PERSONAL HISTORY OF RAYMOND B.

CATTELL

Raymond Bernard Cattell was born on March 20, 1905 in Hilltop, a

village on the outskirts of Birmingham, England. He was the second of
three sons of Alfred Cattell and Mary Field Cattell, both of whom were
born in Hilltop. The family moved to the seaside town of Torquay, in
South Devonshire, when Cattell was 6 years old. There he spent his
early childhood happily with his brothers and friends, and developed a
lifelong love for the ocean and sailing.

However, England entered World War I when Cattell was nine. When a
local house was converted into a hospital, Cattell observed the
wounded as they were brought from the battlefields. This experience
turned him into an unusually serious boy.

Cattell won a scholarship to Torquay Boy's Grammar School where he

excelled. In 1921, he was awarded a county scholarship to University
College, London, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with
first class honors in chemistry in 1924.

Influenced by the work of Cyril Burt, Charles Spearman (who was

developing factor analysis), and Ronald Fisher (who was developing
analysis of variance), whom he had met during his chemistry studies,
he turned his studies principally to psychology. He entered the doctoral
program in 1924. His dissertation topic was "The Subjective Character
of Cognition and Presentational Development of Perception," and he
received his doctorate in 1929. Also from the University of London, he
earned a master's degree in education in 1932 and an honorary doctor
of science degree in 1939.

From 1927 to 1932, Cattell taught at Exeter University and served as

an advisory psychologist at Dartington Hall, a progressive school that
received considerable attention in the 1930s. From 1932 through
1936, he served as director of the City of Leicester Child Clinic.

In 1937, Edward L. Thorndike offered Cattell a research associate

position at Columbia University. He accepted the offer, expecting to
stay in the United States no more than two years. But in 1938, he won
an appointment to the G. Stanley Hall professorship in genetic
psychology at Clark University. He moved from there to a lectureship
at Harvard in 1941, where he remained until 1945, when he was
appointed to a newly created research professorship in psychology at
the University of Illinois and remained in that post until 1973.

The next year, he moved to Honolulu, where he was appointed to

adjunct professorships at the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii
School of Professional Psychology. In Hawaii he married Heather
Birkett, a clinical psychologist who conducted research using Cattell's
16PF questionnaire, with whom he enjoyed the remainder of his life.

He continued to publish more than four articles per year and two books per decade
through the 1970s and 1980s, and remained active in writing even as he became sick with
colon cancer, prostate cancer, and heart disease in the 1990s. He died of congestive heart
failure in his sleep at his home in Honolulu on February 2, 1998.

THE TRAIT APPRAOCH TO PERSONALITY

- Cattlle’s approach in personality was based on empirical
methods of research.
- His goal is to discover a basic trait of personality by using the
method of factor analysis.

TRAIT
- Traits are the factors of personality culled by method of factor
analysis out the great masses of measurements taken human
subjects.
- Traits are relatively permanent reaction tendencies of a
person, and they form the basic unit of structure of an
individual’s personality.
- Traits are the basic elements of personality and are vital to any
attempt to predict behavior.

CATTELS’S VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

• Person’s trait vary from situation to situation called trait loading and
influence of temporary conditions such as illness, fatigue, boredom
called situation modulators, since it is to modulate behavioral
 expressions. Hence, personality traits depend on the relevance of
the situation.

CATTELL’S DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

• “PERSONALITY IS THAT WHICH PERMIT A
PREDICTION OF WHAT A PERSON WILL DO IN A
GIVEN SITUATION.”
THE NATURE OF PERSONALITY: STRUCTURE OF
TRAITS
1. DISTINCTION SHARED BY ALLPORT

a.) Common traits

- Possessed to some degree by all persons
- The reason of existence is that all people share a more or less
similar background of hereditary potential and are subjected to
similar patterns of social pressures to behave in similar ways.
Example:
1. Intelligence (although some people have more of it than
others.)
b.) Unique traits
• Possessed by one or a few individual
• Different in areas of interest and attitudes
• Examples: one person has an interest in butterflies whereas
another is favor of banning bare feet in public.

2. Traits that are differ in the modality through

manifestation or expression.
a.) ABILITY TRAITS
- describe an individual‘s skills and how efficiently he or she will be able
to work toward a goal.
- describe the effectiveness with which the person moves toward a goal.
- A trait that determines how well one succeeds in reaching a particular
goal.
-“HOW WELL WE DO WHAT WE DO.”

- Example: Intelligence
A. Crystallized intelligence – Accumulated
knowledge learned in school.)
B. fluid intelligence - Knowledge gained through
experience.

b.) TEMPERAMENT TRAITS

- Describe an individual's general style of behavior of responding to
the environment.
- A trait determines how reactive an individual will be. The speed,
energy and emotion with which the person moves toward a goal.
- A constitutional source trait responsible for a person’s level of
emotionality.
- “HOW WE DO WHAT WE DO”
- Example: how bold, easygoing or irritable a person is.

c.) DYNAMIC TRAITS

- Describe an individual’s motivation and interests.
- Set the response in motion to begin with.
- It is what motivates an individual.
- Concerned in setting the person toward a goal.
 - “WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO.”

Example: motivational factors such as ambition and interest in

acquiring knowledge or material possession.

THE DYNAMIC ORGANIZATION OF PERSONALITY

• Dynamic Trait- directly concerned with motivational just like
every personality theory.

