Construct validation using multitrait‐multimethod‐twin data: The case of a general factor of personality

Abstract

We describe a behavioural genetic extension of the classic multitrait‐multimethod study design that allows estimating genetic and environmental influences on method effects in twin studies (MTMM‐T). Genetic effects and effects of the environment shared by siblings are interpreted as indicators of convergent validity. In an application of the MTMM study design, we used self‐ and peer report data to examine the higher‐order structure of the NEO‐PI‐R. Structural equation modelling did not support a general factor of personality in multimethod data. The higher‐order factor Stability turns out to be, at most, a weak trait factor. Genetic effects on method factors indicate that especially self‐reports but also peer reports show convergent validity between twins but not between methods. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords

personality traits construct validity behavioural genetics twin general factor of personality

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allport

G. W.

(1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt.

Angleitner

Riemann

Strelau

(1997).Genetic and environmental influences on the EPQ‐RS scales: A twin study using self‐ and peer reports. Poster presented at the 8th Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, Arhus, Denmark, July 19–23.

Anusic

Schimmack

Pinkus

R. T.

Lockwood

(2009).The nature and structure of correlations among Big Five ratings: The Halo‐Alpha‐Beta model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97,1142–1156.

Arbuckle

J. L.

(2007). AMOS users' guide 17.0. Chicago: SPSS.

Ashton

M. C.

Lee

Goldberg

L. R.

de Vries

R. E.

(2009).Higher order factors of personality: Do they exist? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13,79–91.

Bäckström

Björklund

Larsson

M. R.

(2009).Five‐factor inventories have a major general factor related to social desirability which can be reduced by framing items neutrally. Journal of Research in Personality, 43,335–344.

Bartels

Boomsma

D. I.

Hudziak

J. J.

van Beijsterveldt

T. C. E. M.

van den Oord

E. J. C. G.

(2007).Twins and the study of rater (dis)agreement. Psychological Methods, 12,451–466.

Biesanz

J. C.

West

S. G.

(2004).Toward understanding assessments of the Big Five: Multitrait‐multimethod analyses of convergent and discriminant validity across measurement occasion and type of observer. Journal of Personality, 72,845–876.

Borkenau

Ostendorf

(1993). NEO‐Fünf‐Faktoren‐inventar (NEO‐FFI) [NEO five‐factor inventory]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

10.

Borkenau

Riemann

Spinath

F. M.

Angleitner

(2000). Behavior genetics of personality: The case of observational studies. In S. Hampson (Ed.), Advances in personality psychology(Volume 1, pp.107–137). Hove, England: Psychology Press.

11.

Bouchard

T. J.

Loehlin

(2001).Genes, evolution, and personality. Behavior Genetics, 31,243–273.

12.

Browne

M. W.

Cudeck

(1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit. In K. A. Bollen , & J. S. Long (Eds.), Testing structural equation models(pp.136–162). Newbury Park: Sage.

13.

Campbell

D. T.

Fiske

D. W.

(1959).Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait‐multimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56,81–105.

14.

Cattell

R. B.

(1950). Personality: A systematic theoretical and factual study. New York: McGraw‐Hill.

15.

Costa

P. T.

McCrae

R. R.

(1989). NEO personality inventory: Manual form S and form R. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

16.

Costa

P. T.

McCrae

R. R.

(1992). Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO‐PI‐R) and NEO five‐factor inventory (NEO‐FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

17.

Cronbach

L. J.

Gleser

G. C.

Nanda

Rajaratnam

(1972). The dependability of behavioral measurements: Theory of generalizability for scores and profiles. New York: Wiley.

18.

Cronbach

L. J.

Meehl

P. E.

(1955).Construct validity in psychological tests. Psychological Bulletin, 52,281–302.

19.

DeYoung

C. G.

(2006).Higher‐order factors of the Big Five in a multiinformant sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91,1138–1151.

20.

DeYoung

C. G.

Peterson

J. B.

Higgings

D. M.

(2002).Higher‐order factors of the Big Five predict conformity: Are there neuroses of health? Personality and Individual Differences, 33,533–552.

21.

Digman

J. M.

(1997).Higher‐order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73,1246–1256.

22.

Egloff

Wilhelm

F. H.

Neubauer

D. H.

Mauss

I. B.

Gross

J. J.

(2002).Implicit anxiety measure predicts cardiovascular reactivity to an evaluated speaking task. Emotion, 2,3–11.

23.

Eid

Lischetzke

Nussbeck

F. W.

Trierweiler

L. I.

(2003).Separating trait effects from trait‐specific method effects in multitrait‐multimethod models: A multiple‐indicator CT‐C(M‐1) model. Psychological Methods, 8,38–60.

24.

Eysenck

H. J.

Eysenck

S. B. G.

(1991). Manual of the Eysenck personality scales. London: Hodder & Stroughton.

25.

Eysenck

S. B. G.

Eysenck

H. J.

Barrett

(1985).A revised version of the Psychoticism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 6,21–29.

26.

Funder

D. C.

Kolar

D. C.

Blackman

M. C.

(1995).Agreement among judges of personality: Interpersonal relations, similarity, and acquaintanceship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69,656–672.

27.

Graziano

W. G.

Ward

(1992).Probing the Big Five in adolescence: Personality and adjustment during the developmental transition. Journal of Personality, 60,425–439.

