Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIV. Dispositional Theories 14. Eysenck, McCrae, and
Costa’s Trait and Factor
Theories(^424) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
condition to their personal well-being and happiness. In the original study in Yu-
goslavia, Type I people were much more likely than others to die of cancer, and Type
II people were much more likely to die of heart disease. Type III and Type IV indi-
viduals had very low death rates from either cancer or CVD. Grossarth-Maticek,
Eysenck, and Vetter replicated this study in Heidelberg, Germany, and found very
similar results.
As Eysenck (1996) pointed out, these and other studies on the relationship be-
tween personality and disease do not prove that psychological factors causecancer
and heart disease. Rather, these diseases are caused by an interaction of many fac-
tors. For cardiovascular disease, these factors include family history, age, gender,
ethnic background, hypertension, unfavorable ratio of total cholesterol to high-
density lipoprotein (HDL), smoking, diet, inactive lifestyle, and several personality
factors. For cancer, the risks include smoking, diet, alcohol, sexual practices, family
history, ethnic background, and personality factors (Brannon & Feist, 2007).
Eysenck (1996) contended that cigarette smoking alone does not cause cancer or
CVD, but when it is combined with stress and personality factors, it helps contribute
to death from these two diseases. For example, Eysenck and his associates (Marusic,
Gudjonsson, Eysenck, & Starc, 1999) developed a complex biopsychosocial model
for heart disease that included 11 biological and 7 psychosocial factors. Their re-
search with men in the Republic of Slovenia supported the hypothesis that personal-
ity factors interact with a variety of biological factors to contribute to heart disease.
One such interaction was for smoking, neuroticism, and emotional reactivity; that is,
high P scorers who smoke and who react to stress with anger, hostility, and aggres-
sion increase their risk for heart disease.
The Big Five: Taxonomy or Theory?
In Chapter 1, we defined a taxonomy as a classification of things according to their
natural relationships. We also suggested that taxonomies are an essential starting
point for the advance of science, but that they are not theories. Whereas theories gen-
erate research, taxonomies merely supply a classification system.
Eysenck’s three-factor approach is a good example of how a scientific theory
can use a taxonomy to generate hundreds of hypotheses. In the following discussion
of McCrae and Costa’s Five-Factor Model (FFM), we will see that their work began
as an attempt to identify basic personality traits as revealed by factor analysis. This
work soon evolved into a taxonomy and the Five-Factor Model.After much addi-
tional work, this model became a theory, one that can both predictand explainbe-
havior.
Biographies of Robert R. McCrae
and Paul T. Costa, Jr.
Robert Roger McCrae was born April 28, 1949 in Maryville, Missouri, a town of
13,000 people located about 100 miles north of Kansas City. Maryville is home to
Northwest Missouri State, the town’s largest employer. McCrae, the youngest of
three children born to Andrew McCrae and Eloise Elaine McCrae, grew up with an
418 Part IV Dispositional Theories