Agreeableness

Abstract: The five-factor model of personality is a hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. Research using both natural language adjectives and theoretically based personality questionnaires supports the comprehensiveness of the model and its applicability across observers and cultures. This article summarizes the history of the model and its supporting evidence; discusses conceptions of the nature of the factors; and outlines an agenda for theorizing about the origins and operation of the factors. We argue that the model should prove useful both for individual assessment and for the elucidation of a number of topics of interest to personality psychologists.

Abstract: Two data sources--self-reports and peer ratings--and two instruments--adjective factors and questionnaire scales--were used to assess the five-factor model of personality. As in a previous study of self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1985b), adjective factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness-antagonism, and conscientiousness-undirectedness were identified in an analysis of 738 peer ratings of 275 adult subjects. Intraclass correlations among raters, ranging from .30 to .65, and correlations between mean peer ratings and self-reports, from .25 to .62, showed substantial cross-observer agreement on all five adjective factors. Similar results were seen in analyses of scales from the NEO Personality Inventory. Items from the adjective factors were used as guides in a discussion of the nature of the five factors. These data reinforce recent appeals for the adoption of the five-factor model in personality research and assessment.

Abstract: Part 1. Introduction. N.B. Barenbaum, D.G. Winter, History of Modern Personality Theory and Research. Part 2. Theoretical Perspectives. D.M. Buss, Human Nature and Individual Differences: Evolution of Human Personality. D. Westen, G.O. Gabbard, K.M. Ortigo, Psychoanalytic Approaches to Personality. O.P. John, L.P. Naumann, C.J. Soto, Paradigm Shift to the Integrative Big Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement, and Conceptual Issues. R.R. McCrae, P.T. Costa, Jr., The Five-Factor Theory of Personality. E.T. Higgins, A.A. Scholer, When Is Personality Revealed? A Motivated Cognition Approach. W. Mischel, Y. Shoda, Toward a Unifying Theory of Personality: Integrating Dispositions and Processing Dynamics within the Cognitive-Affective Processing System. D.P. McAdams, Personal Narratives and the Life Story. Part 3. Biological Bases. L.A. Clark, D. Watson, Temperament: An Organizing Paradigm for Trait Psychology. R.F. Krueger, W. Johnson, Behavioral Genetics and Personality: A New Look at the Integration of Nature and Nurture. T. Canli, Toward a "Molecular Psychology" of Personality. T.A.R. Weinstein, J.P. Capitanio, S.D. Gosling, Personality in Animals. Part 4. Developmental Approaches. E.M. Pomerantz, R.A. Thompson, Parents' Role in Children's Personality Development: The Psychological Resource Principle. B.W. Roberts, D. Wood, A. Caspi, The Development of Personality Traits in Adulthood. C.D. Ryff, Challenges and Opportunities at the Interface of Aging, Personality, and Well-Being. Part 5. Self and Social Processes. R.W. Robins, J.L. Tracy, K.H. Trzesniewski, Naturalizing the Self. W.B. Swann, Jr., J.K. Bosson, Identity Negotiation: A Theory of Self and Social Interaction. M.T. Gailliot, N.L. Mead, R.F. Baumeister, Self-Regulation. D.L. Paulhus, P.D. Trapnell, Self-Presentation of Personality: An Agency-Communion Framework. R.C. Fraley, P.R. Shaver, Attachment Theory and Its Place in Contemporary Personality Theory and Research. V. Benet-Martinez, S. Oishi, Culture and Personality. D.C. Funder, Personality, Situations, and Person-Situation Interactions. Part 6. Cognitive and Motivational Processes. J.F. Kihlstrom, The Psychological Unconscious. O.C. Schultheiss, Implicit Motives. R.A. Emmons, J.L. Barrett, S.A. Schnitker, Personality and the Capacity for Religious and Spiritual Experience. R.M. Ryan, E.L. Deci, Self-Determination Theory and the Role of Basic Psychological Needs in Personality and the Organization of Behavior. D.K. Simonton, Creativity and Genius. Part 7. Emotion, Adjustment, and Health. J.J. Gross, Emotion and Emotion Regulation: Personality Processes and Individual Differences. C.S. Carver, M.F. Scheier, D. Fulford, Self-regulatory Processes, Stress, and Coping. T.A. Widiger, G.T. Smith, Personality and Psychopathology. S.E. Hampson, H.S. Friedman, Personality and Health: A Lifespan Perspective. R.E. Lucas, E. Diener, Personality and Subjective Well-Being.

Abstract: After many "out-of-print" years, this volume has been reissued in response to an increasing demand for copies. This reflects that the fundamental questions that motivated this book thirty years ago are still being asked. But more important, the answers -- or at least their outlines -- now seem to be in sight. In 1968, this book stood as an expression of a paradigm crisis in its critique of the state of personality psychology. The last three decades have been filled with controversy and debate about the dilemmas raised here, and then with renewal and fresh discoveries. It therefore seems especially timely to revisit the pages which posed the challenges. Mischel outlined the need to encompass the situation in the study of personality, but with a focus on the acquired meaning of stimuli and on the situation as perceived, viewing the individual as a cognitive-affective being who construes, interprets, and transforms the stimulus in a dynamic reciprocal interaction with the social world. He focused on the idiographic analysis of personality that had originally motivated the field, and the complexity, discriminative facility, and uniqueness of the individual, and sought to connect the expressions of personality to the individual's behavior -- that is, to what people do and not just what they say. Even the intrinsically contextualized "if...then..." expressions of the personality system -- its essential behavioral signatures -- were foreshadowed in this book that fired the opening salvo in a search for "a truly dynamic personality psychology."