Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIV. Dispositional Theories 14. Eysenck, McCrae, and
Costa’s Trait and Factor
Theories© The McGraw−Hill^433
Companies, 2009happened in people’s lives (objective) rather than their view or perceptions of their
experiences (subjective). Every behavior or response becomes part of the cumulative
record. Whereas theorists such as Alfred Adler (style of life) or Dan McAdams (per-
sonal narrative) emphasize the subjective interpretations of one’s life-story, McCrae
and Costa focus on the objective experiences—the events and experiences one has
had over one’s lifetime.
External Influences People constantly find themselves in a particular physical or
social situation that has some influence on the personality system. The question of
how we respond to the opportunities and demands of the context is what external in-
fluencesis all about. According to McCrae and Costa (1999, 2003), these responses
are a function of two things: (1) characteristic adaptations and (2) their interaction
with external influences (note the two arrows going into the objective biography el-
lipse in Figure 14.8).
McCrae and Costa assume that behavior is a function of the interaction be-
tween characteristic adaptations and external influences. As an example, they cite the
case of Joan, who is offered tickets to see the opera La Traviata(an external influ-
ence). But Joan has a long personal history of detesting opera (a characteristic adap-
tation) and therefore refuses the offer (an objective biography). To elaborate, Joan
may well have a basic tendency toward being closed (rather than open) to new expe-
riences, and she was never around opera as a child or may have simply formed a neg-
ative opinion about it based on reputation. Whatever the case, she is more at home
with familiar events and with down-to-earth experiences. This background predicts
that Joan is likely to respond the way she did to an offer to attend an opera. These
decisions to stay away from such experiences reinforce themselves as her distaste for
opera grows. This is reflected in the arrow circling back on itself in Figure 14.8.
Basic Postulates
Each of the components of the personality system (except biological bases) has core
postulates. Because the components of basic tendencies and characteristic adapta-
tions are most central to the personality system, we will elaborate only on the pos-
tulates for these two components.
Postulates for Basic Tendencies
Basic tendencies have four postulates: individuality, origin, development, and struc-
ture. The individualitypostulate stipulates that adults have a unique set of traits and
that each person exhibits a unique combination of trait patterns. The precise amount
of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness is
unique to all of us, and much of our uniqueness results from variability in our geno-
type. This postulate is consistent with Allport’s idea that uniqueness is the essence of
personality.
Second, the originpostulate takes a clear if somewhat controversial stance: All
personality traits are the result solely of endogenous (internal) forces, such as ge-
netics, hormones, and brain structures. In other words, the family environment plays
no role in creating basic tendencies (but again, recall that personality traits are not
synonymous with personality as a whole). Figure 14.8 shows but one causal arrow
Chapter 14 Eysenck, McCrae, and Costa’s Trait and Factor Theories 427