1/50 Developing "Personality" Taxonomies: Metatheoretical And
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Uher, J. (2015b). Developing "personality" taxonomies: Metatheoretical and methodological rationales underlying selection approaches, methods of data generation and reduction principles. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 49, 531- 589 . http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12124-014-9280-4 REPRINT Original Article Developing "personality" taxonomies: Metatheoretical and methodological rationales underlying selection approaches, methods of data generation and reduction principles Jana Uher 1,2 * 1 The London School of Economics and Political Science; 2 Comparative Differential and Personality Psychology, Free University Berlin * Correspondence: The London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Psychology, St Clements Building, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected] Abstract Taxonomic “personality” models are widely used in research and applied fields. This article applies the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) to scrutinise the three methodological steps that are required for developing comprehensive “personality” taxonomies: 1) the approaches used to select the phenomena and events to be studied, 2) the methods used to generate data about the selected phenomena and events and 3) the reduction principles used to extract the “most important” individual-specific variations for constructing “personality” taxonomies. Analyses of some currently popular taxonomies reveal frequent mismatches between the researchers’ explicit and implicit metatheories about “personality” and the abilities of previous methodologies to capture the particular kinds of phenomena toward which they are targeted. Serious deficiencies that preclude scientific quantifications are identified in standardised questionnaires, psychology’s established standard method of investigation. These mismatches and deficiencies derive from the lack of an explicit formulation and critical reflection on the philosophical and metatheoretical assumptions being made by scientists and from the established practice of radically matching the methodological tools to researchers’ preconceived ideas and to pre-existing statistical theories rather than to the particular phenomena and individuals under study. These findings raise serious doubts about the ability of previous taxonomies to appropriately and comprehensively reflect the phenomena towards which they are targeted and the structures of individual-specificity occurring in them. The article elaborates and illustrates with empirical examples methodological principles that allow researchers to appropriately meet the metatheoretical requirements and that are suitable for comprehensively exploring individuals’ “personality”. Key words: personality assessment; lexical approach; standardized questionnaire methods; traits; Big Five Model and Five Factor Model; psychometrics; scientific quantification, contextualised methodologies; quantitative methods; phenomenon-methodology matching; emic approach and etic approach. 1/50 http://janauher.com Uher, J. (2015b). Developing "personality" taxonomies: Metatheoretical and methodological rationales underlying selection approaches, methods of data generation and reduction principles. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 49, 531- 589 . http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12124-014-9280-4 Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................................................... 1 This trilogy of articles .............................................................................................................................................. 3 I) The Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm): Relevant foundations for scrutinising taxonomic “personality” research..................................................................4 The nature of this paradigm: Considering the limitations of human minds ...........................................4 Philosophical presuppositions about the various kinds of phenomena explored in individuals ............ 5 The notion of phenomena and basic and composite kinds of phenomena...................................... 5 The TPS-Paradigm’s elementary system of three metatheoretical properties................................. 5 General methodological implications derived from the philosophical presuppositions ......................... 7 Implications derived from the phenomena’s temporal properties: Nunc-ipsum methods.................7 Implications derived from the phenomena’s spatial properties: Extroquestive and introquestive methods .....................................................................................................................7 The elementary problem of phenomenon-methodology matching................................................... 8 Complete metatheoretical commensurability...................................................................................9 Consent-based commensurability: Explicit encoding schemes and basic conversion principles..... 9 Scientific quantification: Philosophy-of-science foundations.......................................................... 10 “Personality” as individual-specificity: A metatheoretical definition and general methodological implications ........................................................................................................................................ 11 Morphology and physiology: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity ............................................................................................................ 12 Behaviours: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity............................................................................................................................ 13 The psyche: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity............................................................................................................................ 14 Semiotic representations: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity ............................................................................................................ 17 Artificially modified outer appearance: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity ................................................................................. 18 Contexts: Metatheoretical properties and methodological requirements for exploring individual-specificity............................................................................................................................ 19 II) Developing “personality” taxonomies: Scrutinising metatheories and methodologies....................................... 20 1) Classes of selection approaches.................................................................................................... 20 a) Nomination approaches ............................................................................................................ 21 b) Physical system approaches..................................................................................................... 22 Lexical physical system approaches......................................................................................... 23 The Behavioural Repertoire x Behavioural Situations Approach (BR XBS-Approach) ............... 25 Endophenotype approaches and other approaches ................................................................. 27 c) Cumulative-gain-in-knowledge approaches............................................................................... 28 d) Etic (or top-down) approaches .................................................................................................. 28 e) Mixed approaches ..................................................................................................................... 29 Content-based versus strategy-based selection principles............................................................ 29 2) Methods of data generation ........................................................................................................... 30 Standardised questionnaires—unknown encoding schemes ........................................................ 31 Establishing explicated encoding schemes ................................................................................... 32 3) Metatheoretical rationales of reduction principles .......................................................................... 35 Non-statistical reduction principles ................................................................................................ 35 Statistical redundancy-based reduction principles......................................................................... 36 Statistical context-based reduction principles................................................................................ 38 Statistical function-based reduction principles............................................................................... 40 Reducing between-individual and within-individual variations—averages, variabilities and ranges....................................................................................................................................