Personality Traits in terms of Social-Role Probabilities; an innovative theoretical essay on the possibility of overcoming the chaotic diversity in personality theories

PERSONALITY TRAITS IN TERMS OF SOCIAL-ROLE PROBABILITIES (An innovative theoretical essay on the possibility of overcoming the chaotic diversity in personality theories)

by

Popko P. van der Molen

presented at the Third European Conference of Personality Gdansk, Poland, Sept. 23-26, 1986.

(Registered as Heymans Bulletin HB-86-815-EX, State University of Groningen (RUG), Jan. 1987)

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Keywords : abilities and skills adaption vs. innovation anchoring dimensions dominance (styles) energy level genetic vs. environmental factors personality traits person- vs. thing-orientedness reactivity rotations (oblique + orthogonal) self-will vs. compliance stability vs. over-sensitivity social roles subordinacy (styles of)

ABSTRACT

Social Psychology and Personality Psychology have developed into separate disciplines. Personality psychologists seldom ask questions about the way social roles are distributed and come into existence and social psychologists rarely explore the influence of temperamental differences and other basic personality traits on the way social roles develop.

Focussing on the interface between these two research traditions, we can find anchoring points for factor rotations which can bring order to the unmanageable multiformity of classification systems, categorizations and theoretical approaches in personality- and social psychology. To that end some personality dimensions are defined on the level of congenital predispositions as well as in terms of social role distribution. They are, in fact, biologically based personality traits, defined in terms of the probability of obtaining specific social roles (-scores).

The use of such doubly defined personality dimensions as reference points can produce considerable conceptual and theoretical advantages for both the social-role and the trait domain. It can help us to integrate both disciplines without leading to desultory complexities.

PERSONALITY: A MULTI-PERSPECTIVE ISSUE

Social Psychology and Personality Psychology have developed into separate disciplines. Personality psychologists seldom ask questions about the way social roles come into existence and are distributed and social psychologists rarely explore the influence of temperamental differences and other basic personality traits on the way social roles develop. However, since these disciplines proper are strongly interrelated, both dealing with individual differences, there is a considerable overlap in the dimensions, studied in each domain. As a result, there is, in the field of personality theories, an almost unmanageable multifor¬mity of classification systems, categorizations, and theoretical approaches. Some of them supplement each other, or may be considered as partly overlap¬ping and redundant. Others seem to compete, or even to be mutually exclusive.

For the present disquisition we need to distinguish aspects of social interactive behaviour as far as they are primarily dependent on time- and place-specific role distributions, from behavioural aspects with strong conge¬nital roots and from behavioural aspects which primarily depend on processes of learning and development. To that end we shall utilize a preliminary classification of personality dimensions in the following categories:

1. ) Social-role dimensions, refering to differences in the way people interact socially; personality dimensions stemming from social psychological research can mostly be considered as belonging to this category; differences between individuals with regard to these dimensions are often found to be strongly situation-dependent. Reviews of this category of personality research can for instance be found in Leary (1957),. Foa (1961), Wiggins (1979,1982) and Kiesler (1982,1983).

2. ) Traits of temperament, refering to the most stable differences between persons, often shown to have strong congenital roots. Personality-trait psychologists traditionally used to be interested in these aspects of personality in particular. This area of research is represented by a considerable number of "schools" and traditions. Other than in the realm of social interactive beha¬viour, there is little consensus here with regard to which axes of reference are to be considered most important. Moreover, most of the traditions in this realm cherish at least some personality dimensions which are evidently a mix of the presently applied three conceptual categories of personality differences. In the research traditions of Cattell, Eysenck, Strelau, Buss and Plomin, to mention a few, a major part of the personality dimensions under investigation is representative for the category "traits of temperament".

3.) Skills and abilities, sensitive to learning, training and education. Dimensions in this category emerge from research on learning and education as well as from research on personality differences in general. They are the most changeable and malleable category of personality differences.

These three categories primarily differ in stability over time and in the ease with which the personality characteristics in question can be influenced from the environment. In most research groups or university departments the research efforts are focussed exclusively on one of the major broad categories. That is to say, all dimensions under investigation are often either interpreted as traits of temperament, or as social-role aspects, or as skills and abilities, depending solely on the perspective from which the research group in question operates. When scrutinized more closely however, it is often rather difficult - especially in the case of orthogonal personality dimensions - to determine unambiguously for each dimension under investigation, whether it is indeed primarily to be considered a "trait of temperament", a "social role dimension", a "skill", merely a dimension of "judgment", unrelated to actual behaviour, or as a combination of these.