Personality psychology: Encyclopedia II - Personality psychology - A typology of personality models

Personality psychology - A typology of personality models

Modern personality models may generally be broken into three types: factorial models, typologies and circumplexes.

Factorial models posit that there are dimensions along which human personality differs. The main purpose of a personality model is thus to define the dimensions of personality. Factor analysis is a primary tool of theorists composing factorial models. Such models arise directly from a classical individual differences approach to the study of human personality. Goldberg's Big Five model described below may be the best-known example of this type of theory.

Typologies or type models arise naturally from some theories that posit types of people. For example, astrological signs represented a well-known, pre-scientific typological model. Typological models posit a relatively small number of modal types and possibly some interaction between the types. The Jungian typology implemented in the MBTI and discussed below may best represent the typology approach.

Circumplex models may resemble factorial or type models but further specify a relationship between the different types or factors. Typically, some types or factors are more related than others and can be presented on a polygon. John L. Holland's RIASEC or Holland Codes (see below) may be the best-known example of this type of theory. Correlations of personality scores should resemble a simplex form where opposing types have low correlation and close types have a high correlation.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "A typology of personality models", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki