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Personality Theories for the 21st Century


Robert R. McCrae Teaching of Psychology 2011 38: 209 DOI: 10.1177/0098628311411785 The online version of this article can be found at: http://top.sagepub.com/content/38/3/209

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The Generalists Corner


Teaching of Psychology 38(3) 209-214 The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0098628311411785 http://top.sagepub.com

Personality Theories for the 21st Century


Robert R. McCrae1

Abstract Classic personality theories, although intriguing, are outdated. The five-factor model of personality traits reinvigorated personality research, and the resulting findings spurred a new generation of personality theories. These theories assign a central place to traits and acknowledge the crucial role of evolved biology in shaping human psychology; they also address the modifying influences of the social and cultural environment. Teachers can and should teach personality theories as a science course, not a history course. Keywords personality traits, five-factor model, life narratives, personality research

Personality theory is a perennially popular topic for two reasons. First, it deals with issues of great concern to many students: Who am I? How well do I really understand myself? How did I get this way? Can I change and how? Second, theorists in the personality pantheon were very creative thinkers and often gifted writers. Psychoanalysis makes a fascinating story, which is why it became so central to 20th-century literary criticism. The works of Jung, Maslow, and Horney are engaging and thought provoking. It is not surprising that courses in personality theory devote most of their time and attention to these grand theorists. Unfortunately, these theories have little to do with contemporary personality psychology. Conceptualizations from depth psychology are often so vague or convoluted as to be untestable. Researchers who have examined hypotheses central to classic personality theories (Domhoff, 1999; McCrae & Costa, 1989) have found little support for them, and most personality researchers simply ignore grand theories in favor of studying more tractable problemsfor example, developmental changes in self-control or personality determinants of pain perception (Mendelsohn, 1993). Even theorists such as Carl Rogers, who advocated and encouraged empirical studies, had a limited impact on research (perhaps because most Rogerians are clinicians and most clinicians are not researchers). In psychiatry, objective diagnostic criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1980) replaced dynamic theoretical formulations of the etiology of mental disorders, and from midcentury until the 1990s, personality theory and research were largely separated, if not formally divorced. There are three important exceptions to this generalization: Trait theories, such as those of Allport and Eysenck (Funder, 1991), led to personality scales used in countless studies; socialcognitive theories, such as those of Bandura and Rotter, stimulated both experimental and observational personality

research (Cervone & Shoda, 1999); and interpersonal theories, based on the work of Sullivan and Bowlby, continue to guide empirical work (Strack & Horowitz, 2011). These approaches typically appear in later chapters of personality theory textbooks (e.g., Allen, 2006) and often get short shrift. They deserve priority. A contemporary course on personality theories might begin with these theories and return to their historic predecessors if time permits. But this is not the ideal course outline, because by now, Eysenck, Bandura, and Bowlby have themselves become classics, superseded by a new generation of personality theories (McCrae & Costa, 1996). A few textbooks have begun to include these newer theories (e.g., Feist & Feist, 2006), but journals and scholarly books remain the chief source on current thinking.1 Recent theories are characterized by reconceptualizations of the nature of personality necessitated by new research findings, and they show a surprising degree of agreement on fundamentals. At the same time, they highlight important differences in views on the origins and functioning of personality characteristics and thus point to fruitful avenues of research.

The Impact of the Five-Factor Model


By the 1970s, personality psychologists had largely given up the idea of formulating grand theories of personality. Indeed, as a result of Mischels (1968) critique, many psychologists came to believe that personality was a fiction and that behavior
1

Baltimore, Maryland

Corresponding Author: Robert R. McCrae, 809 Evesham Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21212 Email: RRMcCrae@gmail.com

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210 could be understood entirely in terms of the social environment. Defenders of personality psychology countered with stronger arguments and new data (Block, 1977; Epstein, 1979; M. W. Eysenck & H. J. Eysenck, 1980), and by the late 1980s, person variables had been reinstated in mainstream psychology (Kenrick & Funder, 1988). But the real turning point in the history of personality psychology was the establishment of the five-factor model (FFM) as an adequate taxonomy of personality traits (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008). Although versions of the FFM had appeared as early as the 1930s, it was not until the 1980s that research showed the power and scope of this model. Fundamentally, the FFM is the observation that almost all personality traits (designated in lay speech by such words as nervous, enthusiastic, original, altruistic, and careful) are aspects of one or more of only five distinct factors, usually labeled Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (McCrae & John, 1992). The FFM brought clarity to the field of personality research by resolving two long-standing problems. First, it specified the number of important factors. The two- and three-factor models of the Eysencks (H. J. Eysenck & S. B. G. Eysenck, 1975) were insufficient (completely omitting Openness to Experience), and the 16-factor model of Cattell (1973) was needlessly complex. Second, it showed the near identity of a host of ostensibly distinct individual-difference variables that other researchers had proposed. Murray (1938) had catalogued psychological needs; Gough (1987) had identified folk concepts; Jung (1923/1971) had proposed psychological functions, such as thinking and feeling; Leary (1957) had offered a circular arrangement of interpersonal styles; Millon (1981) had conceptualized personality disorders. All of these, at least as measured by validated questionnaires, turned out to be different guises of traits that one could readily classify in the FFM (McCrae, 1989). There are, of course, other important individual-difference variables that are not personality traits (e.g., physical attractiveness, verbal intelligence; McCrae, 2010), but the FFM unified a host of different concepts that were central to the concerns of personality psychologists. It was not, however, the FFM itself that spurred a new generation of personality theories; rather, it was the research findings that the FFM made possible. Suddenly, it became feasible to conduct systematic research on topics such as adult development, trait heritability, and sex differences. Instead of arbitrarily selecting this need or that style to focus on, one could cover the full range of traits (and needs and functions and styles) by measuring each of the five factors. Similarly, researchers could use the FFM to structure reviews of the literature (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Saroglou, 2002), because most of the scales used in personality research could be classified as measures of one of the five factors. The ascendency of the FFM led to a period of extraordinary productivity in personality research in which researchers asked and answered, at least provisionally, a large number of basic questions. By the end of the century, psychologists knew far more about personality than what would have seemed possible a few years before.

Teaching of Psychology 38(3) What have researchers learned since the FFM brought clarity to the field of personality psychology? First, studies comparing self-reports to observer ratings showed substantial cross-observer agreement (Funder, Kolar, & Blackman, 1995; McCrae et al., 2004). If people say they are kind, thoughtful, and mature, the datathe independent assessments of knowledgeable otherssuggest that they probably are telling the truth; conversely, if people are anxious, aggressive, or lazy, they probably understand this full well. This finding was a foundation of all subsequent work because it showed that the self-reports on which most personality researchers rely are credible. It also showed that most people are fundamentally rational, not hopelessly blinded by defenses as psychoanalytic perspectives had suggested. Second, longitudinal studies spanning decades demonstrated that traits show continuity across the life span and are extraordinarily stable in adulthood, though of course not immutable (Caspi, 2000; Terracciano, Costa, & McCrae, 2006). Life experiences such as raising children, divorce, physical illness, and retirement apparently have little lasting impact on trait profiles. This stability was in stark contrast to the fact that many aspects of peoples livestheir jobs, their mates, their political attitudes, their eating habitsoften change markedly during adulthood. Personality theory has to be able to reconcile these findings about stability and change. Third, hundreds of studies of behavior genetics consistently found that all FFM traits were moderately to strongly influenced by genetics, whereas the shared environment (the experiences common to all children in a family) had essentially no influence on adult personality (Plomin & Daniels, 1987). Identical twins raised in different households strongly resembled each other as adults, whereas adopted children who shared the same parenting, diet, schools, and religious training bore no more than chance resemblance to each other (Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001). At the same time, studies of child-rearing practices failed to show substantial effects on personality traits that lasted into adulthood (McCrae & Costa, 1988; see also Harris, 1998). These facts presented the strongest possible challenge to almost all previous personality theories, which located the origins of personality in childhood experiences. Fourth, cross-cultural studies showed that many features of personality traits are remarkably similar across a wide range of cultures. The FFM structure itself has been replicated in more than 50 cultures (Schmitt et al., 2007). Gender and age differences are much the same everywhere (McCrae, Terracciano, & 78 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project, 2005). Even the psychometric properties of personality measures appear to be universal (McCrae, Kurtz, Yamagata, & Terracciano, 2011). Anthropological views that human nature is plastic and readily shaped by the culture into which one is born appear to be ill-founded. Certainly, beliefs, attitudes, and customs reflect the surrounding culture, but in some sense, personality does not. Here is another striking phenomenon with which personality theories must grapple. Finally, we learned that personality traits are not incidental; they are important influences on almost all aspects of peoples