• 3 KINDS OF DYNAMIC TRAIT

1.) ERG- permanent constitutional source traits that serve as the source
of energy for all goal-directed behavior.

- An innate and relatively permanent source trait roughly similar to

instinct.

- Has several characteristics ; it prompts the individual to pay

attention to certain kinds of stimuli rather than others

- Leads to emotional response to particular stimuli it provokes

activity that will bring the individual into contact with a goal.
2.) SENTIMENTS
-Environmental- mold source traits
-learned through interactions with the environment that motivate behavior.
- A learned dynamic source trait that is more general than an attitude.
- Arise out experience with various sociocultural institutions and customs.

3.) ATTITUDES – an individual’s interest in emotions and behavior

toward a person, object or event by encompassing emotions and actions.

- Overt expressions of interest marked by a particular level of

intensity.

- Define both by intensity and by a desire to pursue certain kinds of

goals.

- Overt or covert interest in pursuing a specific course of action in

response to a particular goal.
.

3.) A SURFACE TRAIT

- Can be inferred from observed behavior

- It is not explanatory concept: it is simply an observation that

group of behaviors characteristics tend to be correlated.

- It is represented by a series of behaviors that all seem to

belong together.

- Manifest in personality characteristics resulting from the

combination of two or more source traits.

Example: anxiety, indecision and irrational fears, may cluster to form

the surface trait of neuroticism due to a cluster of several elements.

b.) SOURCE TRAITS

 • The basic elements of personality.
• Stable, permanent.
• Have an explanatory role; identifiable only through factor analysis.
• Measured by the 16PF.
• Are constitutional, residing with in the person, or environmental
mold, deriving from experience.

1. CONSTITUTIONAL SOURCE TRAIT

- Depend an individual’s psychological characteristics.

Example: the use of alcohol can yield a number of influences on human

behavior such as careless, talkativeness and slurring of words.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL SOURCE TRAIT

- Learned from social and environmental experiences.

- Example: a career military officer shows a different pattern of

behavior from a jazz musician.

16 PERSONALITY FACTORS QUESTIONNARE

- A measure of fifteen temperament source traits and one ability
source trait (intelligence).

- Assesses people on 16 factors or traits, most of it are the

temperament traits.
 16 PERSONALITY FACTORS

Factor High scorer Low scorer

A Affectia: Sizia:
Affectia - Sizia outgoing reserved
B High Low intelligence:
intelligence intelligenc dull
e:
bright
C Higher Lower ego
Higher ego ego strength:
strength- Lower strength: less stable
ego strength emotionall emotionally
y stable
 E Dominanc Submissiveness:
Dominance- e: humble
Submissiveness Assertive
F Surgency: Desurgency:
Surgency- Happy go Sober, serious
Desurgency lucky
G Stronger Weaker
Stronger super super ego: superego:
ego strength - Conscienti expedient
Weaker ous
superego
strength

H Parmia: Threctia:
Parmia- Threctia bold shy
I Premsia: Harria:
Premsia- Harria Tender Tough minded
minded
L Protension Alaxia:
Protension- : trusting
Alaxia suspicious
M Autia : Praxernia:
Autia- Praxemia Imaginativ Practical
e
 N Shrewdne Artlessness:
Shrewdness- ss: forthright
Artlessness shrewd
O Apprehens Placid:
Apprehensive - ive: assurance
Placid Guilt
proneness
Q1 Radicalism Conservatism :
Radicalism : traditional
-Conservatism experimen
ting
Q2 Self Group
Self sufficiency- sufficiency adherence:
Group : group tied
adherence Self
sufficient
Q3 High self Low self concept:
High self concept: Casual
concept- Low Controlled
self concept
Q4 Ergic: Tension:
Ergic- Tension Tense Relaxed
Psychotherapy

BASIC FACTOR ANALYSIS

• A statistical procedure based on correlations between a numbers of
measures, which may then be explained in terms of underlying
factors.

• A mathematical technique for clarifying the co-relationships among a

particular set of variables , persons, or occasions and defining them
in terms of a smaller number of factors.

• A statistical procedure that simultaneously examine the relations

among multiple variables and factors.

METHODS USED BY CATTELL TO GET DATA ABOUT

PERSONALITY

A. L-DATA - life recorded data. Personality data obtained by studying

and rating the behavior of individual in everyday life.
B. Q-DATA - self report questionnaire ratings of personal
characteristics attitudes and interest.
C. T- DATA – personality data obtained through written or other test.
( thematic apperception test).

CRITICISMS OF
TRAIT THEORY

• Poor predictor of future behavior

Fails to address a person’s state which is temporary is a way of interacting

and dealing with the self and others.

• Does not address development

Based on statistics rather than other theory, it does not provide
explanation of personality.

• No means of change
It does not provide guidance in the changing of negative aspect of the trait.

WRITTEN REPORT BY:

KRISZA BERNADETTE P. VERZOSA

IVYJOY ANGCAYA

KAREN S. HERNANDEZ

OF B.S.PSYCHOLOGY 2-3

SUBMITTED TO INSTRUCTOR:
 MRS. MA. ALODIA C. MERCADO

REFERENCES:
Engler,Barbara .PERSONALITY THEORIES An introduction,
second edition. USA: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN CO.1985