structural influences underlying personality, which have to be dealt with in developmental problems, psychosomatics and problems of dynamic integration. Source traits are identified only by means of factor analysis, which permits the investigator to estimate the variables or factors that are the basis of the surface behaviour. These source traits represent the building blocks of personality.
Any single trait may be the outcome of he operation of environmental factors, heredity factors or some mixture of the two. Cattell suggests that while surface traits must represent the outcome of a mixture of these factors, source traits may be divided into those that reflect heredity, or more broadly, constitutional factors, and those derived from environmental factors. The traits that result from the operation of environmental conditions are called environmental-mold traits, those that reflect hereditary factors are called constitutional traits. A source trait could not be due both to heredity and environment but must spring from on or the other.
Traits may also be divided in terms of the modality through which they are expressed. If they are concerned with setting the individual into action toward some goal, they are dynamic traits. If they are concerned with the effectiveness with which the individual reaches the goal, they are ability traits of they may be concerned largely with constitutional aspects of response such as speed, energy or emotional reactivity, in which case they are referred to as temperament traits. In addition to these major trait modalities, Cattell has placed increasing emphasis on more transient and fluctuation structures within the personality, including states and roles.
Cattell has sought to locate general traits of personality by conducting separate factor analytic studies using all three of the above data sources. Through these analyses, Cattel identified 15 factors which he interpreted as L-data source traits of personality and 16 factors as the Q-data source traits of personality. Later Cattel identified an additional 7 source traits. In addition to these twenty-three Q-data factors, Cattell proposes twelve factors from the domain of psychopathology. These rating and questionnaire factors fall chiefly in the class of temperament traits, although intelligence would be classed as an ability factor.
Factor derived from objective tests spread more broadly across the ability, temperament and dynamic traits. The factors found in L and Q-data tended to be generally similar but the T-data factors did not match these. However, some of the T-data factors seem to correspond to second order factors in questionnaire and rating data. Cattell identified eight second-order traits, and a total of 12 using the expanded set of 23 source traits.
Cattell's theory is the most elaborate theory of personality based on factor-analysis. The essential ideas for factor-analysis were introduced by Spearman (1904), as distinguished English psychologist.
Cattell views personality as a complex and differentiated structure of traits with its motivation largely dependent upon a subset of these, the dynamic traits. For Cattell, a trait is a mental structure, an inference that is made from observed behaviour to account for regularity or consistency in this behaviour.
Surface traits are clusters of overt variables that seem to go together. Source traits represent underlying variables, and are identified only by factor-analysis. Traits may also be divided in terms of the modality through which they are expressed. If they are concerned with setting the individual into action toward some goal, they are dynamic traits. If they are concerned with the effectiveness with which the individual reaches the goal, they are ability traits. If they are concerned largely with constitutional aspects of response, they are temperament traits. The transient and fluctuating structures within the personality are states and roles. The important dynamic traits are of 3 kinds: attitudes, ergs and sentiments. Ergs are biologically based drives; sentiments focus on a social object, attitudes are manifestations of underlying motives. The dynamic lattice is a way of indicating that attitudes are invested with energy so as to satisfy sentiments, which must be invested with energy in order to satisfy ergs. The self is an important sentiment, since all attitudes reflect the self-sentiment. Certain patterns within the personality come and go to a much greater extent than others; these are, mood states, social roles, momentary mental sets.
Hereditary, environmental learning influence the development of personality. Cattell developed an elaborate 'structured learning theory' containing five principles or types of learning: classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, integration learning, ergic goal modification and energy saving. Socio-cultural factors also extert a molding or modifying influence upon personality.
The factor theorist begins the study of behaviour with a large number of scores for each of a large number of subjects. Given these surface indices, the investigator then applies the technique of factor-analysis to discover what the underlying factors are that determine or control variations in the surface variables. Thus, he hopes to identify a small number of basic factors whose operations accounts for most of the variation in the very large number of measures with which the investigator began.
The outcome of factor analysis isolates the fundamental factors and provides for each measure an estimate of the extent to which this measure is contributed to, by each of the factors. This estimate is referred to as the factor loading or saturation of the measure and is an indication of how much of the variation on this particular measure is to be attributed to each of the factors. The psychological meaning of a factor is determined by the nature of the particular measures that have high loadings on this factor. Having identified the basic factors, it is possible for the factor theorist to attempt to devise means of measuring these factors more efficiently than can be done by means of the original measures.
