Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemMoral, yet more than agreeable: The enlightened tendencies of open people( 2021)Openness/Intellect is a basic personality trait describing the tendency to be curious and imaginative. Although these cognitive exploration tendencies are not inherently other-regarding, and open people are not disposed toward prosociality in general, Openness/Intellect has at least some important but underappreciated prosocial correlates (e.g., Parks-Leduc, Feldman, & Bardi, 2014; Sibley & Duckitt, 2008; Soutter, Bates, & Mottus, 2020), suggesting the potential moral significance of this trait may have been overlooked. In this thesis, I aimed to clarify whether and in what ways Openness/Intellect is a morally significant personality trait through assessing its associations with specific forms of prosociality that are likely to benefit from cognitive exploration proclivities. In Stream One, I explored (Study 1; N = 119) then sought to confirm (Studies 2-4; combined N = 987) an ostensible association between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behaviour, a major subtype of prosociality that involves coordinating with others toward mutual goals. Cooperativeness was operationalised using the Public Goods Game, a behavioural paradigm that strips cooperation to its elementary components. Despite finding a sizeable correlation in my exploratory study, Openness/Intellect shared only a very modest (though nonnull) correlation with cooperative behaviour across my confirmatory studies, suggesting open people are not meaningfully disposed toward cooperativeness in its most elementary form. After introducing the concept of moral exceptionality, in Stream Two (Studies 1-3; combined N = 3,003) I turned to the question of whether Openness/Intellect—in combination with the more explicitly prosocial trait Agreeableness—can account for individual differences in the tendency to show regard for others in ways that are flexible and inclusive (vs. rigid or parochial). Results revealed that such morally exceptional expressions of prosociality can be summarised and measured as a trait—enlightened compassion—that correlates strongly with Openness (an aspect of Openness/Intellect) as well as Compassion (an aspect of Agreeableness), thereby constituting an interstitial facet of the Openness/Intellect and Agreeableness domains. Together, the results from Streams One and Two suggest that although Openness/Intellect is not robustly associated with more elementary expressions of prosocial behaviour, open people are likely to think, feel, and desire in more prosocial ways under circumstances that involve transcending the boundaries of parochialism. To the extent that this enlightened compassionate orientation translates into actual behaviour, open people can be said to exhibit a kind of moral exceptionality.
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ItemThe Big Five: Towards a Taxonomy of Psychological Trait Scales( 2021)Many personality psychologists argue that the Big Five (Goldberg, 1990) provides an organising framework for psychological traits. However, in the wider psychology literature, the Big Five is frequently not adopted as an organising framework for stand-alone psychological trait scales. In the current thesis, I aimed to: evaluate whether the Big Five could accommodate these stand-alone scales; examine whether scale users could navigate the Big Five effectively; and consider impediments to the wider adoption of the Big Five (or a comparable taxonomy, e.g., the HEXACO; Lee & Ashton, 2004). In Chapter 2, I developed a method to assess how well the Big Five could accommodate stand-alone scales. In Chapter 3, I applied this method in three convenience samples, followed by a community sample in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, I evaluated the accuracy of psychological researchers predictions of associations between stand-alone scales and the Big Five domains to determine how well they could navigate the Big Five. In the General Discussion, I explored further challenges to the Big Five's wider adoption. In Chapter 2, various shortcomings with using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Extension Analysis for the present task were identified, before an Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (Asparouhov & Muthen, 2009) approach was selected. Applying this method in Chapter 3, the Big Five accommodated over 70% of stand-alone scales, such that many of the scales assessed might reasonably be considered Big Five facets. Many stand-alone scales demonstrated incremental validity beyond the Big Five domains, but so did Big Five facets. This can be understood in terms of the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off. In Chapter 4, nearly half the stand-alone scales could be readily located within the Big Five. The result was less compelling than that of Chapter 3, but was likely attributable to methodological factors that diminished or obscured associations between the Big Five and stand-alone scales in the sample. In Chapter 5, psychological researchers were reasonably accurate regarding the locations of stand-alone scales within the Big Five. Based on these findings, I concluded that the Big Five would be an appropriate organising framework for stand-alone psychological trait scales, both in principle and in practice, and ought to be widely adopted as such. However, many researchers may remain indifferent to the Big Five if they perceive it to be of little benefit to their field, or hostile if they believe adopting the Big Five would undermine their fields' research programs. To counteract these objections, I argued that the wide adoption of the Big Five as an organising framework for stand-alone scales may accelerate scientific progress via reduced fragmentation or better measurement of existing constructs. I also suggested an integrative pluralism approach—whereby stand-alone scales with incremental validity beyond the Big Five continue to be used, but their relationships to the Big Five are acknowledged and incorporated into discussions of research outcomes. I finished by considering the scope of scales that ought to be included and the challenge posed by alternative frameworks.