Las naturalezas muertas de la «abundancia»

To properly understand the development of the BFM, the concept of lexical hypothesis must be introduced. The lexical hypothesis was pioneered by Gordon Allport, in an attempt to identify all trait descriptions that exist in the personality sphere. Allport postulated that all important descriptions regarding human behavior can be explored in everyday language. The basic assumption behind this hypothesis is that those individual differences that are most salient and socially relevant in people’s lives will eventually become encoded into their language; the more important such an individual difference, the more likely is it to become expressed as a single word (John et al. 1988). The study by Allport and Odbert (1936) marked one of the first scientific studies on trait taxonomy to be carried out using lexical hypothesis.15_{They pioneered} the lexical hypothesis by selecting trait terms from the second edition of the unabridged

Webster’s New International Dictionary. All nouns and adjectives that could be used to

“distinguish the behavior of one human being from that of another” were investigated (Allport and Odbert 1936, p.24). They compiled a list of approximately 17,953 words and put these into different categories, these being: personality traits, temporary states, evaluative judgments and doubtful terms. Allport managed to obtain 4,504 words that could also be classified as trait terms.

Allport’s identification of the “trait sphere” served as the basis for an important breakthrough in taxonomical research made by Raymond B. Cattell (1943). Cattell believed that there are different levels of trait description, from the most specific traits to the most

15 _{The first lexical study was completed by Baumgarten (1933), who assembled terms from various German}

dictionaries and publications using her own judgment, but did not classify the terms further (John et al. 1988, p.176).

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general. This idea drove him to engage in a quest to condense the list of trait terms making use of the factor analytical method, which is a statistical method that had recently been developed. This method can be used to detect the underlying but unobservable structure of a dataset. Using factor analysis, the inter-correlations among general traits can be detected, and their “sources” identified. There were two main steps in Cattell’s attempt to extract the source traits. First, Cattell (1943) used the semantic reduction process, in which he omitted terms with prefixes for which the stem terms were also available. As a part of this, he excluded many rare, archaic and colloquial terms (De Raad 2000). The remaining terms were categorized on the basis of both synonymity and anonymity, producing bipolar trait descriptions. This first step resulted in 160 categories of trait descriptions, and then by adding terminology that had been developed by psychologists, Cattell arrived at 171 personality variables, those he claimed comprised the complete personality sphere. Second, Cattell used correlation analysis to find the “sources” of these 171 traits, and the result was the 35 derived personality variables. Cattell argued that these 35 traits represented source traits, later applying oblique factor analysis and obtaining 12 personality factors which later became a part of his 16 personality factors, also known as the 16-PF.

Cattell’s 16-PF triggered the discovery of the BFM. Empirical studies that tried to replicate Cattell’s study failed to uncover the 16 personality factors (Fiske 1949; Tupes and Christal 1961; Norman 1963; Digman and Takemoto-Chock 1981), but instead found that the structure of people’s personality could be best described using only five personality variables and not 16 as suggested by Cattell. The BFM was “discovered” when Donald Fiske (1949) executed factor analysis based on peer- and staff-ratings from 128 subjects. He found that people’s personality is best described using only five dimensions. Fiske did not follow-up on his initial findings and his discovery is often described as an “accident” (Goldberg 1993, p.27). Years later, Tupes and Christal (1961) attempted to clarify these factors, carrying out factor analysis studies based on peer ratings from 790 subjects. They also re-analyzed Cattell’s datasets as well as those of Fiske. Their results replicated Fiske’s, i.e. the persisting structure of the Big Five was found across all different sample groups. Tupes and Christal described the five factors as: emotional stability (calm and not easily upset), surgency (talkative, assertive and energetic), culture (intellectual/cultured and independent-minded), agreeableness (good- natured, cooperative and trustful), and dependability (conscientious, responsibility and orderly). Their five factors resemble the first five in Cattell’s 16 PF and show striking similarities to Fiske’s 5 (John et al. 1988). Other scholars who investigated Cattell’s framework and obtained

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the five personality dimensions are, among others, Norman (1963), and Digman and Takemoto- Chock (1981).