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McCrae

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Figure 1. A representation of the five-factor theory personality system. Core components are in rectangles; interfacing components are in ellipses. Adapted from McCrae and Costa (2008).

lives, from vocational interests to health habits to religious affiliation to ways of coping (Ozer & Benet-Mart nez, 2006). Maddi (1980) described individual difference variables as the periphery of personality, but new theories of personality will need to treat FFM traits as core elements.

Five-Factor Theory
One of the first new theories of personality inspired by these findings was the five-factor theory (FFT; Costa & McCrae, 1992). McCrae and Costa (1996) described the metatheoretical assumptions behind trait theory and then proposed a model of the personality system (see Figure 1) that could help explain the results of FFM research. (Most contemporary views of personality see it as a system [e.g., Mayer, 19931994; Mischel & Shoda, 1995] with inputs, outputs, feedback loops, and central processing.) In McCrae and Costas (1996) model, biological bases and external influences (i.e., the environment) are inputs, and the objective biography (i.e., the cumulative record of everything a person has done or felt) is the output. There are two central components to the model: basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations. The distinction between these two is crucial. Basic tendencies are innate abilities and predispositionsfor example, a childs inborn ability to acquire language or an adolescents emerging capacity for formal reasoning. The

fundamental assertion of the FFT is that FFM personality traits are also basic tendencies, based directly in the structure and functioning of the brain. Most psychologists study what the FFT considers characteristic adaptations: habits, skills, attitudes, beliefs, roles, relationships, and the self-conceptthe last of which is so important an adaptation that it has its own special box in the model. Characteristic maladaptations (e.g., irrational ideas, exaggerated fears, self-destructive behaviors) are the focus of abnormal and clinical psychology and are central to the FFTs account of psychopathology (McCrae, Lo ckenhoff, & Costa, 2005) and psychotherapy (Harkness & McNulty, 2002). Characteristic adaptations are not innate, but are acquired as basic tendencies interact with external influences. Any healthy child has the abstract capacity for language, but the specific language spoken is a function of the social environment in which the child grows up. In the same way, the FFT proposes that all extraverts have the same underlying disposition but express their extraversion in jokes, friendships, activities, and sometimes problems that are culture and subculture specific. The FFT has a formal set of postulates (McCrae & Costa, 2008) that describe the operation of the personality system the way that personality functions at any given moment and over the course of a lifetime. The arrows in Figure 1, which show causal pathways mediated by dynamic processes, reflect many of these postulates. For example, the arrows from basic

