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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
Source :
European Journal of Personality; Nov2020, Vol. 34 Issue 6, p1175-1201, 27p
Publication Year :
2020

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 and behavioural measurements. Developing a new generation of psychometric tools thus provides many immediate research opportunities. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
08902070
Volume :
34
Issue :
6
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
European Journal of Personality
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
147673699
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2311