Raymond Cattell did not claim to have created or invented his personality types as a convenient tool for describing personality. He had discovered them as Columbus discovered America. He believed that his 16 personality traits had "always" existed as basic building blocks of a person's psyche, and he had simply uncovered them using unassailable, logical, and mathematical methods. He called his 16 personality traits the "Universal Index" and named them systematically, as chemists named the elements of the periodic table.
Unlike the Rorschach and the MMPI, the 16PF test was created independently of psychiatric hospitals, and it is - at least from the start - aimed at normal people. It is not intended to detect mental disorders, but simply to determine which of Cattels 16 ancient natural personality traits best describe the test taker.
1. Cattel and 16PF
A widely used personality test is the Cattell 16PF Scales (16 Personality Features), and the tests developed from it.
Raymond Cattell was born in England in 1905. In 1937 he was invited to Columbia University in the USA as a professor of psychology, then he came to Clark University and later to Harvard. During World War II he developed a test for the selection of officers for the US military. Immediately after the war he developed his Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, which quickly became a great success. In 1949 he founded his company, the "Institute for Personality and Ability Testing", which aimed to develop and market the test.
He started with a list of more than 18,000 words that described personality found in the literature. He manually reduced this list to about 4,500 words and statements. Using factor analysis he reduced the list further and found 16 "Personality Features" (PF) that describe human personality.
Raymond Cattell 1905-1998
On this basis, Cattell developed a standardized test that can be used to assess a person's personality according to these 16 factors.
Factor analysis is a type of correlation analysis with multiple variables. It measures the degree to which two variables are related to each other by tending to increase or decrease together. For example, if "frequency of exercise" and "blood pressure level" are measured on a large group of people, then the inter-correlation between these two variables would indicate the degree to which "exercise" and "blood pressure" are related to each other.
Factors that correlate will appear as clouds, "clusters". Words and statements that are different but convey the same meaning are assumed to have a close correlation and therefore will appear in the same "cluster", and they can therefore be reduced to a single statement.
Cattell defined personality as "that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation."
16PF group profiles for pilots, artists and writers measured with the 16 Personality Features.
When the test is given to groups of people from the same profession, group profiles can emerge. For example, writers tend to be very imaginative, while pilots are unsentimental, and artists are experimental and imaginative.
Cattel had a fundamentally engineering and mathematical approach to personality. He developed his test independently of the psychiatric hospitals. In this way, the 16PF test differs from Eysenck, Rorschach and MMPI. Cattel's test is thus aimed at normal people from the start, and it was not originally designed to reveal pathological mental deviations. One could say that it has a somewhat healthier approach to personality.
2. The 16PF test
In the fifth edition of the Cattell 16PF Scales from 1993, the test subject answers 185 multiple choice questions, which are formulated in simple and non-alarming language.
The test subject is asked to answer (a) for "true", (b) for "do not know" or (c) for "false". "Do not know" can be expanded to reflect different degrees of uncertainty.
Like the MMPI, the 16PF contains some scales that are intended to describe the quality of an answer.
The Impression Management (IM) scale is intended to reveal answers where the test subject may have made himself better or worse than he is. A high score reflects a preponderance of socially desirable answers and a low score reflects a preponderance of socially undesirable answers. A high score may also be due to the test subject having actually been honest, but having answered based on his own self-image, which, however, does not have to be identical to his actual behavior. A low score on the IM indicates an unusual willingness to admit undesirable traits or behaviors and may occur when a test subject is unusually discouraged or under stress.
The Acquiescence (ACQ) scale measures the extent to which the test subject responds affirmatively to statements, regardless of what is asked. A high score may indicate that the test subject has misunderstood the questions, is answering randomly, has a vague self-image, or has a "yea-yea" response style, a primus optimus style in which he accepts whatever comes his way.
16PF test form - today one would probably expect a computer program. Photo: Hoja de respuesta 16 PF
The Infrequency (INF) scale identifies test takers who consistently show indecisiveness by repeatedly answering the middle b-answers and not the a- or c-answers. This may indicate that the test taker has difficulty understanding what is meant or has tried to avoid making a bad impression by choosing the middle answer rather than one of the more definitive answers.
