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Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles

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Abstract

Taxonomic “personality” models are widely used in research and applied fields. This article applies the Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) to scrutinise the three methodological steps that are required for developing comprehensive “personality” taxonomies: 1) the approaches used to select the phenomena and events to be studied, 2) the methods used to generate data about the selected phenomena and events and 3) the reduction principles used to extract the “most important” individual-specific variations for constructing “personality” taxonomies. Analyses of some currently popular taxonomies reveal frequent mismatches between the researchers’ explicit and implicit metatheories about “personality” and the abilities of previous methodologies to capture the particular kinds of phenomena toward which they are targeted. Serious deficiencies that preclude scientific quantifications are identified in standardised questionnaires, psychology’s established standard method of investigation. These mismatches and deficiencies derive from the lack of an explicit formulation and critical reflection on the philosophical and metatheoretical assumptions being made by scientists and from the established practice of radically matching the methodological tools to researchers’ preconceived ideas and to pre-existing statistical theories rather than to the particular phenomena and individuals under study. These findings raise serious doubts about the ability of previous taxonomies to appropriately and comprehensively reflect the phenomena towards which they are targeted and the structures of individual-specificity occurring in them. The article elaborates and illustrates with empirical examples methodological principles that allow researchers to appropriately meet the metatheoretical requirements and that are suitable for comprehensively exploring individuals’ “personality”.

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Notes

  1. For the term experiencing, see the section on The Psyche in part I below.

  2. To appear in the Annals of Theoretical Psychology, vols. 12, 13.

  3. The term “personality” put in quotation marks in this trilogy indicates that its definitions vary and that different researchers use this term to refer to different kinds of phenomena (see Uher 2014a).

  4. The term “non-physical” is put in quotation marks in the TPS-Paradigm because the term denotes properties that are not simply contrasted against the physical but are complementary instead (see Uher 2014a).

  5. The term psychical as opposed to psychological is explained below (see part I, section on The Psyche).

  6. Digital data can be conceived as immaterial physical phenomena. But as they can be perceived and used only through the material phenomena to which they are systematically related and bound (e.g., computer screen and other hardware), this specification is irrelevant for the issues explored here.

  7. In the TPS-Paradigm, the terms morphology and physiology denote the organismal structures and functions, in and of themselves, rather than the scientific disciplines that explore these phenomena.

  8. The meaning of the term mediation in the TPS-Paradigm refers to the Latin mediare, to be in the middle, not to the meaning established in statistics (where it is differentiated from moderation).

  9. Culture is also often conceived of as “environment” or context, but as it denotes semiotically mediated systems of socially shared meaning (Geertz 1973; Weber 1904) the TPS-Paradigm conceives of cultures as semiotic representations that are explored accordingly.

  10. Previously called the “environmental situation” (Uher 2011a, b, 2013; Uher et al. 2013a).

  11. Previously labelled “manifest system approaches” (Uher 2013) and “bottom-up approaches (Uher 2008a).

  12. Translated original: “Approcher des concepts constitués de mots avec un outil (la langue) constitué de mots fait qu’on distingue mal l’outil de mesure du phénomène observé” (Lahlou 1998 p. 52).

  13. Translated original: “Übergreifende Rahmentheorie” (Laucken 1974, p. 24)

  14. Translated original: “Erklärungsrepertoire, Erklärungsinstrumentarium” (Laucken 1974, p. 23)

  15. Translated original: “La langue, principal outil de description et de raisonnement cognitif, ‘scientifique’, ne représente qu’une petite partie, ou plutôt une projection très partielle, de la vie mentale du sujet.” (Lahlou 1998, p. 135).

  16. Previously called the Behavioural Repertoire Approach (Uher 2008a, b; Uher and Asendorpf 2008; Uher et al. 2008) or the Behavioural Repertoire x Environmental Situations Approach (BRxES-Approach; Uher 2011a, b, 2013; Uher et al. 2013a, b).

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editor Jaan Valsiner for the invitation to write this trilogy and I also thank him, Jochen Fahrenberg, Sheldon Zedeck and six anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts (previously entitled “Methodological approaches to personality taxonomies: The Behavioural Repertoire x Environmental Situations Approach—A non-lexical alternative”). The views expressed herein are mine and should not be attributed to any of the persons who provided commentaries. I gratefully acknowledge support from a research grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (Grant Number UH249/1-1).

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  1. Department of Psychology, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK

    Jana Uher

  2. Comparative Differential and Personality Psychology, Free University Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Jana Uher

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Uher, J. Developing “Personality” Taxonomies: Metatheoretical and Methodological Rationales Underlying Selection Approaches, Methods of Data Generation and Reduction Principles. Integr. psych. behav. 49, 531–589 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-014-9280-4

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