Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIV. Dispositional Theories 14. Eysenck, McCrae, and
Costa’s Trait and Factor
Theories(^408) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
These trait names were the basis for Cattell’s original work, and they continue to pro-
vide the foundation for recent factor analytic studies.
Eysenck’s factor analytic technique yielded three general bipolar factors or
types—extraversion/introversion, neuroticism/stability, and psychoticism/superego.
The Five-Factor Theory (often called the Big Five) includes neuroticism and extra-
version; but it adds openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
These terms differ slightly from research team to research team, but the underlying
traits are quite similar.
Biography of Hans J. Eysenck
Hans Jurgen Eysenck was born in Berlin on March 4, 1916, the only child of a
theatrical family. His mother was Ruth Werner, a starlet at the time of Eysenck’s
birth. Ruth Werner later became a German silent film star under the stage name
of Helga Molander. Eysenck’s father, Anton Eduard Eysenck, was a comedian,
singer, and actor. Eysenck (1991b) recalled: “[I] saw very little of my parents, who
divorced when I was 4, and who had little feeling for me, an emotion I reciprocated”
(p. 40).
After his parents’ divorce, Eysenck went to live with his maternal grand-
mother, who had also been in the theater, but whose promising career in opera was
cut short by a crippling fall. Eysenck (1991b) described his grandmother as “un-
selfish, caring, altruistic, and altogether too good for this world” (p. 40). Although
his grandmother was a devout Catholic, neither parent was religious, and Eysenck
grew up without any formal religious commitment (Gibson, 1981).
He also grew up with little parental discipline and few strict controls over his
behavior. Neither parent seemed interested in curtailing his actions, and his grand-
mother had a quite permissive attitude toward him. This benign neglect is exempli-
fied by two incidents. In the first, his father had bought Hans a bicycle and had prom-
ised to teach him to ride. “He took me to the top of a hill, told me that I had to sit on
the saddle and pump the pedals and make the wheels go round. He then went off to
release some balloons... leaving me to learn how to ride all by myself ” (Eysenck,
1997b, p. 12). In the second incident, an adolescent Eysenck told his grandmother
that he was going to buy some cigarettes, expecting her to forbid it. However, his
grandmother simply said: “If you like it, do it by all means” (p. 14). According to
Eysenck, environmental experiences such as these two have little to do with person-
ality development. To him, genetic factors have a greater impact on subsequent be-
havior than do childhood experiences. Thus, his permissive upbringing neither
helped nor hindered him in becoming a famous maverick scientist.
Even as a schoolboy, Eysenck was not afraid to take an unpopular stand, often
challenging his teachers, especially those with militaristic leanings. He was skepti-
cal of much of what they taught and was not always reluctant to embarrass them with
his superior knowledge and intellect.
Eysenck suffered the deprivation of many post–World War I Germans who
were faced with astronomical inflation, mass unemployment, and near starvation.
Eysenck’s future appeared no brighter after Hitler came to power. As a condition of
studying physics at the University of Berlin, he was told that he would have to join
402 Part IV Dispositional Theories