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Originally Posted by VeeDDzz`
It may be taboo to talk about causation in this instance, since its really impossible to know, but I often question the implicit assumption that personality traits come first, followed by beliefs, followed by behavior, followed by life outcomes.
I envision a 'beliefs-theory' of behavior and I wonder if there is science or method already for linking specific beliefs and sets of beliefs to particular behaviours... based on the frequency of how often they are thought about, based on their disposition (positive/negative) and based on their content (content analysis); amongst other variables.
It seems to me there's little on this, with methods that overwhelmingly focus on grouping beliefs and behaviours by personality traits; as a result of personality traits.
Perhaps we have it all backward, and perhaps that seemingly insignificant belief that 'people are hopeless' is more significant than the corresponding and highly touted and diagnosed personality trait - neuroticism.
Perhaps there is a hierarchy of sets of beliefs, with each step on the ladder more dangerous than the next.
Perhaps psychological therapy is yet to be revolutionized by a new method of addressing highly specific and harmful beliefs. Or perhaps, its all been tried already?
Psychology is a diverse field. Trait psychology exists, but as far as the science goes, its scope is mainly statistical and inferential.
Ie, you take some supposed collection of characteristics, bundle these into categories for use on survey questions in a way that ensures they don't overlap - then see if these tend to correlate with other phenomena.
I don't think many actual researchers that use the Big Five believe these traits have some intrinsic theory value outside being useful variables, ie they presumably wouldn't think that the neuroticism scale on the OCEAN-model points to some "individual condition". Rather they'd assume it reasonably models a collection of human attitudes and behaviors in a way that can be useful for exploring relationships in data.
This of course leaves a very simple question: Why do research this way? Well, simply put is evidence-driven research. Meaning, it tends towards some purpose, rather than developing knowledge. Trait psychologists are rarely exploring the human condition, rather they tend towards building models that have some form of application (for example recruiting, student selection, risk assessment etc etc). For this it can work well if carried out properly.
Some times the models carry over to more knowledge-based research. The most well known case of this is IQ, or G-factor, which was originally intended as a tool for predicting academic results.
Last edited by tame_deuces; 04-15-2016 at 08:32 AM.