Thus the factor theorist commences with a wide array of behavioural measures, identifies the factors underlying these measures, and then attempts to construct more efficient means of assessing these factors. The factors of the factor-analyst are in conception little different from the components or underlying variables of other personality theorists. They are merely attempts to formulate variables that will account for the diserve complexity of surface behaviour. It is in the technique employed in deriving these variables that the movelry of this approach lies.
Personal History
Raymond Bernard Cattell was born in Staffordshire, England, in 1905 and received all of his education in England. He secured his B. Sc from the Univeristy of London in 1924 in Chemistry, and his PhD in Psychology under Spearman from the same institution in 1929. He was a lecturer at the Univeristy college of South West, Exter, England, from 1928 to 1931, and director of the City Psychological Clinic at Leicester, England, from 1932 to 1937. In 1937 he was awarded a D. Sc by the University of London for his contribution to personality research. He served as research associate to E.L. Thorndike at Teacher's College, Columbia University, during the period 1937-38 and following this was the G. Stanley Hall professor of Psychology at Clark University until moving to Harvard as a lecturer in 1941. In 1944 he accepted a position at the University of Illinois, where he remained a research professor in psychology and director of Laboratory of Personality and group behaviour research, until his retirement in 1973. In 1973 he became a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii, later he worked as professor of psychology at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Honolulu, Hawaii. IN 1952 Cattell was awarded the Wenner-Gren prize of the New York Academy of Science for his work on the psychology of researcher. He was instrumental in founding the society for multivariate experimental psychology in 1960 and served as its first president.The Nature of Personality: A Structure of Traits
Cattell views personality as a complex and differentiated structure of traits, with its motivation largely dependent upon a subset of these so called dynamic traits.Traits
The trait is the most important of Cattell's concept. For him, a trait is a 'mental structure', an inference that is made from observed behaviour to account for regularity or consistency in this behaviour. The concept of trait assumes some pattern and regularity to behaviour overtime and across situations. Some traits may be common to all people, others unique to an individual, some determined by heredity, others by the environment, some relate to motives (dynamic traits) and others to ability and to temperament. An important distinction among traits is that between surface traits and source traits.Surface traits are expressive of behaviours in a superficial level may appear to go together but in fact do not always move up and down together and do not necessarily have a common cause. The represent clusters of manifest or overstock variables that seem to go together. Surface traits are produced by the interaction of source traits and generally can be expected to be less stable than factors. Surface traits can be discovered through subjective methods such as asking people which personality characteristics they think go together.
A source trait express an association among behaviour that do vary together to form a unitary, independent dimension of personality. Source traits represent underlying variables that enter into the determination of multiple surface manifestations. Source traits are identified only by means of factor analysis, which permits the investigator to estimate the variables or factors that are the basis of this surface behaviour. The source traits promise to be the real structural influences underlying personality, which have to be dealt with in developmental problems, psychosomatics and problems of dynamic integration. Source traits are identified only by means of factor analysis, which permits the investigator to estimate the variables or factors that are the basis of the surface behaviour. These source traits represent the building blocks of personality.
Any single trait may be the outcome of he operation of environmental factors, heredity factors or some mixture of the two. Cattell suggests that while surface traits must represent the outcome of a mixture of these factors, source traits may be divided into those that reflect heredity, or more broadly, constitutional factors, and those derived from environmental factors. The traits that result from the operation of environmental conditions are called environmental-mold traits, those that reflect hereditary factors are called constitutional traits. A source trait could not be due both to heredity and environment but must spring from on or the other.
Traits may also be divided in terms of the modality through which they are expressed. If they are concerned with setting the individual into action toward some goal, they are dynamic traits. If they are concerned with the effectiveness with which the individual reaches the goal, they are ability traits of they may be concerned largely with constitutional aspects of response such as speed, energy or emotional reactivity, in which case they are referred to as temperament traits. In addition to these major trait modalities, Cattell has placed increasing emphasis on more transient and fluctuation structures within the personality, including states and roles.
Ability and Temperament Traits
There are 3 major souces of data about personality: the life record of L-data, self ration questionnaire or Q-data and the objective test or the T-data. L-data involves actual records of the person's behaviour in society, such as school records, court records and ratings by other person who know the individual in real-life settings. Q-data involves the person own statements about his or her behaviour. Objective test, T-data, is based on a third possibility. The creation of special situations in which the persons behaviour may be objectively scored. These situations may be paper and pencil tests or involve apparatus of various kinds.Cattell has sought to locate general traits of personality by conducting separate factor analytic studies using all three of the above data sources. Through these analyses, Cattel identified 15 factors which he interpreted as L-data source traits of personality and 16 factors as the Q-data source traits of personality. Later Cattel identified an additional 7 source traits. In addition to these twenty-three Q-data factors, Cattell proposes twelve factors from the domain of psychopathology. These rating and questionnaire factors fall chiefly in the class of temperament traits, although intelligence would be classed as an ability factor.