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212 tendencies and external influences to characteristic adaptations show how people acquire habits, skills, and so on, that are consistent with their traits but allow them to adapt to their cultural environment. The most distinctive feature of the FFT, however, is the absence of any arrow leading directly from external influences to basic tendencies. According to Postulates 1b (Origin) and 1c (Development) of the FFT, personality traits are affected only by their biological bases: genetic influences, intrinsic maturation, and events such as disease and drug exposure that affect personality indirectly through their actions on the brain. All theories are simplified models of reality, and this premise of the FFT is surely an oversimplification, but it is a powerful and surprisingly accurate one. The FFT nicely accommodates findings from FFM research. The biological basis of traits explains their high heritability. The insulation of traits from external influences explains their stability in the face of stressful life events and role transitions. The separation of traits from attitudes, beliefs, and values accounts for the fact that the same traits and trait structures are present in vastly different cultures whose members have such different attitudes, beliefs, and values. The independence of trait development from the environment explains why personal upbringing (McCrae & Costa, 1994) and national history (McCrae et al., 2000) leave so few marks on adult personality traits. The FFT offers one way of making sense of the facts of personality.

Teaching of Psychology 38(3) Hogan (1983, 1996) was among the first personality psychologists to recognize the importance of the FFM. In his socioanalytic theory, Hogan interpreted the factors as dimensions of reputation (see Craik, 2009) because the FFM had originally been identified in peer ratings of personality (Tupes & Christal, 1961/1992). In socioanalytic theory, evolved tendencies to get along (affiliation) and to get ahead (status) motivate people, who manage the impressions they give of their own personalities in an attempt to create reputations that will advance these goals. Hogans theory, developed during the era when personality traits were in disrepute, did not require any assumption about whether traits were real or actually existed in the personthey functioned solely as ways in which people were seen by others. Socioanalytic theory is thus a precursor to the new generation of theories that acknowledge the reality of FFM traits. The most direct successor to socioanalytic theory is the neosocioanalytic theory (NST; Roberts & Wood, 2006). Like the FFT, the NST situates the person between inputs (called distal causes) from biology and society/culture; it also sees traits as a major domain of personality, along with motives and values,2 abilities, and narratives. The NST differs from the FFT in several respects. It recognizes seven trait factors, adding positive and negative evaluation to the descriptive FFM. It explicitly includes componentsnamely, identity and reputationthat are the basis of personality assessment (in the form of self-reports and observer ratings, respectively). Most crucially, it does not isolate traits from environmental influences: All the paths [in the NST model] have double-headed arrows, indicating that no feature of personality is ultimately causally prior to any other (p. 18). These contrasts between theories should stimulate useful research. Debates and discussions comparing and contrasting these new theories of personality have begun to appear: Roberts and Wood (2006) critiqued the FFT; Mischel (1999) offered his take on personality dispositions; and Costa and McCrae (2011) reinterpreted attachment theory. Such exchanges are an essential part of digesting the wealth of information that the FFM (and other recent personality research) has generated. Personality theory and research are once again interacting in ways that illuminate basic questions about human nature, and these new approaches should continue to intrigue students.

Other New Theories of Personality


In parallel with the development of the FFT, McAdams and colleagues offered another reconceptualization of personality (McAdams, 1992; McAdams & Pals, 2006; Sheldon, 2004). Initially, McAdams (1992) conceived of personality in terms of three discrete levels: Level 1, traits; Level 2, personal concerns; and Level 3, life narratives. Level 1 variables were essentially FFM traits, and Level 2 variables corresponded to the FFTs characteristic adaptationsindeed, McAdams and Pals (2006) later adopted the same terminology to characterize that level. Most distinctive was McAdamss emphasis on Level 3, the life narrative. The FFT would classify the life narrative as an aspect of the self-concept, but McAdams stressed that a life narrative is not simply a collection of beliefs or feelings about the self. Rather, it is a story that people evolve about their own lives that gives their lives coherence, meaning, and direction. This scheme allowed McAdams to deal with findings on stability and change: Traits are predominantly stable, whereas personal concerns and life narratives change across the life span. McAdams and Pals (2006) argued that modern personality psychology must be based on five principles that recognize the importance of evolution, traits, characteristic adaptations, life narratives, and the social and cultural context. When one recalls that evolution is the origin of human biology, parallels between these principles and the components of the personality system shown in Figure 1 become clear. But there are also differences between the two theories with regard to the importance of various components and the details of their interrelations.

