fei75766_ch13_408-434.indd 409  02/06/20 01:05 PM
Chapter 13    McCrae and Costa’s Five-Factor Trait Theory409
Thomas wasatalocal barwithafewlong-time friends, butoneofthem—Samuel—
saidsomething thatreally upset Thomas, whohadonetoomany todrink. Thomas 
stood up,pushed Samuel, andstarted afightthenandthere. Clarisse, afriend of
Samuel’s, pulled Thomas offbefore anyone gotseriously hurt. Clarisse didn’t know 
Thomas wellbutwasabsolutely convinced thathewasanaggressive, impulsive jerk
andtoldThomas asmuch asthethree went storming outofthebar.Samuel, surpris -
ingly, came toThomas’s defense andsaid“You know, Thomas isreally agood guy.
Thatwasn’t likehim—he must havebeen having arough day.Give himabreak.” 
IsThomas anaggressive jerkorjusthaving arough day?CanwesayThomas is
aggressive andimpulsive without knowing anything elseabout Thomas’s personality? 
Isthisthewayhenormally is?What about when heisnotdrunk? Does heactaggres -
sively andimpulsively inother situations? Does thesituation (rough day)explain best
howThomas acted orisitmore accurate toexplain hisactions byhispersonality 
(aggressive jerk)? 
These arethekinds ofquestions thatpsychologists ask.Social psychologists 
arelikely toexplain Thomas’s behavior bythesituation (rough day). Personality psy-
chologists aremore likely toattribute Thomas’s behavior toenduring traits. Atrait,
asyourecall from theopening chapter, makes people unique andcontributes tothe
consistency ofhowtheybehave indifferent situations andovertime. Traits arethe
focus ofstudy ofmany personality psychologists, buthistorically different psycholo -
gistshadtheirownparticular listofpersonality traits theyfocused onandthere was
littleconsensus astowhat themajor dimensions ofpersonality were. Thiswasatleast
thecaseuntilthe1980s when thefieldconverged onananswer: there arefivemajor 
dimensions ofpersonality, namely extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, 
neuroticism, andopenness toexperience. These aretheso-called “BigFive” traits of
personality andtheirwidespread adoption andacceptance owes much totheresearch 
andtheory ofRobert McCrae andPaulCosta. 
Overview of Trait and Factor Theories
How canpersonality bestbemeasured? Bystandardized tests? Clinical observation? 
Judgments offriends andacquaintances? Factor theorists haveusedallthese meth -
odsandmore. Asecond question is:How many traits orpersonal dispositions does
asingle person possess? Twoorthree? Halfadozen? Acouple ofhundred? More 
thanathousand? During thepast25–45 years, several individuals (Cattell, 1973, 
1983; Eysenck, 1981, 1997a) andseveral teams ofresearchers (Costa &McCrae, 
1992; McCrae &Costa, 2003; Tupes &Christal, 1961) havetaken afactor analytic 
approach toanswering these questions. Presently, most researchers whostudy per-
sonality traits agree thatfive,andonlyfive,andnofewer thanfivedominant traits 
continue toemerge from factor analytic techniques—mathematical procedures capa-
bleofsifting personality traits from mountains oftestdata.
Whereas many contemporary theorists believe thatfiveisthemagic number, 
earlier theorists suchasRaymond B.Cattell found many more personality traits, and
Hans J.Eysenck insisted thatonlythree major factors canbediscerned byafactor 
analytic approach. Inaddition, wehaveseenthatGordon Allport’s (seeChapter 12)
commonsense approach yielded 5–10 traits thatarecentral toeachperson’s life.Final PDF to printer