Practice question · Multiple choice
People describe themselves as introverts or extraverts, as though these were two kinds of person. Trait theory insists extraversion is a dimension. Why does the distinction between a type and a dimension matter?
Hints
- Picture the distribution of extraversion scores in a population. Does it have two humps or one?
- Where would you draw the line between the two types, and how many people sit next to it?
Show the answer
D. Because the trait is distributed continuously, with no gap anywhere.
Why
The empirical question is what the distribution looks like, and the answer is a single hump with no dip to mark a boundary. Dichotomising files the 51st and 95th percentiles together and separates two people either side of an arbitrary line who resemble each other more than anyone else, which is why a substantial share of MBTI takers get a different type weeks later.
Practise The Big Five Trait Model
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More questions on The Big Five Trait Model
- Conscientiousness predicts job and academic performance across many different settings.
- Extraversion is the Big Five trait that best predicts job performance across almost every occupation.
- Across cultures, people become more conscientious and agreeable and less neurotic between twenty and fifty.…
- The Big Five were proposed by a theorist who argued personality should have five dimensions.
- Order the reasoning that 'introvert' is not a separate personality type.
- Classify each described person by the Big Five trait they score HIGH on.
- Sort each description by whether it reflects a HIGH or LOW scorer on the named trait.
- Extraversion and introversion are not two personality types. What are they?