One limitation of these pioneering studies is that they are all rooted in Cattell’s personality model; therefore, what the evidence from these studies really shows is that Cattell’s 35 personalities can be summarized within five broad personality traits. In addition, researchers were convinced that Allport and Odbert’s analyses were hindered by technical limitations (Goldberg 1993), and this led to the idea that a “second round” of dictionary studies and of factor analyses should be conducted in order to confirm the BFM. This task was carried out mainly by two prominent personality researchers - Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg. During the 1980s and 1990s Goldberg worked extensively on English words, then newly identified by Norman (1967)16, as the full universe of trait descriptions. From Norman’s complete set of 2,797 trait terms Goldberg (1981) constructed his trait inventory, excluding terms whose meanings could not be well understood and words that were variants of the already included terms (John et al. 1988). This led to the development of an inventory of 1,710 traits, and this inventory was used as a basic tool to scrutinize Norman’s trait sphere. Goldberg executed a series of studies unearthing trait dimensions that he believed best represent the basic structure of Norman’s trait terms. The studies were summarized in Goldberg (1990). The factor structures of personality data in these studies clearly replicate the BFM, and Goldberg eventually concluded that the five personality traits best account for the basic structure of individual personality. As a result, he dubbed these five global traits, the “Big Five.”

To sum up, the BFM was originally “discovered” as a result of the many waves of investigation into English language trait terms. With help from the factor analytical method, the theoretical significance of trait terms in the English dictionary, and the idea of there being a hierarchical structure of personality, was empirically exhibited. The BFM has since been validated to the extent that it forms an important milestone in personality research, bringing a consensus to the field of personality psychology that humans’ latent and stable psychological

16 _{Norman (1967) scanned the unabridged 1961 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (the version used}

by Allport and Odbert in 1936 which was issued in 1925). He found 9,046 terms in addition to Allport and Odbert (1936), most of which were either suffixal or prefixal variations of terms already included. He therefore added only 171 terms, resulting in a master set of 18,125 terms (cf. John et al. 1988, p.185). From these, Norman derived 2,797 terms that can be used to describe consistent and stable modes of individual adjustment to the environment. His 2,797 trait terms are much fewer in number than Allport and Odbert’s 4,504, because he excluded dispositions related to physical and mental health (e.g. insane) and physical dispositions (e.g. athletic) (cf. John et al. 1988, p.187). Norman’s listing provided the foundation for most contemporary taxonomies, because the exclusion and inclusion of terms was based on much more explicit criteria.

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attributes can be comprehensively described using the five most fundamental aspects of an individual personality.17

As to environmental valuation research, the BFM forms a sound starting point for any investigation into the effects of traits on WTP response behavior. Table 3 -1 shows the labels used for the five dimensions given by different investigators. Minute variations of the content across studies have been noted. Tupes and Christal’s work represents the first wave of studies to discover the five dimensions, while Goldberg’s work took place as part of the second wave, during which the Big Five was confirmed. Costa and McCrae’s model, meanwhile, represents the modern conceptualization of the BFM. In the next section, their definition of the Big Five, which has been left untouched until now, will be discussed in more detail.

Table 3-1: Different descriptions of the five personality dimensions

Tupes and Christal (1961) Goldberg (1981) Costa and McCrae (1992)

Emotional stability Emotional stability Neuroticism

Surgency Surgency Extraversion

Culture Intellect Openness to experience

Agreeableness Agreeableness Agreeableness

Dependability Conscientiousness Conscientiousness

Source: Adapted from John et al. (2008)

17 _{Still, the degree of consensus around the BFM should by no means be over-romanticized. Some scholars did}

suggest that the basic structure of personality is constituted of more/less than five dimensions. Some contend that not five but seven (Simms 2007), three (Eysenck 1990), two (Blackburn et al. 2004, Gray 1970), or even one factor (Musek 2007) are the basic traits. However, unless these alternative models are supported by empirical evidence, it is difficult to evaluate their validity and reliability, or whether or not they better represent the landscape of an individual personality than the BFM.

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