Teaching Personality Theories


As noted previously, teachers of personality theories often devote much of their course to historically important theories. When Personality Theories is taught as a history course, the focus of discussions (and examinations) is on the theories themselves (e.g., Whyaccording to Freuddoes the child develop a superego?) and their interrelations (e.g., How did Erikson modify Freuds theory of psychosexual stages?). When it is taught as a science course, however, the focus ought to be on how theories relate to empirical findings (e.g., How does the FFT explain the observation that personality structure is universal?). Almost any article in a current personality

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McCrae research journal can be the stimulus for such a discussion: How do its results square with various personality theories? Especially at more advanced levels, teachers should encourage students to compare theories by identifying rival hypotheses and designing studies that might test them. For example, the FFT says that personality maturation is an intrinsic process, whereas the NST says that it is driven by social pressure. It may not be feasible to conduct an experiment to compare these two hypotheses, but teachers should encourage students to think of naturally occurring situations (e.g., cultural differences in the age of marriagedoes early marriage lead to early maturity?) that would speak to the issue. This is what scientists do and what theories are for. Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Cervone, D., & Shoda, Y. (Eds.). (1999). The coherence of personality: Social-cognitive bases of consistency, variability, and organization. New York, NY: Guilford. Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992, August). Set like plaster? Evidence for the stability of adult personality. In J. Weinberger (Chair), Personality in the life course. Symposium presented at the American Psychological Association Convention, Washington, DC. Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (2011). The five-factor model, fivefactor theory, and interpersonal psychology. In S. Strack & L. M. Horowitz (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal psychology (pp. 118-136). New York: Guilford. Craik, K. H. (2009). Reputation: A network interpretation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Domhoff, G. W. (1999). Drawing theoretical implications from descriptive empirical findings on dream content. Dreaming: Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, 9, 201-210. Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: I. On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1097-1126. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. San Diego, CA: EdITS. Eysenck, M. W., & Eysenck, H. J. (1980). Mischel and the concept of personality. British Journal of Psychology, 71, 191-204. Feist, G. J., & Feist, J. (2006). Theories of personality (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Funder, D. C. (1991). Global traits: A Neo-Allportian approach to personality. Psychological Science, 2, 31-39. Funder, D. C., Kolar, D. C., & Blackman, M. C. (1995). Agreement among judges of personality: Interpersonal relations, similarity, and acquaintanceship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 656-672. Gough, H. G. (1987). California Psychological Inventory administrators guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Harkness, A. R., & McNulty, J. L. (2002). Implications of personality individual differences science for clinical work on personality disorders. In P. T. Costa, Jr. & T. A. Widiger (Eds.), Personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality (2nd ed., pp. 391-403). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. New York, NY: Free Press. Hogan, R. (1983). Socioanalytic theory of personality. In M. M. Page (Ed.), 1982 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Personality current theory and research (pp. 55-89). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Hogan, R. (1996). A socioanalytic perspective on the five-factor model. In J. S. Wiggins (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 163-179). New York, NY: Guilford. John, O. P., Naumann, L., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five taxonomy: Discovery, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114-158). New York, NY: Guilford.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
1. Recommended reading for instructors (and advanced students) includes McAdams and Pals (2006), McCrae and Costa (2008), and Roberts and Wood (2006). McCrae and John (1992) gave an overview of the five-factor model as background to the new theories. McCrae and Costa (2003) provides a less technical account of five-factor theory in the context of research on adult personality development; the text is suitable for undergraduates. 2. Note that needs (e.g., need for achievement, need for affiliation), construed as broad abstract propensities, are essentially traits; motives (or McAdamss personal concerns) are concrete, contextualized strivings, such as the goal of getting an academic degree or the desire to find friends in a new city.

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Teaching of Psychology 38(3)


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