03.21b Notes on Caplan (2003) on Personality Tests and the Five-Factor Model. On March 8 I posted on Bryan Caplan (2003) "Stigler-Becker versus Myers-Briggs: Why Preference-Based Explanations Are Scientifically Meaningful and Empirically Important," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 50: 391-405. downloadable via the the author's good website. Now I've written up my notes on it.

The "Five-Factor Model" (FFM) has largely replaced the Myers-Briggs Test for personality types. The Five-Factor Model uses the "big five" dimensions:

1. Openness to experience (correlation .7 with Myers-Briggs intuition-- vs. sensing, p. 395 from McCrae and Costa, 1987). This is the only one of the five correlated with IQ-- a .2 correlation. High openness is found in people in writing, the arts, and pure science, and found less often in bsuiness, police work,and manual labor.

2. Conscientiousness (correlation .5 with Myers-Briggs judging-vs. perceiving). This is the best predictor of job performance among the five.

3. Extraversion (correlation .7 with Myers-Briggs extraversion-- vs. introversion). For some occupations, extraversion predicts success too. Barrick and MOunt (1991) found extraversion useful for managers and salesmen, but not other occupations.

4. Agreeableness (correlation .5 with Myers-Briggs feeling --vs. thinking). Someone who is agreeable in this sense is not necessarily someone who is pleasant company. Rather, he is compassionate, emotional, uncritical, and trusting. It is found in people in teaching, nursing, religion, and counseling, and not in people in science,engineering, and law. Women are substantially more agreeable than men.

5. Neuroticism. This is the propensity to negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, and sadness. It is also associated with cravings for food, drugs, and other things with immediate benefits but long-term costs.

From age 30 onwards, personalities do not change much. This is true not only of a person's test scores, but of evaluations of the person by spouses and peers. Also, people's scores over time are more correlated than they think; the correlation of present score with the person's memory of his past score is lower than with his true past score (p. 397, from Costa and McRae, 1997).

In their 20's, people's average levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness rise, and their levels of neuroticism, openness, and extraversion fall.

One economic puzzle is why education increases salary in cases where there is no obvious link between the job and what is taught. Signalling of IQ fails as an explanation because a short test could signal equally well or better. Education may however, signal conscientiousness, which is independently correlated with job performance.

Criminals are low in agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Robins and John (1997, p. 1669) say that 35% of subjects show clear self-enhancement bias, whereas 50% are accurate and 15% show self-diminishment bias.

I repeat my earlier post: I see he links to two of the three on-line personality tests I know about,the Keirsey version of Myers-Briggs and the Short Form for the IPIP-NEO (International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO PI-R. See also the International Personality Item Pool website generally. The third test I know about is the Intergalactic Explorer Personality Test, a futuristic variant on Myers-Briggs.

[in full at 04.03.21b.htm .      Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

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