Descriptive, Predictive and Explanatory Personality Research: Different Goals, Different Approaches, but a Shared Need to Move Beyond the Big Few Traits. Issue 6 (18th December 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Descriptive, Predictive and Explanatory Personality Research: Different Goals, Different Approaches, but a Shared Need to Move Beyond the Big Few Traits. Issue 6 (18th December 2020)
- Main Title:
- Descriptive, Predictive and Explanatory Personality Research: Different Goals, Different Approaches, but a Shared Need to Move Beyond the Big Few Traits
- Authors:
- Mõttus, René
Wood, Dustin
Condon, David M.
Back, Mitja D.
Baumert, Anna
Costantini, Giulio
Epskamp, Sacha
Greiff, Samuel
Johnson, Wendy
Lukaszewski, Aaron
Murray, Aja
Revelle, William
Wright, Aidan G.C.
Yarkoni, Tal
Ziegler, Matthias
Zimmermann, Johannes - Other Names:
- Mõttus René guestEditor.
- Abstract:
- Abstract: We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science—description, prediction and explanation—and that attaining them often requires different priorities and methodological approaches. We put forward specific recommendations such as publishing findings with minimum a priori aggregation and exploring the limits of predictive models without being constrained by parsimony and intuitiveness but instead maximizing out‐of‐sample predictive accuracy. We argue that naturally occurring variance in many decontextualized and multidetermined constructs that interest personality scientists may not have individual causes, at least as this term is generally understood and in ways that are human‐interpretable, never mind intervenable. If so, useful explanations are narratives that summarize many pieces of descriptive findings rather than models that target individual cause–effect associations. By meticulously studying specific and contextualized behaviours, thoughts, feelings and goals, however, individual causes of variance may ultimately be identifiable, although such causal explanations will likely be far more complex, phenomenon‐specific and person‐specific than anticipated thus far. Progress in all three areas—description, prediction and explanation—requires higher dimensional models than the currently dominant 'Big Few' and supplementing subjective trait‐ratings with alternative sources of information such as informant‐reports andAbstract: We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science—description, prediction and explanation—and that attaining them often requires different priorities and methodological approaches. We put forward specific recommendations such as publishing findings with minimum a priori aggregation and exploring the limits of predictive models without being constrained by parsimony and intuitiveness but instead maximizing out‐of‐sample predictive accuracy. We argue that naturally occurring variance in many decontextualized and multidetermined constructs that interest personality scientists may not have individual causes, at least as this term is generally understood and in ways that are human‐interpretable, never mind intervenable. If so, useful explanations are narratives that summarize many pieces of descriptive findings rather than models that target individual cause–effect associations. By meticulously studying specific and contextualized behaviours, thoughts, feelings and goals, however, individual causes of variance may ultimately be identifiable, although such causal explanations will likely be far more complex, phenomenon‐specific and person‐specific than anticipated thus far. Progress in all three areas—description, prediction and explanation—requires higher dimensional models than the currently dominant 'Big Few' and supplementing subjective trait‐ratings with alternative sources of information such as informant‐reports and behavioural measurements. Developing a new generation of psychometric tools thus provides many immediate research opportunities. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- European journal of personality. Volume 34:Issue 6(2020)
- Journal:
- European journal of personality
- Issue:
- Volume 34:Issue 6(2020)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 34, Issue 6 (2020)
- Year:
- 2020
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 6
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2020-0034-0006-0000
- Page Start:
- 1175
- Page End:
- 1201
- Publication Date:
- 2020-12-18
- Subjects:
- cause -- explanation -- hierarchy -- personality -- prediction
Personality -- Periodicals
155.2 - Journal URLs:
- https://journals.sagepub.com/loi/ERP ↗
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1002/per.2311 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0890-2070
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 3829.733800
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 15339.xml