A Five-Factor Theory Perspective on the Rorschach

Author(s):  
Paul T. Costa ◽  
Robert R. McCrae

Many of the constructs the Rorschach is used to assess are related to personality traits included in the Five-Factor Model, but studies to date have not shown convergence between Rorschach and self-report measures of these traits. This poses a problem for the Rorschach, because recent research on the universality, stability, heritability, and consensual validity of traits demonstrate that self-report measures cannot be dismissed. In an effort to understand these issues, we examine the Rorschach from the perspective of Five-Factor Theory (FFT), a systems model of the person. FFT is compatible with the projective hypothesis, but would generally lead to the expectation that Rorschach signs and self-reports should be correlated. Where they are not, the validity of Rorschach measures of personality traits would need to be confirmed by demonstrations of their heritability, stability, and convergence with observer ratings. The Rorschach may be more useful when interpreted in the context of a global psychodynamic assessment. Clinicians who use the Rorschach should gather the data necessary to test its validity as a measure of personality traits and related constructs, and clinicians and researchers should consider the possible use of Rorschach responses in assessing dynamic processes.

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie D. Stepp ◽  
Timothy J. Trull ◽  
Rachel M. Burr ◽  
Mimi Wolfenstein ◽  
Angela Z. Vieth

This study examined the incremental validity of the Structured Interview for the Five‐Factor Model (SIFFM; Trull & Widiger, 1997) scores in the prediction of borderline, antisocial, and histrionic personality disorder symptoms above and beyond variance accounted for by scores from the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993), a self‐report questionnaire that includes items relevant to both normal (i.e. Big Three) and abnormal personality traits. Approximately 200 participants (52 clinical outpatients, and 149 nonclinical individuals from a borderline‐features‐enriched sample) completed the SIFFM, the SNAP, and select sections of the Personality Disorder Interview—IV (PDI‐IV; Widiger, Mangine, Corbitt, Ellis, & Thomas, 1995). We found support for the incremental validity of SIFFM scores, further indicating the clinical utility of this instrument. However, results also supported the incremental validity of SNAP scores in many cases. We discuss the implications of the findings in terms of dimensional approaches to personality disorder assessment. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Efrat Barel ◽  
Yonathan Mizrachi ◽  
Maayan Nachmani

Background: The present study investigated the role of temperament and attachment security in predicting individual differences in the five factor personality traits among adults. As previous studies suggested the potential moderating role of attachment in the association between temperament and personality traits, the present study sought to examine an interactionist model combining attachment and temperament in explaining individual differences in personality traits. Methods: A sample of 1871 participants (1151 women and 719 men) completed self-report measures of adult attachment style (the Relationships Questionnaire—RQ), temperament dimension (the Fisher Temperament Inventory—FTI), and personality domain (the Five Factor Model—FFM). Results: Partial correlational analyses revealed associations between attachment security and each of the five domains of the FFM, and few associations between some temperament dimensions and several domains of the FFM. Moderated regression analyses showed that attachment security moderated the associations between temperament dimensions and the Agreeableness domain of the FFM. Among secure individuals, those with higher scores on the Curious/Energetic, Cautious/Social Norm Compliant and Prosocial/Empathetic scales exhibited higher Agreeableness scores, whereas among insecure individuals, those with higher scores on the Analytic/Tough-minded scale exhibited lower scores on the Agreeableness scale. Conclusion: Overall, the current study provides evidence in support of the substantive role of social-environmental factors (Adult Attachment) as a moderating element bridging temperament-related personality elements and a number of their FFM manifestations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Suzuki ◽  
K. D. Novak ◽  
B. Ait Oumeziane ◽  
D. Foti ◽  
D. B. Samuel

Abstract Psychophysiological measures have become increasingly accessible to researchers and many have properties that indicate their use as individual difference indicators. For example, the error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential (ERP) thought to reflect error-monitoring processes, has been related to individual differences, such as Neuroticism and Conscientiousness traits. Although various tasks have been used to elicit the ERN, only a few studies have investigated its variability across tasks when examining the relations between the ERN and personality traits. In this project, we examined the relations of the ERN elicited from four variants of the Flanker task (Arrow, Social, Unpleasant, and Pleasant) that were created to maximize the differences in their relevance to personality traits. A sample of 93 participants with a history of treatment for psychopathology completed the four tasks as well as self-report measures of the general and maladaptive five-factor model (FFM) traits. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) of ERN amplitudes indicated that three of the four tasks (Arrow, Social, and Unpleasant) were unidimensional. Another set of CFAs indicated that a general factor underlies the ERN elicited from all tasks as well as unique task-specific variances. The correlations of estimated latent ERN scores and personality traits did not reflect the hypothesized correlation patterns. Variability across tasks and the hierarchical model of the ERN may aid in understanding psychopathology dimensions and in informing future endeavors integrating the psychophysiological methods into the study of personality. Recommendations for future research on psychophysiological indicators as individual differences are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rachel Winograd

