In this article we reply to the issues raised by the three commentaries on
Ferguson's (2012) article. Watson argues that the four traits identified
by Ferguson (2012) – health
anxiety, alexithymia, empathy and Type D – do not lie outside the Five
Factor Model (FFM). We present factor analytic data showing that health anxiety
forms a separate factor from positive and negative affectivity, alexithymia
forms a factor outside the FFM and while emotional empathy loads with
agreeableness, cognitive empathy forms a separate factor outside the FFM. Across
these analyses there was no evidence for a general factor of personality. We
also show that health anxiety, empathic facets and alexithymia show incremental
validity over FFM traits. However, the evidence that Type D lies outside the FFM
is less clear. Matthews (2012) argues
that traits have a more distributed influence on cognitions and that attention
is not part of Ferguson's framework. We agree; but Ferguson's
original statement concerned where traits have their maximal effect. Finally,
Haslam et al. suggest that traits should be viewed from a dynamic interactionist
perspective. This is in fact what Ferguson
(2012) suggested and we go on to highlight that traits can also
influence group processes.
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