Can We Describe People Accurately with Existing Personality Models?

“People’s personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not.”

Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Who are you and how might others describe your basic personality?

Personality refers to patterns of relatively enduring characteristics of behavior and the psychological classification of different types of individuals, ranging from normal (“bright side”) to abnormal (“dark side”).

Current research suggests that:

1. Personality measurements of the same factor or construct, by self-reports, other reports, or behavioral simulation, tend to be highly correlated (Nave, Sherman & Funder, 2008).
2. Personality traits have proven genetic heritability (Stubbe, Poshuman, Boomsma & De Geus, 2005).
3. Personality measures appear to be related systematically to biological parameters, such as those assessed by fMRI (DeYoung, Hirsh, Shane, Papademeteris, Rajeevan & Gray, 2010).
4. Personality traits are resistant to a large magnitude of change and relatively consistent over long periods of time (Ferguson, 2010).
5. Personality measures correlated significantly with meaningful life and health outcomes (e.g., Deary, Weiss & Batty, 2011).

Interestingly, in the last few years some psychologists are suggesting that there are “higher order” personality concepts that do a better job of explaining complex behavior of all of us at work and home.  In fact different, somewhat overlapping, models have popped up that are worth understanding more about.

There are two models would be ones that help explain current theories of personality like the “five factor” model (FFM) that is widely accepted but certainly not without some controversy. These two “meta-personality” models are referred to as Core Self Evaluations (CSE) and Psychological Capital (PsychCap).  Both groups of researchers have new measures to get at these concepts and have done solid research to demonstrate they add incremental validity (they are even more predictive) over standard personality measures and factors.

Core Self-Evaluation (CSE)

Individuals who score highly on measures of core self-evaluations have been shown to demonstrate high performance, career success, and satisfaction in their job ((Judge, T. (2009). Core self-evaluations and work success. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 58-62)). Core Self-Evaluation (CSE) is described as a person’s fundamental, bottom line self-perception of his or her abilities. It includes four traits:

• Self-Efficacy: one’s estimate of his/her capabilities to perform across many contexts.
• Locus of Control: an individual’s belief in his/her ability to control his/her environment.
• Emotional Stability: the lacking of neuroticism (e.g., anxiety, anger, and other negative affects).
• Self-Esteem: the approval of oneself and the degree to which one sees him/herself as capable, significant, successful, and worthy.

Presumably, these traits impact clients’ orientation of behavioral change. Clients who feel like they can control the events of their lives, rather than, be the effect of the events are more likely to accept coaching and sustain change. On the other hand, clients who have a low core self-evaluation are likely to resist or fail intervention attempts.

While only a decade old, research on CSE explains much of the overlap among these trait measures while also predicting many work and other applied outcomes better than each of its individual traits. CSE has been found to be correlated with a variety of job, career, and health outcomes. Individuals with high levels of CSE perform better on their jobs (the average correlation coefficient of the four core traits in predicting diverse job performance outcomes ranges from .23-.30), are more successful in their careers, are more satisfied with their jobs and lives, report lower levels of stress and conflict, cope more effectively with setbacks, earn significantly higher levels of income, and report higher physical health and psychological well-being (Judge, 2009).

Psychological Capital

Recent empirical evidence that psychological capital can be used to explain how employees are motivated to acquire, maintain and foster the necessary resources to attain successful performance outcomes ((Peterson, S., Luthans, F., Avolio, B., Walumbwa, F. & Zhang, Z. (2011) Psychological capital and employee performance: A latent growth modeling approach. Personnel Psychology, 64, 427-450)).  Specifically, an individual’s motivation and choices towards goal initiation and completion can be explained by four psychological resources that include self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience which in turn affect both motivation and performance.  Psychological capital has been defined as having more measurement stability than emotional states, but not as stable as personality consisting of four psychological traits that increase the probability of success based on motivated effort, persistence and goal attainment/performance (Peterson et al., 2011):

• Self Efficacy
• Hope
• Resilience
• Optimism

The first component of this higher-order core construct is self-efficacy which is defined as the confidence and belief about one’s abilities to motivate both internal and external resources to execute tasks and contribute to high performance.  Second, is hope, which is defined as a positive motivational state that facilitates goal directed energy and success.  Third is optimism, which is defined as an explanatory style that helps interpret negative and positive events in a way to optimize goal success as well as a positive orientation towards the future. Fourth is resilience which is defined as the ability to bounce back from failure or challenges.  Psychological capital has been demonstrated to be a significant predictor of job performance and work success and may be changed based on developmental interventions,  repeated feedback from leaders, peers or even the job itself (Peterson et al., 2011).

Implications for Coaching

Beyond being interesting, what exactly can coaches do with having greater understanding of these two “meta-personality” models?  Both seem to have some important elements that overlap with each other (e.g., confidence, control, not being neurotic and possessing hardiness).

One way to integrate both is to look at what coaches actually do with their clients ((Nowack, K. (2008). Coaching for Stress: StressScan. Psychometrics in Coaching Association for Coaching, UK, pp. 254-274)).  In just about any coaching intervention, goals might focus on the past, present or future (e.g., helping to move through being laid off, enhancing skills to continue being successful on the job or exploring ways to be more balance with work and family demands).

I would suggest that the “core challenges” of coaching might be consistent with both the models of Core Self Evaluations and Psychological Capital and described as:

1. Closure
2. Control
3. Hope

We even have a scale called Cognitive Hardiness that is part of a broader measure called StressScan that seems to “roll up” both of these “meta-personality” concepts and also shows significant associations with immune response, job burnout, depression and happiness in many published studies (if you want a free sample assessment just contact me at ken@envisiaonline.com).

For now, I think I will just review my MBTI, FIRO-B, DiSC, NEO, Hogan Personality Inventory, California Personality Inventory, Facet5, Strength Deployment Inventory, Thomas Kilman Conflict Style inventory and a few others to see just how well they summarize my own personality….Be well…

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)