28.

Grumm

von Collani

(2007).Measuring Big Five personality dimensions with the implicit association test – Implicit personality traits or self‐esteem? Personality and Individual Differences, 43,2205–2217.

29.

Hofstee

W. K. B.

(1994).Who should own the definition of personality? European Journal of Personality, 8,149–162.

30.

Hoyt

W. T.

(2000).Rater bias in psychological research: When is it a problem and what can we do about it? Psychological Methods, 5,64–86.

31.

John

O. P.

Goldberg

L. R.

Angleitner

(1984). Better than the alphabet: Taxonomies of personality‐descriptive terms in English, Dutch, and German. In H. Bonarius , G. van Heck , & N. Smid (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe: Theoretical and empirical developments. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

32.

Kandler

Riemann

Spinath

Angleitner

(in press)Sources of variance in personality facets: A twin study of self‐self, peer‐peer, and self‐peer (dis‐)agreement. Journal of Personality.

33.

Kenny

D. A.

(1994). Interpersonal perception: A social relations analysis. New York: Guilford.

34.

Kraemer

H. C.

Measelle

J. R.

Ablow

J. C.

Essex

M. J.

Boyce

W. T.

Kupfer

D. J.

(2003).A new approach to integrating data from multiple informants in psychiatric assessment and research: Mixing and matching contexts and perspectives. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160,1566–1577.

35.

Letzring

T. D.

Wells

S. M.

Funder

D. C.

(2006).Information quantity and quality affect the realistic accuracy of personality judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9,111–123.

36.

Little

R. J. A.

Rubin

D. B.

(2002). Statistical analysis with missing data(second edition). New Jersey: Wiley.

37.

Loehlin

J. C.

Martin

N. G.

(2001).Age changes in personality traits and their heritabilities during the adult years: Evidence from Australian twin registry samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 30,1147–1160.

38.

McCrae

R. R.

(2009).The physics and chemistry of personality. Theory & Psychology, 19,670–687.

39.

McCrae

R. R.

Costa

P. T.

Hrebícková

Ostendorf

Angleitner

Avia

M. D.

(2000).Nature over nurture: Temperament, personality, and life span development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78,173–186.

40.

McCrae

R. R.

Yamagata

Jang

K. L.

Riemann

Ando

Ono

(2008).Substance and artifact in the higher‐order factors of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95,442–455.

41.

Musek

(2007).A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the five‐factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41,1213–1233.

42.

Neale

M. C.

Maes

H. H. M.

(2004). Methodology for genetic studies of twins and families. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V.

43.

Neubauer

A. C.

Spinath

F. M.

Riemann

Borkenau

Angleitner

(2000).Genetic and environmental influences on two measures of speed of information processing and their relation to psychometric intelligence: Evidence from the German observational study of adult twins. Intelligence, 28,267–289.

44.

Ostendorf

Angleitner

(2004). NEO‐Persönlichkeitsinventar, revidierte Form, NEO‐PI‐R nach Costa und McCrae [Revised NEO personality inventory, NEO‐PI‐R of Costa and McCrae]. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.

45.

Paulhus

D. L.

John

O. P.

(1998).Egoistic and moralistic biases in self‐perception: The interplay of self‐deceptive styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality, 66,1025–1060.

46.

Riemann

Angleitner

Strelau

(1997).Genetic and environmental influences on personality: A study of twins reared together using the self‐ and peer report NEO‐FFI scales. Journal of Personality, 65,449–475.

47.

Rushton

J. P.

Bons

T. A.

Hur

Y.‐M.

(2008).The genetics and evolution of the general factor of personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 42,1173–1185.

48.

Rushton

J. P.

Irwing

(2008).A general factor of personality (GFP) from two meta‐analyses of the Big Five: Digman (1997) and Mount, Barrick, Scullen, and Rounds (2005).Personality and Individual Differences. 45,679–683.

49.

Rushton

J. P.

Irwing

(2009).A general factor of personality in the Comrey personality scales, the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory‐2, and the multicultural personality questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 46,437–442.

50.

Schultheiss

O. C.

Brunstein

J. C.

(2001).Assessment of implicit motives with a research version of the TAT: Picture profiles, gender differences, and relations to other personality measures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 77,71–86.

51.

Spinath

F. M.

Angleitner

Borkenau

Riemann

Wolf

(2002).German observational study of adult twins (GOSAT): A multimodal investigation of personality, temperament and cognitive ability. Twin Research and Human Genetics, 5,372–375.

52.

Stößel

Kämpfe

Riemann

(2006).The Jena twin registry and the Jena twin study of social attitudes (JeTSSA). Twin Research and Human Genetics, 9,783–786.

53.

Tellegen

Grove

W. M.

Waller

N. G.

(1991).Inventory of personal characteristics #7 (IPC7). Unpublished materials, University of Minnesota.

54.

Vernon

P. A.

Villani

V. C.

Vickers

L. C.

Harris

J. A.

(2008).A behavioural genetic investigation of the dark triad and the big five. Personality and Individual Differences, 44,445–452.

55.

Yik

M. S. M.

Bond

M. H.

(1993).Exploring the dimensions of Chinese person perception with indigenous and imported constructs: Creating a culturally balanced scale. International Journal of Psychology, 28,75–95.