Psychology Discussion: Allport, Cattell, Big Five, Eysenck Theories

This discussion post analyzes several key personality theories including Gordon Allport's perspective on prejudice reduction through interpersonal contact, the contrasting approaches of Allport (idiographic) and Cattell (nomothetic) in studying personality traits, the research gains derived from the Big Five factor model, and Hans Eysenck's proposal on extroversion and introversion. The assignment explores the strengths and weaknesses of each theory, providing insights into their methodologies and applications. The document includes a comparison of the idiographic and nomothetic approaches, highlighting the impact of each on the study of personality. The Big Five factor model is examined for its ability to synthesize various theories, and the limitations of the model are also assessed. Finally, Eysenck's proposal on the biological basis of personality traits is presented and contrasted with Allport's viewpoint. This assignment is contributed by a student and available on Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools.

Running head: WEEK FIVE DISCUSSION
WEEK FIVE DISCUSSION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
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WEEK FIVE DISCUSSION
Week five discussion:
Proposition of allport:
According to Gordon Allport, prejudice often involves the prejudgment of individuals
because of their real or perceived group memberships. In this theory, the Allport proposed that
under suitable circumstances interpersonal contact with the concern person or group is one of the
most efficient ways to reduce negative prejudices (Phelps, 2015). If one has an opportunity to
communicate with others then mankind can understand and appreciate the different point of
views of others which involved in their life. Issues of stereotypes, prejudice, and discriminations
are common amongst rival groups (Stajkovic et al., 2018). In this case, he proposed that properly
conducted interpersonal contact between rival individuals or group reduce negative prejudice.
The difference in approaches of Gordon Allport and Cattell:
The differences in the approaches of Allport and Cattell is that Allport focused on the
idiographic approach but cattle focused on nomothetic approach. The ideographic approach
emphasized the subjective as well as the unique experience of an individual but a nomothetic
approach focused on the numerical as well as statistical data in order to draw the personality trait
(Beltz et al., 2016). Consequently, Gordon Allport’s Trait Theory documented 4000 human trait
but cattle reduced it into 171 personality trait by eliminating rare traits and combining common
traits.
The pros of the idiographic approach are that it has a humanistic element which provides
the opportunity to judge people based on their unique experience. Moreover, it provides a global
and complete account of the individuals. On the other hand, the pros of nomotomic approach are

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WEEK FIVE DISCUSSION
that this is a more scientific approach which involves statistical analysis (Beltz et al., 2016).
Moreover, it enables the psychologist to establish typical behavior by eliminating uncommon
Traits. Considering the cons of the idiographic approach, it is the least scientific approach and
solely based on case-based observation which restricts the nature of the study (Beltz et al., 2016).
Moreover, this study have information bias which further impact evaluation. For the nomothetic
approach, it lacks the consideration of human experience and predicts scores based on the
participants rather a person.
Research gain from big five factor:
Considering research gain from big five-factor, this theory was developed independently
combining the theory of different theories along with matters. D.W. Fiske was not able to 16
traits of Cattell’s theory rather only found evidence for five theory which further divided into
five traits (Soto & John, 2017). The research gain from this big five-factor model is that as it is a
combination of all theory and hence with minimal information, the personality can be assessed
by this theory. The limitation of this theory is that it is dependent on the interpretation of the
analyst rather than the actual situation.
Hans Eysenck’s proposal:
Hans Eysenck proposed that extroversion is caused by variability in cortisol arousal and
on the other hand introversion is having lower activity in the limbic region (Revelle, 2016).
While Gordon Allport’s trait theory negate this proposition, Gray (1981) agrees with Eysenck's
notion.

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WEEK FIVE DISCUSSION
References:
Beltz, A. M., Wright, A. G., Sprague, B. N., & Molenaar, P. C. (2016). Bridging the nomothetic
and idiographic approaches to the analysis of clinical data. Assessment, 23(4), 447-458.
Bollich, K. L., Hill, P. L., Harms, P. D., & Jackson, J. J. (2016). When friends’ and society’s
expectations collide: A longitudinal study of moral decision-making and personality
across college. PloS one, 11(1), e0146716.
Phelps, B. J. (2015). Behavioral perspectives on personality and self. The Psychological
Record, 65(3), 557-565.
Revelle, W. (2016). Hans Eysenck: Personality theorist. Personality and Individual
Differences, 103, 32-39.
Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and
assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and
predictive power. Journal of personality and social psychology, 113(1), 117.
Stajkovic, A. D., Bandura, A., Locke, E. A., Lee, D., & Sergent, K. (2018). Test of three
conceptual models of influence of the big five personality traits and self-efficacy on
academic performance: A meta-analytic path-analysis. Personality and Individual
Differences, 120, 238-245.