Personality and Intellectual Competence

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Adrian Furnham

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780805851366
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135608453
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of personality and intelligence, as well as covering other variables underlying academic and occupational performance. Personality and Intellectual Competence is a unique attempt to develop a comprehensive model to understand individual difference by relating major personality dimensions to cognitive ability measures, academic and job performance, and self-assessed abilities, as well as other traditional constructs such as leadership and creativity. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in personality, intelligence, and the prediction of future achievement in general.

Personality and Intellectual Competence is an outstanding account of the relationship between major individual differences constructs. With its informative summary of the last century of research in the field, this book provides a robust and systematic theoretical background for understanding the psychological determinants of future achievement. The authors have sought to combine technical expertise with applied interests, making this a groundbreaking theoretical tool for anyone concerned with the scientific prediction of human performance.

Chapter

1

Overview: Predicting Future Achievement

For more than a century, psychologists have attempted to identify and understand systematic, observable differences between individuals that seem stable over time. Among these individual differences, personality and intelligence have received widespread attention, not only in an academic, but also in a lay, forum. Values, beliefs, and attitudes are all important, but may seem systematically related to the more fundamental and stable factors of abilities (intelligence) and traits (personality).

Loosely defined, personality refers to stable patterns of behaviors or traits that predispose an individual to act in a specific (more or less consistent) manner. We often describe and explain our own behavior and that of others in terms of personality traits: “she is responsible,” “he is very creative,” “she is very shy,” or “he is very talkative.” In contrast, intelligence refers to an individual’s capacity to learn new things and solve novel (Gf) as well as old (Gc) problems. It is also often referred to as accumulated knowledge and is used widely in everyday life to describe ourselves and others: “he is very bright,” “she is very knowledgeable,” or “he learns quickly.” In that sense, intelligence could be regarded as a fundamental characteristic of an individual and considered part of personality (as has indeed been the case; see Barratt, 1995; Cattell, 1971; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985). Nevertheless, methodological and applied issues, concerning the way in which personality and intelligence have been assessed and measured, as well as the purpose for which they are usually examined, have determined a major division in the field of individual differences. As a consequence, the study of personality and intelligence has followed two different research paths, and there has been little significant communication between researchers from one field and the other, at least until recently (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2004a, 2004b; Zeidner & Matthews, 2000).

This book is essentially aimed at integrating the concepts of personality and intelligence in what could be defined as an attempt to provide a conceptual framework for understanding individual differences underlying intellectual competence. In that sense, it plans to go beyond initial efforts of “bridging the gap” between both constructs by setting the empirical and theoretical foundations for a comprehensive model for understanding individual differences research and predicting future achievement. This model is based not only on the interface between personality and intelligence (as traditionally conceived in terms of psychometric scores of standardized inventories or tests; see chap. 4), but also academic performance (see chap. 5), and subjectively assessed intelligence (see chap. 6).

Although mainly theoretical, this book is not only aimed at experts in the area of individual differences, but to a wider public, which includes social science students with an interest in human performance, and anyone interested in the prediction of intellectual competence as well as the understanding of the psychological theories underlying individual differences in intellectual competence.

Starting from an introductory examination of the topics of personality (chap. 2) and intelligence (chap. 3) as two major independent areas of research in psychology (or what is usually referred to as differential psychology or individual differences), it continues with an in-depth discussion of the core of this book—that is, the personality–intelligence interface (conceptualizing intellectual competence in terms of the traditional psychometric approach; chap. 4), as well as academic and work performance (chap. 5). Subjective indicators of intellectual competence, notably self-assessed—as opposed to psychometrically measured—intelligence, are the topic of another major section (chap. 6). Finally (chap. 7), constructs such as leadership, creativity, and art judgment, not traditionally associated with individual differences in intellectual competence, are examined in terms of their theoretical and applied implications for the development of a wider conceptual framework to understand various individual differences in human intellectual competence—specifically, whether they represent a fertile area of research for differential psychologists concerned with the integration of cognitive and noncognitive determinants of future achievement. Concluding remarks are presented in a final chapter (chap. 8).

