1. Cattell’s Approach to Personality Traits
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2. Cattell’s goal in his study of personality was to predict what a person will do or how a person will behave in response to a given stimulus situation.
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3. • Constitutional traits • Unique traits • Environmental-mold traits
Common traits
• Constitutional traits
• Unique traits
• Environmental-mold traits
• Ability traits
• Temperament traits
• Dynamic traits
• Surface traits
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4. Common Traits and Unique Traits
common traits Traits possessed in some degree by all persons.
19MPY2CB - Personality Research and Applications | Even Semester | Lecture | Page 1

5. Common traits
Intelligence, extraversion, and gregariousness are examples of common traits. Everyone has these traits, but some people have them to a greater extent than others.
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6. Common traits
Cattell’s reason for suggesting that common traits are universal is that all people have a similar hereditary potential and are subject to similar social pressures, at least within the same culture.
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7. Unique traits
Unique traits are particularly apparent in our interests and attitudes.
For example, one person may have a consuming interest in genealogy, whereas another may be passionately interested in Civil War battles or baseball or Chinese martial arts.
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8. Ability, Temperament and Dynamic traits
Ability Traits
• Determine how efficiently we will be able to work toward a goal.
Temperament Traits
• Describe the general style and emotional tone of our behavior.
These traits affect the ways we act and react situations. Eg: Assertive, easygoing and irritable
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9. • Driving forces of the behavior. They define our motivations.
Dynamic Traits
• Driving forces of the behavior. They define our motivations.
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10. Surface Traits and Source Traits
• These are personality characteristics that correlate with one another but do not constitute a factor because they are not determined by a single source.
• Surface traits are composed of several elements , they are less stable and permanent and therefore less important in describing personality.
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11. • All have same source traits in differing degrees.
• Single, stable, permanent elements of our behavior. Each source trait gives rise to some aspect of behavior.
• All have same source traits in differing degrees.
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12. Constitutional Traits and Environmentalmold Traits
Source traits classified by their origin as either constitutional traits or environmental-mold traits.
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13. Constitutional Traits
Constitutional traits originate in biological conditions but are not necessarily innate.
For example, alcohol intake can lead to behaviors such as carelessness, talkativeness, and slurred speech.
19MPY2CB - Personality Research and Applications | Even Semester | Lecture | Page 1

14. Environmental-mold Traits
• Source traits that have environmental origins, such as behavior that result from the influence of our friends, work environment, or neighborhood.
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15. Cattell identified16 source traits as the basic factors of personality (Cattell, 1965).
These factors are best known in the form in which they are most often used, in an objective personality test called the Sixteen Personality Factor (16 PF) Questionnaire (see Table 10.2).
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16. 19MPY2CB - Personality Research and Applications | Even Semester 2019-20 | Lecture 23 | Page 1

17. Ergs and Sentiments
Cattell proposed two kinds of dynamic, motivating traits: ergs and sentiments.
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18. Ergs are the basic innate units of motivation.
Permanent constitutional source traits that provide energy for goal-directed behavior.
Ergs are the basic innate units of motivation.
19MPY2CB - Personality Research and Applications | Even Semester | Lecture | Page 1

19. Cattell’s factor-analytic research identified 11 ergs. These are:
Anger
Appeal
Curiosity
Disgust
Gregariousness
Hunger
Protection
Security
Self-assertion
Self-submission
Sex
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20. To Cattell, environmental-mold source traits that motivate behavior.
sentiments
To Cattell, environmental-mold source traits that motivate behavior.
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21. Difference between ergs and sentiments
Both ergs and sentiments motivate behavior, but there is a vital difference between them.
Because an erg is a constitutional trait, it is a permanent structure of the personality.
It may strengthen or weaken but it cannot disappear.
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22. Difference between ergs and sentiments
A sentiment, because it results from learning, can be unlearned and can disappear so that it is no longer important to a person’s life.
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23. This is a broader definition than typically used in psychology.
Attitudes
To Cattell, attitudes are our interests and emotions and behaviors toward some person, object, or event.
This is a broader definition than typically used in psychology.
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24. subsidization
To Cattell, the relationships among ergs, sentiments, and attitudes, in which some elements are subordinate to others.
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25. Dynamic lattice
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26. The Self-Sentiment
This is our self-concept, reflected in virtually all of our attitudes and behaviors.
The self-sentiment provides stability, coherence, and organization to the source traits and is linked to the expression of the ergs and sentiments.
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27. The Self-Sentiment
It is among the last of the sentiments to reach a full level of development.
The self-sentiment contributes to the satisfaction of the dynamic traits and therefore controls all of the structures in the personality.
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28. The Influences of Heredity and Environment
Cattell showed great interest in the relative influences of heredity and environment in shaping personality.
Cattell concluded that overall, one-third of our personality is genetically based, and two-thirds is determined by social and environmental influences.
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29. Stages of Personality Development
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