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Research has shown that drinkers' "typical drunk personalities" are different from their "typical sober personalities"on each factor of the Five-Factor Model (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness). The aim of the current study was to test if these changes can reliably be observed by trained raters during a drinking episode. Participants (N = 156) attended laboratory sessions in same-sex friend groups of 3 to 4 people (43 groups). Half of the groups were administered alcohol (target BAC = .09). Participants engaged in activities designed to elicit a range of personality expression. All sessions were recorded and multiple trained raters (M = 6.96) completed three personality measures based on the footage. Additionally, participants completed self- reports of their “typical” sober and drunk personalities two weeks prior to their sessions, as well as two short personality measures during the session. Results indicate consistent differences in personality among sober and drunk participants across measures, but the nature of the differences varied by reporter (self vs. observer). Specifically, across three scales, observers rated participants in the Alcohol condition higher in Extraversion, but similarly in most other factors (on one measure, Neuroticism was lower in the Alcohol condition). Among the two self-report measures, four and five of the factors demonstrated reliable differences, with Conscientiousness, Intellect, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness (on the pre-session retrospective measure only) reportedly decreasing with intoxication, and Extraversion increasing. These findings demonstrate that self-perceptions of sober-to- drunk personality differences are more pervasive than observer-perceptions, but that alcohol-induced changes in Extraversion are robust enough to be detected across measures and reporters.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liisi Kööts-Ausmees ◽  
Christian Kandler ◽  
Anu Realo ◽  
Jüri Allik ◽  
Peter Borkenau ◽  
...  

Age differences in personality traits can inform us on the magnitude and qualities of personality development and describing them accurately is therefore of utmost importance. Little research yet has examined age differences by combining more than one source of information, despite many psychologists knowing that any one assessment method is prone to artefacts. We compared age differences in a range of personality traits such as Five-Factor Model (FFM) facets and nuances in self-reports and ratings by knowledgeable informants. Relying on samples from three countries (total N = 5,624) allowed us to cross-validate and meta-analyze the findings. We hypothesized that age differences would be larger in self-reports, because socially desirable responding increases with age. Indeed, we found that age-differences were systematically smaller in informant-reported facets and nuances compared to their self-reported counterparts and that this trend was stronger for traits independently rated as socially desirable. These findings replicated across multiple samples. We also hypothesized that variance of self-reported traits would decrease with age for evaluative traits, but this hypothesis received inconsistent support. We conclude that age differences may be inflated in self-reports partly because of socially desirable responding. However, since we cannot definitively rule out that age differences are underestimated in informant-ratings, they may be best approximated by average trends of self- and informant-reports. We therefore provide meta-analytic age trends for multi-rater composite scores of the FFM traits, their facets, and items. This is among the most rigorous studies yet into cross-sectional age differences in personality traits.


Author(s):  
Susana Molina Martín ◽  
Mercedes Inda Caro ◽  
Carmen María Fernández García

RESUMEN Los objetivos de este trabajo han sido: estudiar la adecuación de los datos al modelo de cinco factores e identificar rasgos de personalidad en adolescentes que manifiestan tener diversas problemáticas. Para ello se utilizaron dos instrumentos de evaluación, el Cuestionario de Personalidad para Adolescentes (16PF-APQ) y el Cuestionario Autoaplicado de Síntomas (CAS), que se administraron a ciento ocho estudiantes de último curso de educación obligatoria. Los resultados señalan que la muestra se adecua al modelo de cinco factores y que hay rasgos de personalidad que parecen explicar mejor o predecir la presencia de ciertas problemáticas en la adolescencia. ABSTRACT The aim of this research is twofold. Firstly, it studies the adjustment of the data with the five-factor model. Secondly, it intends to describe and identify personality traits in adolescents who have manifested different problems in their daily life. For this purpose, two evaluation instruments were used: the Adolescent Personality Questionnaire (16PF-APQ) and the Adolescents Self-report of Symptoms (C.A.S.). This last one is based on Rogers, Bagby and Dickens’ instrument, Structured Interview Re- ported Symptoms (1990, 1991, 1992). These tests were administered to a sample of a hundred and eight students who were in their last year of compulsory secondary education. The results of the study suggest that the sample fits with the five factor model and that there are some personality traits that seem to explain the existence of life’s difficulties (questions concerning matters of anger or aggression, discouragement, worry, poor body image, alcohol or drugs, overall trouble, familiar context, scholar context and strategies coping). All the already mentioned results allow us to formulate certain indications or suggestions which would need to be taken into account in future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 898-898
Author(s):  
George Lederer ◽  
David Freedman ◽  
Lauren Atlas ◽  
Shira Kafker ◽  
Ira Yenko ◽  
...  