Like most other personality tests, many of the questions are context-free. The classic example is "do you like socializing?" The test taker will think: what socializing? Is it a rave party in a dark place in the inner city, a noisy bar or a barbecue party with good friends? An analytically minded test taker will often feel frustrated during such tests because he has to decide on a lot of things without being given information about the context and details. He may feel irritated and motivated to answer (b) many times, which is the middle answer, undecided or don't know.
Cattel's 16 Personality Features, Cattel and his colleagues conducted extensive international research with the aim of identifying and mapping all basic descriptions of personality. Their aim was systematically to map the widest possible range of personality concepts in the belief that "all aspects of human personality that are or have been of importance, interest or usefulness have already been recorded in language". It is the famous and infamous Lexical hypothesis that states that if there is a word for a concept, then it also exists.
4. Five global scales
Raymond Cattell then again used factor analysis on his 16 personality traits, and thus reduced them to the five second-order personality traits, which are called global personality traits. They also score in both directions:
The five global 16PF factors.
It can be seen in the first column from the left, "introverted / extraverted", that there are five basic 16PF factors that motivate individuals to approach others or create distance from others, namely A Interpersonal Warmth, F Liveliness, H Social Boldness, N Openness and Q2 Self-sufficiency. It can be seen in the second column from the left, "emotional-stability / anxiety" that there are four basic factors that create anxiety, namely C Emotional Stability, L Alertness, O Fearfulness and Q4 Tension, and so on.
Some 16PF factors are used several times, while B Mindset is not used in any global 16PF factor.
However, a complete 16PF personality test can be very comprehensive. Many companies are therefore said to prefer a simpler version that highlights the characteristics they want to know about, namely the three global factors:
Very few have a complete extravert or complete introvert personality. Most are somewhere in between. Persons are characterized on a scale between two extremes.
Highly extraverted persons are party lions, who get everything from others, attitudes, opinions as well as knowledge. They have a strong need for social contact all the time. They do not have any independent thoughts. As soon as they are alone they will immediately start to feel bored.
Extroverted person.
Extraverted people find it hard to concentrate on detailed work. They feel that the world goes past them, while they sit messing in these unimportant details.
Extraverted persons will react to stress by turning aggressive. One can say they try to solve the problems socially.
It goes without saying that many actors and politicians are very outgoing personalities, who are really good at social interaction. They simply can not stay away from the limelight.
Highly introverted people want to be left in peace to take care of their own projects and to think their own thoughts. It's not that they do not like social contact. Humans are social beings, and the introverted personalities are too. But they simply do not have the same desperate need for constant social interaction as the extraverts have.
The famous Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, was very introverted. It is said that when he gave lectures at the university, he could completely forget the students' presence. Now and then he stood with his back against the auditorium facing the blackboard and muttered something for himself, while he scratched some equations on the blackboard, which the students could not see.
Introvert person.
Introverts have no problem with detailed work. They feel that detailed work is the first line of defense against the insensitive reality with its hard laws of nature.
Unlike extroverts, they will react to stress by withdrawing into themselves. They will, so to speak, try to solve problems individually. They will become more silent and professorially absent-minded.
It is important not to confuse introversion with anxiety.
Introverts have their own inner strength because they have thought things through. They can withstand stress for longer than very extroverted people.
It is obvious that if you are looking for a position as a salesperson, you should score well on extroversion, and if you are looking for a position as a case manager in an IT development company, you should score well on introversion. However, the question is whether it is a good idea to become a salesperson if you are actually somewhat introverted, and conversely, to become an IT case manager if you are actually quite extroverted.
6. Level of Anxiety
Most people know the feeling of anxiety and nervousness in an exam situation.
The problem of overly anxious people is that they feel that they are in exam all the time. And not only that. They do not know what they are examined in. They feel they have lost track of their life.
A film poster for Kafka's The Trial by Orson Welles - Spanish version.
In Kafka's novel "The Trial", the main character, Josef K, is summoned to a court of law unknown to him. He is never told what he is accused of. He is simply informed that it is a very serious case. He ends up realising that there must be something to it, although he does not find out what his crime is. He is eventually executed by two polite gentlemen dressed in black suits.
It must be something along the lines of what excessively anxious people feel.
Woody Allen has often portrayed the neurotic and excessively anxious person in films. He desperately tries to navigate life and talk his way out of any responsibility.
