Personality at Work – literature
Lecture 1
De Vries (2016) – Evolution and Human Behavior (Evolution Situational Affordances
HEXACO)
Enigma of Personality Variance
Selective Neutrality = absence of optimal traits in a given environment.
Mutation-selection balance = high rate of mutation.
Both of the above are inadequate to explain variation in personality!
Balancing selection:
o Frequency-dependent selection: fitness of alternative genotypes varies as
a function of their prevalence in the population.
o Niche specialization: environmental heterogeneity, this means different
genotypes are caused by different environments.
Personality traits = characteristic reactions to different situations. BUT personality
variations reflects mutation selection: only 2% can be explained by data.
Competing Models of Personality
Galtons lexical approach laid the foundation for the modern personality research
[lexical approach counts the number en type] of words to express character. This
approach is based on 4 assumptions:
o Individual differences are encoded in language
o The more important the more different words for it in a language
o Words are related to differences
o Cross-cultural factor analytic studies will reveal most important
dimensions of personality.
This lexical research led to the Big Five. The Big Five is contested by two streams
of research:
o GFP (general factor of personality) lays on top of the big five.
o There are two higher traits (DeYoung)
HEXACO is the ‘follow-up’ the extra dimension Honesty-Humility was added.
General Factor of Personality
The GFP is based on life history (LH), this can be fast (r) or slow (K).
Rushton: an exiting if open-ended possibility that one basic dimension (K) underlies much
of the field of personality.
Later research shows:
High on LH (fast) = lower GFP
Low on LH (slow) = higher GFP
o This means higher on Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability,
Extraversion and Openness to Experience.
Critics on this theory:
Questionnaires with neutral personality items fail for GFP
GFP represents response bias rather than content
Self-ratings are uncorrelated to peer-rating by using GFP
Lecture 1
De Vries (2016) – Evolution and Human Behavior (Evolution Situational Affordances
HEXACO)
Enigma of Personality Variance
Selective Neutrality = absence of optimal traits in a given environment.
Mutation-selection balance = high rate of mutation.
Both of the above are inadequate to explain variation in personality!
Balancing selection:
o Frequency-dependent selection: fitness of alternative genotypes varies as
a function of their prevalence in the population.
o Niche specialization: environmental heterogeneity, this means different
genotypes are caused by different environments.
Personality traits = characteristic reactions to different situations. BUT personality
variations reflects mutation selection: only 2% can be explained by data.
Competing Models of Personality
Galtons lexical approach laid the foundation for the modern personality research
[lexical approach counts the number en type] of words to express character. This
approach is based on 4 assumptions:
o Individual differences are encoded in language
o The more important the more different words for it in a language
o Words are related to differences
o Cross-cultural factor analytic studies will reveal most important
dimensions of personality.
This lexical research led to the Big Five. The Big Five is contested by two streams
of research:
o GFP (general factor of personality) lays on top of the big five.
o There are two higher traits (DeYoung)
HEXACO is the ‘follow-up’ the extra dimension Honesty-Humility was added.
General Factor of Personality
The GFP is based on life history (LH), this can be fast (r) or slow (K).
Rushton: an exiting if open-ended possibility that one basic dimension (K) underlies much
of the field of personality.
Later research shows:
High on LH (fast) = lower GFP
Low on LH (slow) = higher GFP
o This means higher on Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability,
Extraversion and Openness to Experience.
Critics on this theory:
Questionnaires with neutral personality items fail for GFP
GFP represents response bias rather than content
Self-ratings are uncorrelated to peer-rating by using GFP
