Structure of act-report data: Is the five-factor model of personality recaptured?

Abstract

We examined the correspondence between the structure of act-report data and 5-factor models emerging from trait-rating data. Twenty categories were selected as markers for the 5-factor model and retrospective act reports were constructed for the target categories: One hundred eighteen men and women comprising 59 dating couples completed self-based and observer-based act reports. Several factor analyses tested different assumptions. Retaining total act performance (TAP) produced a blend of the traditional 5 factors. Removing TAP closely reproduced the 5-factor model in both principal-components and procrustes analyses. Correlations between the derived act factors and trait ratings from 6 data sources support a reinterpretation of the traditional trait labels. Discussion focuses on the implications of different assumptions on the formulation of a basic model of personality structure. Identifying a basic set of individual differences has been a central concern of personality psychology for decades (

Culture and the behavioural manifestations of traits: an application of the Act Frequency Approach

“…Nonetheless, the AFA has been reasonably successful in delineating acts associated with traits such as dominance, submissiveness, aloofness, gregariousness, impulsivity, social intelligence, creativity, and indeed each of the Big Five dimensions (Amelang, Herboth, & Oefner, 1991;Botwin & Buss, 1989;Buss & Craik, 1983a;Rosero, Luengo, Carrillo-de-la-Peña, & Otero-López, 1994;Willmann, Feldt, & Amelang, 1997). Furthermore, scales constructed by aggregating acts for particular traits into composites have generally correlated well with traditional inventory measures of the traits (Amelang et al, 1991;Angleitner & Demtröder, 1988;Botwin & Buss, 1989;Buss & Craik, 1983a;Rosero et al, 1994). Additional studies have found that act self-reports, although retrospective in nature, can converge with observers' ratings of on-line behavior (Gosling, John, Robins, & Craik, 1998) and retrospective ratings of corresponding traits (Amelang et al, 1991).…”

“…One can also question the AFA's reliance on respondents' ratings of the prototypicality of acts for various traits as the sole basis for selecting acts for assessment purposes, rather than more traditional psychometric criteria such as item-total correlations or external validity. Nonetheless, the AFA has been reasonably successful in delineating acts associated with traits such as dominance, submissiveness, aloofness, gregariousness, impulsivity, social intelligence, creativity, and indeed each of the Big Five dimensions (Amelang, Herboth, & Oefner, 1991;Botwin & Buss, 1989;Buss & Craik, 1983a;Rosero, Luengo, Carrillo-de-la-Peña, & Otero-López, 1994;Willmann, Feldt, & Amelang, 1997). Furthermore, scales constructed by aggregating acts for particular traits into composites have generally correlated well with traditional inventory measures of the traits (Amelang et al, 1991;Angleitner & Demtröder, 1988;Botwin & Buss, 1989;Buss & Craik, 1983a;Rosero et al, 1994).…”

“…3 We used the AFA as a framework for comparing the behavioral manifestations of traits in these two cultures. We began by compiling existing act statements for traits associated with the Big Five dimensions (Angleitner et al, 1990;Botwin & Buss, 1989;Moskowitz, 1994;Wu & Clark, 2003). In so doing, we bypassed two steps that are frequently applied in the AFA, act nomination (i.e., initial generation of acts associated with particular traits) and ratings of the prototypicality of the acts for the designated traits (Buss & Craik, 1983a).…”

“…We selected Big-Five-related acts that had been successfully used in previous studies, which included acts from the following sources and categories: (a) for Extraversion: Botwin and Buss' (1989) The Botwin and Buss (1989) items were modified from the third person to the first person for self-report use and some items were adapted to eliminate situational references (e.g., the act "Went to the bar to socialize" was changed to "Went out to socialize"). This was done because we intend to use these acts in future studies of cross-situational consistency, in which participants will indicate the situation(s) in which they performed the acts (e.g., at home, at work, etc.).…”

“…In previous AFA studies, respondents have typically rated their frequency of doing the acts at any point in the past, that is, with no time frame specified (e.g., Amelang et al, 1991;Borkenau, 1986;Buss & Craik, 1983a). Alternatively, time periods of longer than one month have been specified (e.g., three months; Botwin & Buss, 1989). Longer time frames raise greater concerns about recall accuracy and could make the behavior ratings less distinctive from trait ratings.…”