Companies and recruitment consultants will go to great lengths to screen out applicants with excessively high levels of anxiety. This is one of the main purposes of a personality test.
It would be a disaster for a recruitment agency if they were to accidentally recommend an applicant who later turns out to have real anxiety problems. Therefore, they will most likely not take any chances in this regard. If there is the slightest suspicion of excessive levels of anxiety, they will point to another applicant, probably regardless of other qualifications of the first applicant.
Excessive anxiety.
It is very important to be able to identify statements that will score on excessive anxiety so that you do not score on them by mistake.
Statements that score on anxiety will be something with a certain abdication of responsibility and the feeling that everyone else is actually much better than you.
A statement that the reason for bad grades was nervousness, or that the teacher did not like you, will probably score on excessive anxiety.
A statement that you have not been treated fairly in connection with such and such will also certainly score on anxiety.
7. Level of Self-confidence
Assertiveness is not an either/or. It can be described on a scale from completely dominant to totally self-doubting.
Adolf Hitler and Mohammed must be assumed to have been one hundred percent dominant persons. They received a revelation early in their life and thereafter they had a patent on truth. They were completely sure that they were always right.
A very self-confident young person.
Completely dominating people are impervious to any form of logic, reasoning or empirical data. They may have heard about arguments and logic - in theory, but basically, they do not know, what it is good for. They already know the truth, why make it so complicated?
Mohammed did not have the slightest doubt, that the whole world in the very end would profess to his beliefs. Adolf did not have a shred of doubt that he would win. It was their extreme self-confidence, which gave them their impressive mental power over their followers.
Completely dominating persons spell binds their many supporters thanks to their intense ardent beliefs. They have only little use for actual arguments.
You will often see a kind of symbiosis between a highly dominant type and a large group of anxious and less self-confident persons. They need each other. The anxious persons feel that the dominant's unshakable certainty in all matters, gives them a fixed point in life, and the dominant needs to be admired and applauded. This short-circuits the organization, and analytical and constructive initiatives are suppressed.
Highly dominant types can be found everywhere. Adolf and Mohammed had some limited success, but it is not the rule. They see the light, seize the power in their union, parish, faculty, company or nation, and in sovereign contempt for the cruel merciless reality with its ruthless laws of nature, they lead their devoted followers and their entire organizations towards stagnation and defeat.
A self-confident and a less self-confident person got senseless drunk together. They went to a bar, threw off all their clothes and danced naked on the tables singing dirty songs.
The next day they could not remember anything. When the worst headache was gone, they met some of their friends, who told them about the evening's events.
The self-confident person gave a tough smile and shook his head. "My goodness. We were really that drunk?". Together with the night's spectators, he could laugh at the details.
The less self-confident nude dancer turned glowing red in his face, when he realized, what he had done. He turned around and ran back to his room. He locked his door from inside and did not come out the next several days.
A self-confident young man. Photo Twitter.
A very self-confident person does not immediately believe that he has any personal secrets that others should not know about. That is, except for passwords and such. He feels that he is actually very handsome and smart and intelligent and all that. It can't hurt to show it off a little. Well, he has danced naked around the tables in a bar. I probably shouldn't do that too often, he will think.
Self-confident people do not believe that there is any contradiction between what they think about themselves and what others think about them. They do not mind that others are interested in them.
A less self-confident person immediately believes that he has his own quirks and his own thoughts. He fears that if others knew them, they would not accept him.
Most companies are interested in applicants who have enough self-confidence to take the initiative when necessary. They must be able to give a speech and generally represent the company in a dignified manner. But they are often afraid that very dominant people will create trouble and annoy customers.
8. Typical Questions in a 16PF Type Personality Test
In 16PF, the test subject is expected to answer (a) for "true", (b) for "do not know" or (c) for "false".
Statements in 16PF are generally not easy to see through.
1. "I occasionally tell strangers things that seem to me important, regardless of whether they ask about them."
(a) scores most likely on "E Dominance" as it requires a certain aggressiveness to address strangers unsolicited. Moreover, probably on "H Social Boldness" for obvious reasons, the latter supporting the global scale "Introvert / Extravert" in this case Extravert.