Factor derived from objective tests spread more broadly across the ability, temperament and dynamic traits. The factors found in L and Q-data tended to be generally similar but the T-data factors did not match these. However, some of the T-data factors seem to correspond to second order factors in questionnaire and rating data. Cattell identified eight second-order traits, and a total of 12 using the expanded set of 23 source traits.
Dynamic Traits
The important dynamic traits in Cattell's system are of three kinds: attitudes, ergs and sentiments. Ergs correspond to biologically based drives. Sentiments focus on a social object. They are acquired learning and they serve as sub-goals to the final ergic goal. Attitudes are dynamic surface traits; they are the specific manifestation or combination of underlying motives.- Attitudes: It is the manifest dynamic variable, the observed expression of underlying dynamic structure from which ergs and sentiments and their interrelationships are inferred. An attitude of a particular individual in a particular situation is an interest of a certain intensity in some course of action with respect to some object. Cattell and co-workers have intercorrelated 60 or so different devices for measuring attitude strength in a series of studies aimed at developing an efficient test battery for measuring conscious and unconscious aspects of attitudes. In practice, two second-order components of attitude strength are measured-one concerned with relatively conscious and integrated aspects of and attitude, and one concerned with unconscious or unintegrated aspects. The integrated aspects represent those parts of an interest that have been articulated and realized but the unintegrated aspects have never come to terms with reality and are manifested in fantasy and physiology. The integrated and unintegrated aspects of an attitude may be uncorrelated with one another. The discrepancy between the integrated and unintegrated components is one measure of maladjustment or conflict in an individual.
- Ergs: An erg is a constitutional dynamic source trait. Cattell defines an erg as 'an innate psycho-physical disposition which permits its possessor to acquire reactivity (attention, recognition) to certain classes of objects more readily than others, to experience a specific emotion in-regard to them, and to start on a course of action which ceases more completely at a certain specific goal activity than any other. The pattern includes, also preferred behaviour subsidization paths to the preferred goal. Cattell considers ten ergs to have been reasonably well established by his factor-analysis researchers. These ergs are hunger, sex, gregariousness, self-assertion, narcissistic sex, parental protectiveness, curiosity, escape (fear), pugnacity, acquisition.
- Sentiments: A sentiment is an environmental mould, dynamic source trait. It is paralleled to the erg, except that it is the result of experiential or socio-cultural factors, not constitutional determinants. They are major acquired dynamic trait structures which cause their possessors to pay attention to certain objects or classes of objects and to feel and react in a certain way with regard to them. Sentiments tend to be organized around important cultural objects. Among sentiments found in the researches of Cattell are career or profession, sports and games, mechanical interests, religion, parents, spouse or sweet heart and self. The self-sentiment is one of the most stablest.
Summary
Cattell's theory is the most elaborate theory of personality based on factor-analysis. The essential ideas for factor-analysis were introduced by Spearman (1904), as distinguished English psychologist.
Cattell views personality as a complex and differentiated structure of traits with its motivation largely dependent upon a subset of these, the dynamic traits. For Cattell, a trait is a mental structure, an inference that is made from observed behaviour to account for regularity or consistency in this behaviour.
Surface traits are clusters of overt variables that seem to go together. Source traits represent underlying variables, and are identified only by factor-analysis. Traits may also be divided in terms of the modality through which they are expressed. If they are concerned with setting the individual into action toward some goal, they are dynamic traits. If they are concerned with the effectiveness with which the individual reaches the goal, they are ability traits. If they are concerned largely with constitutional aspects of response, they are temperament traits. The transient and fluctuating structures within the personality are states and roles. The important dynamic traits are of 3 kinds: attitudes, ergs and sentiments. Ergs are biologically based drives; sentiments focus on a social object, attitudes are manifestations of underlying motives. The dynamic lattice is a way of indicating that attitudes are invested with energy so as to satisfy sentiments, which must be invested with energy in order to satisfy ergs. The self is an important sentiment, since all attitudes reflect the self-sentiment. Certain patterns within the personality come and go to a much greater extent than others; these are, mood states, social roles, momentary mental sets.
Hereditary, environmental learning influence the development of personality. Cattell developed an elaborate 'structured learning theory' containing five principles or types of learning: classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, integration learning, ergic goal modification and energy saving. Socio-cultural factors also extert a molding or modifying influence upon personality.