Chapter

2

Personality Traits

As with most widely used words, the definition of personality may seem both complex (particularly compared with the easiness of its use) and unnecessary. Further, because of the ubiquitous use of the term, it may almost be impossible to encompass all connotations. It is, however, clear that a scientific approach to the study of personality should provide a clear and comprehensive definition of the term beyond the discrepancies of prescientific knowledge and the lay uses (and misuses) of the term. Luckily (as it is also the case with most frequently used terms), definitions of personality have already been attempted, in many cases by experts in the field. Because this book only focuses on the relationship between personality traits and intellectual competence, we suggest that readers with an interest in personality consult any of the excellent books on the topic (e.g., Hogan, Johnson, & Briggs, 1997; Matthews & Deary, 1998; Pervin, 1996). Here we only provide an overview of the major issues in personality research, its history, and its assessment.

The study of personality traits is concerned with the structural differences and similarities among individuals. Starting from a general classification of these stable and observable patterns of behavior (taxonomy), it attempts to assess the extent to which individuals differ on these dimensions to predict differences in other observable behaviors, outcomes, or constructs, such as happiness, health, reaction time, or academic and job performance. Thus, personality refers to an individual’s description in general and provides a universal taxonomy or framework to compare individuals and account for everybody’s individuality at the same time.

Traits are used to describe and explain behavior—they are internal (associated with characteristics of the individual, rather than the situation or context) and causal (influence behavior). From the first known attempts to identify major individual differences and elaborate a taxonomy of personality (usually acknowledged to the ancient Greek classification of humours and temperaments) to the current state-of-the-art differential and behavioral genetic approaches, personality theorists have attempted to identify, assess, explain, and predict systematic differences and similarities between individuals, looking for the fundamental and general causes of human behavior. Specifically, they have aimed to (a) identify the main dimensions in which people differ or can be compared, (b) test that these dimensions remain relatively stable over time, and (c) explain the etiological basis of these universal and stable differences among individuals (Cooper, 1998). The forthcoming sections provide an introduction and overview to personality research. After this introduction to the topic of personality, we examine the salient taxonomies or systems of personality traits, which have dominated the field for decades. The final model to be examined in this chapter, the Big Five personality traits, is the focus of most of this book, specifically in relation to psychometric intelligence (chap. 4) and academic performance (chap. 5).

2.1 History of Personality Traits

As is the case in most modern disciplines, the beginnings of personality theory date back to the times of the ancient Greeks. This conceptualization of personality traits, credited to Hippocrates (460–370 BC), was an attempt to classify the major descriptors underlying individual differences in terms of four different types, which were a function of biological differences in fluids or “humours”—namely, the sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic temperaments. According to the Greek physician Galen (130–200 AD), who reinterpreted Hippocrates’ theory, differences in personality were a direct reflection of constitutional differences in the body.

The sanguine personality described enthusiastic, positive, and cheerful individuals, satisfied with life and generally enjoying good mental as well as physical health. This type of personality was associated with high levels of blood supply (or the strength of the blood), hence the term sanguine from the Latin sanguis (blood). A second type of personality, the choleric one, was used to characterize aggressive, tense, volatile, and hot-tempered individuals and was believed to be caused by levels of the bile chemical released by the gall bladder during the processes of digestion. A third personality type, the phlegmatic, referred to individuals with a tendency to be dull, lazy, and apathetic, and who live a slowly paced life. This personality type was associated with the mucus from the lungs or phlegm, typical during flu or lung infection. Phlegmatic individuals are the opposite of sanguine and choleric ones, the former being cold (both physically and psychologically), and the two latter types being warm. The fourth type of personality (also believed to be warm), the melancholic one, appears more familiar to our everyday language surely because it is the origin of a widely used word in our times. Melancholic individuals were believed to be chronically sad or depressed, reflective, and have a pessimistic approach to life. The biological origin of melancholy was believed to be the malfunctioning of an organ called black bile, but this idea was probably abandoned after the middle ages. Figure 2.1 depicts a representation of the ancient Greek typology and Galen’s interpretation of the four types of temperaments as described here.

Fig. 2.1. Ancient Greek classification of humours and personality types (after Hippocrates and Galen).

Despite the preliminary and prescientific basis of the ancient Greek theory of personality, their cl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Overview: Predicting Future Achievement
• 2. Personality Traits
• 3. Intellectual Ability
• 4. The Personality–Intelligence Interface
• 5. Personality and Intelligence as Predictors of Academic and Work Performance
• 6. Self-Concepts and Subjectively Assessed Intelligence (SAI)
• 7. Individual Differences and Real-Life Outcomes
• 8. Overall Summary and Conclusions
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index