2. "I find it embarrassing to have praise or complements bestowed on me."
(a) probably scores on "O Apprehension" and thus on the global scale "Emotional
Stable / Anxious" in this case anxiety. A (c) will score at the other end of the scale, "emotional stability".
3. "An evening with a quiet hobby appeals to me more than a lively party".
(a) scores safely on "F Lively" because of the words "Serious, silent". Which factor supports the global scale Introvert / Extravert. In this case, Introvert. A (c) would surely score on "cheerful, impulsive" and Extravert on the global scale.
4. "I would hate to be where there wouldn't be a lot of people to talk to."
(a) will surely score on "Q2 Self-sufficiency" in this case "group-oriented", on the global scale "Introvert / Extravert" it will then count clearly on Extravert.
5. "I make smart, sarcastic remarks to people if I think they deserve it. a. Generally b. Sometimes c. Never."
(a) contains a certain aggressiveness which points to "E Dominance", which supports the global scale "Accommodating / Independent" and thus independence.
6. "In carrying out a task, I am not satisfied unless even the minor details are given close attention"
(a) points to "Q3 Perfectionism" and thus to the global scale "Unrestrained / Self-controlled". In this case, self-control.
7. "I Learn better by: a. Reading a well written book b. In between c. Joining a group
discussion."
(a) points to "Q2 Self-Reliance", which supports the global scale "Introvert / Extravert" - most likely Introvert in this case.
8. "Which do you do in relation to your week-to-week personal expenditures?
a. Keep some sort of account. c. Never know what you have spent for sure."
(a) points to "Q3 perfectionism", which supports self-control on the global scale "Self-control / impulsive". A (c) may also be attributed to unworried in the factor "O Apprehension", which supports the global scale "Emotional Stable / Anxious", in this case emotional stability.
9. "I spend much of my spare time talking with friends about social events enjoyed in the past".
(a) match "group orientation" and thus scores on the factor "Q2 Self-sufficiency", which supports the global scale "Introvert / Extravert", here Extravert. A (c) will score on the same scales but opposite - on individualism and introversion.
10. "I am a fairly strict person, insisting on always doing things as correctly as possible".
(a) scores fairly surely on "G Rule-Consciousness" and possibly also on "Q3 perfectionism", both of which support the global scale "Unrestrained / Self-controlled", in this case self-controlled.
11. "I am known as an "idea man" who almost always puts forward some ideas on a
problem"
(a) will point to "Abstract and imaginative," in the factor "M Abstractedness", which supports the global scale "Unrestrained / Self-controlled", in this case Unrestrained.
12 "Small things sometimes "get on my nerves" unbearably, though I realize they
are trivial."
(a) scores clearly on factor "O Apprehension", which supports the global scale "Emotional Stable / Anxious", in this case anxiety.
9. Other five factor models
An important element of Cattel's theory is that the 16 Personality Features can be grouped into 5 global scales, each of which is determined by 4-5 of the basic 16 Personality Features.
Big Five model of personality. The five main scales are each determined by 4 basic scales. Photo i.pinimg
Probably motivated by the great success of the 16PF test, other similar models have been introduced to the market for personality tests. The best known of these is the Big Five, which was developed by the Americans Paul T. Costa Jr. and Robert R. McCrae and marketed around 1970. It is very similar to the 16PF, in that it also defines 5 main scales, each of which is determined by 4 basic scales.
In 1970, many human resources consultants believed that Cattell's 16 factors were too many. The tests were becoming too extensive and too expensive. On the other hand, Eysenck's three factors were too few and did not provide enough description, they thought. Therefore, Cattell's five second-order personality traits were developed into various five-factor models, of which the "Big Five" is the best known. It is said that it incorporates Eysenck's neuroticism and psychoticism.
The five main scales in Costa and McCrae's Big Five model are very roughly compared to 16PF (last one in parenthesis):
Extroversion must be identical to Eysenck's extroverted. Big Fives and 16PF's emotionally stable seems close to Eysenck's neuroticism. However it is difficult to find a place for Eysenck's psykotism in Big Five and 16PF, but it is said that it can be found in agreeableness and conscientiousness.
This article is a contribution to the debate about personality tests and Dalum Hjallese Debate Club assumes no responsibility for any use of the article's content.
