Controversy about the respective importance of context vs. traits

Personality traits are individual differences on how to think, feel or behave. These traits are conceived as bipolar linear dimensions that capture general and stable dispositions of personality. However, the psychologists have disagreed about the technical nature of traits.

So, there those who argue that traits are neuropsychic structures that exert a causal influence on the behavior of individual and those who suggest that traits are cognitive categories used

by observers to make sense of social life (McAdams, 2001). In other words, traits were hypothesized to exist within the person rather than the observable public sphere. Unlike behavior, traits could not be directly observed. To solve this dilemma, a number of personality and social psychologists was launched the person-situation debate. Therefore, the period of 1970-1980s is crossed by controversy about the importance of context vs. traits. The most important critique was that of Mischel (1968, 1973) that would shape a good deal of thinking in personality psychology today. While the concept of trait impliess some degree of cross-situational consistency in behavior, Mischel argued that human behavior is much more situationally specific than the concept of trait would suggest. According to social-learning theory, he maintained that behavior is shaped by the exigencies of a given context. Especially, he believes that the special meaning of a situation, a reward, or purpose largely determines the behavior of individuals. Supporters of Mischel’s position (Mischel, 1977; Shweder &

D’Andrade, 1979) brought data to buttress their “situationist” claims, often invoking finding from social psychology documenting the influence of situations on behaviour. They sustain that situation rather than traits drive and shape human behaviour, a fact that is clearest to see under well-controlled conditions of the laboratory experiment. Observed behavioral differences among persons in the same situation are small, unimportant, or the result of errors of biases on the part of observers, or methods of measurement. According to the dispositional approach, personality is a structured system of conducts (cognitions, emotions, and behaviors) that exhibit intra-individual consistency, temporal stability, and relative cross-situational consistency (Rolland, 2004). Mischel (1973) rejects cross-situational consistency, but accepts the temporal stability. He indicates that trait labels exist more in the minds of observers than in the actual personality of the person being observed, suggesting that may tell us more about how people think about other people’s behaviour than they tell us about behavior itself. Thus, traits are convenient categories for our perceptions rather than real characteristics of the

person we perceive. Mischel argued that broad traits are mainly stereotypes in the minds of observers rather than dynamic forces in the lives of actors, that human behavior is situationaly specific than cross-situationally consistent, and that scores on traits scales are weak predictors of what people will actually do in particular situations. Furthermore, reviewing literature on such personality variables as honestity, dependency, aggression, rigidity, attitudes toward authority, Mischel (1977) showed that the correalations between personality-traits scores and actual behavior in a particular situation were generally low. This can suggests that trait scores fail to predict what a person will do in particular situations. However, defenders of traits (such as Block, 1977; Hogan, DeSoto, & Solano, 1977) argued that Mischel had i) misrepresented many trait theories and trait theorists; ii) selectively reviewed the empirical literature in an unfair way, and iii) overlooked many methodologically sophisticated studies that supported cross-situational consistency of behavior and the inner coherence of personality (McAdams, 2001). In the aftermath of Mischel’s critique and the person-situation debate, many personality psychologists created the interactionist approach, a compromise position, which postulated that the behaviour is function of the person (and his or her traits) in interaction with the environment (Maddi, 1984; Krahe, 1992). This approach that “reconciles” the dispositional and situational views of personality (Shoda & Mischel, 1995) postulated that the inter-individual differences result of the encoding process, expectations, and self-regulatory processes. Mischel’s critique and person-situation debate stimulated thought and research in the field of personality psychology. Therefore, after 1980s studies were developed to examine the longitudinal stability of traits over the life course, the origins of traits in genetic differences and environmental effects, the psychobiological underpinnings of traits. Although the critiques launced against the trait concept raised important issues in the field and helped to produce important advances (Kenrich & Funder, 1988) one of the big lessons learned from the person-situation debate was that personality psychology cannot get along without traits.

Not only did the concept of the trait survive the attaks, it emerged as stronger than ever before. The strong comeback stemmed from at least five major developments in the field of personality psychology. First, researchers conducted a number of studies showing that personality trait scores often do predict important differences in observed behavior at surprisingly strong statistical levels, especially when behavior is aggregated across different situations (Moskowitz, 1990). Although trait scores may prove to be but modest predictors of what a person will do in a single situation (laboratory-based) (Mischel & Peacke, 1982), traits generally work well in predicting behavioural trends across situations and over time (Costa &

McCrae, 1997). They also prove to be robust predictors of important life outcomes like work performance and occupational success (Barrick & Mount, 1991), the quality of social relationships (Asendorpf & Wilpers, 1998), psychological well-being (Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, & Fujita, 1992), and even longevity (Friedman, Tucker, Tomlinson-Keasy, Schwartz, Wingard, & Criqui, 1993).

In addition, data from a number of longitudinal studies were published in the 1980s and 1990s showing long-term stability in individual differences for personality traits (Costa &

McCrae, 1994; Roberts & Del Vecchio, 2000). Substantial continuity in trait scores has also been demonstrated between the childhood years and early adulthood (Caspi et al., 2003;

Terracciano et al., 2005). Moreover, other studies showed substantial heritability for trait scores. Studies of twins have consistently produced heritability quotients around 50% for most personality traits (Bouchard, Lykken, McGue, Segal, & Tellegen, 1990). At least half of the variability in trait scores appears to be a result of genetic differences between people.

Finally, research has begun to document links between certain traits and the functioning of the brain. Researchers have suggested that individual differences in Extraversion, for example, link up with a behavioral approach system (BAS) in the brain, a system conceptualized as regulating positive approach behavior, the pursuit of rewards and incentives, and positive

affect (Gray, 1987). Implicated in the complex functioning of the BAS are dopaminergic pathways in the brain (Depue, Luciana, Arbisi, Collins, & Leon, 1994), and the activation of the left frontal cortex (Sutton & Davidson, 1997). By contrast, Neuroticism may be associated with what has been called the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), conceptualized as regulating avoidance behavior and negative affectivity. The BIS may subsume certain aspects of the amigdala’s functioning (Le Doux, 1996) and activation of the right frontal cortex.

Although research on the neuroscience of traits is still in its infancy stage and results to date are still sketchy, there is every reason to believe that this area of study will yield many important findings in the coming years regarding the biological bases of basic personality traits. Therefore, the concept of personality traits seem to have emerged from the debate as a more powerful and useful concept than perhaps it has ever been before. It is hard today to imagine a personality psychology without traits. Nowadays, several theories and models of personality traits have emerged. Among them, the most influential and consensual is certainly the Five-Factor Model (FFM).