Abstract Personality pathology, represented by high neuroticism and low agreeableness in the Five Factor Model of Personality, has been identified as a predictor of depression in mixed-age samples and preliminary studies of older adults. Research on older people, however, has not examined the differential impact of pathological personality traits and processes on depression or examined them across treatment settings. This secondary analysis examined personality traits and processes as predictors of depression, evaluated the moderating effect of interpersonal problems, and assessed stratification of these personality variables across community and clinical settings. Older adults (N=395) ranging in age from 55 to 99 (M = 72.06; SD = 10.10) from inpatient psychiatric, outpatient medical, and community settings completed self-report measures of personality traits (NEO-FFI Agreeableness and Neuroticism), processes (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems), and depression (GDS-30). Higher neuroticism predicted worsened depressive symptoms (β = .765, p < .001), as did lower agreeableness (β = -.163, p = .002) and more interpersonal problems (β = .459, p < .001). Findings partially supported the stratification of personality traits and processes by setting. Interpersonal problems moderated neither the neuroticism-depression or agreeableness-depression relationships. Personality traits and processes predict depression in older adults across care settings but do not significantly interact. Levels of pathological traits and processes vary across community and clinical settings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Kaitlyn R. Schuler ◽  
Natasha Basu ◽  
Nicholas A. Fadoir ◽  
Laura Marie ◽  
Phillip N. Smith

Purpose US age-adjusted suicide rates increased by 33 per cent from 1999 to 2017 (Hedegard et al., 2018). Communications about suicide and death are a commonly cited warning sign (SPRC, 2014) and are foundational to the vast majority of risk assessment, prevention and intervention practices. Suicidal communications are critically understudied despite their implications for prevention and intervention practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between five factor model personality traits and forms of suicidal communications. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 154 people admitted to emergency psychiatry for suicide ideation or attempt completed self-report measures about their suicide ideation and behavior. Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA examined differences between five-factor model personality domains and forms of communications. Findings There were no significant differences; however, two nonsignificant trends related to indirect or non-communication and extraversion and openness emerged. Research limitations/implications Future studies should focus on using more nuanced measures of dimensional personality and suicidal communications. Originality/value This study is the first to examine differences in the Five-Factor Model personality traits and suicidal communications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Alonso ◽  
Estrella Romero

AbstractBullying and cyberbullying are highly prevalent in today’s society. However, the personality profiles of different roles involved in this phenomenon remain little known. This study aims (1) to examine the association between bullying and cyberbullying in adolescents; and (2) to analyze the relationship between bullying and cyberbullying in terms of the domains and facets of the five-factor model (FFM). A total of 910 adolescents aged 12 to 19 years old participated. They were administered self-report assessments of aggression and victimization in bullying and cyberbullying, as well as the JS-NEO-S questionnaire. The results provide evidence of co-occurrence between bullying and cyberbullying (p < .001). We observed higher neuroticism in victims and aggressor-victims, higher openness in victims, higher agreeableness in victims and non-aggressor non-victims and higher conscientiousness in non-aggressor non-victims as compared with the rest of the groups (p < .001). Comparison of the four cyberbullying groups showed that cybervictims score higher in neuroticism and openness, cybervictims and non-cybervictims non-cyberaggressors score higher in agreeableness and non-cybervictims non-cyberaggressors score higher in conscientiousness (p < .001) In conclusion, this study provides a broad, systematic view of the personality traits associated with different roles implicated in traditional bullying and cyberbullying.


Assessment ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph L. Piedmont

Using correlational designs that included an evaluation of cross-observer convergence, research on the five-factor model of personality has documented it to be a robust, comprehensive taxonomy that remains extremely stable in adulthood. Because the cross-observer paradigm can also be useful for examining personality development in late adolescence, this study evaluated the reliability and construct validity of observer ratings on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) in a sample of 101 college students. No such normative information is currently available. Each subject completed the NEO PI-R for themselves and had two individuals familiar to them complete the observer version. The results documented strong internal consistency for each rating scale and a factor structure which replicated previous findings using adult self-reports. Significant peer-peer and peer-self correlations were found as well as numerous cross-observer, cross-instrument convergence between the NEO PI-R ratings and self-reported scores on the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. The results also indicated the presence of a reverse acquaintanceship effect, where long-term friends provided less accurate ratings than more recent acquaintances.


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