Life History Strategy and the Allure of the Dark Side: Evidence against a General Factor of Personality

In a previous post, I discussed evidence for and against a general factor of personality (GFP). Existing theories of personality organise personality traits in a hierarchical structure, in which a small number of broad factors, say five or six, subsume a vast number of narrower traits. Some psychologists have proposed a higher order general factor that combines all the broad traits into one super-factor composed of all the socially desirable features of personality. According to one theory, the general factor of personality represents an evolved “slow” life history strategy associated with long-term mating as opposed to a "fast" strategy associated with short-term mating. However, a recent study suggests that both slow and fast life history strategies each combine mixtures of desirable and undesirable traits. The findings of this study might help explain not only why so many people have “dark personalities” embodying socially undesirable traits, but why these traits can actually attractive. The so-called general factor of personality might represent an imagined ideal that few people embody rather than a single underlying dimension of human personality variation.   

The Dark Side has a strange allure for many people

Currently, the most widely accepted model of personality traits model is the Big Five, which consists of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, all of which are considered to be separate and distinct from each other. A more recent model which has become increasingly popular, the HEXACO, adds a sixth factor of honesty-humility to the Big Five.[1] Although they disagree about the exact number, both of these models agree that the top of the personality hierarchy consists of multiple and distinct factors. However, some psychologists, have argued that these broad factors are not actually independent and that there is higher order super-factor atop the personality hierarchy that combines all of them into one (Musek, 2007). For example, Rushton and Irwin (2011) argued that this general factor is a dimension of “good personality” as opposed to a “difficult personality”, with desirable traits manifested at one end, e.g. someone who is friendly, cooperative, relaxed, reliable, and clever compared to someone who does not get along with others, and is selfish, manipulative, irritable and dense. Studies on the GFP have found that it is positively correlated with subjective well-being, self-esteem, trait emotional intelligence, and even general intelligence apparently. Perhaps, this combination of traits should be called the “best” personality rather than merely “good”?  

Rushton and Irwing proposed that this general factor of personality reflects a single broad dimension that has been selected for in human evolution they call the K-factor. This K-factor supposedly applies to a whole range of human characteristics that are said to have co-evolved, including altruism, intelligence, attachment styles, growth, longevity, sexuality, and fecundity and which “form a coherent whole” (Rushton & Irwing, 2011). The idea of a K-factor is the basis for what is called life history theory which looks at individual differences in human reproductive strategies. According to this theory, people with a “slow” life history strategy (characterised by a preference for long-term mating) exhibit a high K-factor, whereas people with a “fast” life history strategy (characterised by a preference for short-term mating and promiscuity) exhibit a low K-factor.

According to a number of studies, slow life history strategy is associated with better mental and physical health and subjective well-being and with greater relationship satisfaction. On the other, fast life history strategy has been linked with socially undesirable characteristics, such as criminality and antisocial behaviour including sexual coercion (Sherman, Figueredo, & Funder, 2013). If this is true, then it would seem that from an evolutionary standpoint the slow strategy is desirable in every way, while the fast strategy is completely undesirable. This is problematic because if one strategy is “better” in every way, the alternative strategy should have died out long ago for failure to compete. However, the fact that so many people still utilise a fast strategy suggests that it may be adaptive under some circumstances.

In spite of the alleged global adaptive superiority of the slow strategy, there is evidence that this strategy involves costs as well as benefits and conversely that the fast strategy enjoys its own advantages, in spite of its drawbacks. This is because socially desirable behaviours are generally those that are good for other people but not necessarily oneself, while socially undesirable behaviours inflict costs on other people rather than on the self. Social norms then tend to favour behaviour that is closer to the slow end of the continuum. Hence, even though the slow strategy is desirable from the viewpoint of society, it is not always in the interests of the individual. For example, being honest and altruistic benefits society but may be costly to the individual. Conversely, lying and cheating are costly to society but may benefit the individual, at least in the short term. The slow strategy might be smarter in the long-term, but generally requires individuals to make sacrifices for the good of others.

This might be taking the slow strategy a bit too far

Recently Sherman et al. (2013) tested the idea that the slow and fast strategies respectively combine both adaptive and maladaptive traits. Previous studies on life history strategy that found that the slow strategy was associated with just about every benefit one could want have been based on self-report measures of behaviour and personality. Similarly, most studies that have been used to validate a GFP have relied on self-report as well. A problem with self-report measures is that people’s responses may reflect evaluative biases. Because the slow strategy is so socially normative, people’s responses may be biased towards reporting what is considered “normal”. This could explain to some extent why the slow strategy is supposed to be associated with physical and mental health, considering that the latter are also normative. Sherman et al.’s research therefore used studies based on direct observations of behaviour as well as participants’ reports of their behaviour in the last 24 hours to overcome some of the limitations of self-report measures. Trained raters were asked to assess how closely individual participants matched a template for either a slow or fast life history strategy based on assessments of their behavior. The template for the slow pattern included qualities such as responsible, warm, compassionate and capable of close relationships. The fast template included qualities of unpredictable, deceitful, manipulative, and non-conforming. The resulting pattern that emerged was that those who more closely matched the slow template were described as kind, considerate, and hard working, yet also socially awkward, insecure, shy, lacking expressiveness and emotionally over-controlled. Those who more closely matched the fast template were described as unpredictable, hostile, moody, manipulative and impulsive, yet also talkative, socially skilled, dominant, assertive charming and interesting.

What these results suggest is that both the slow and fast strategies have their respective strengths and weaknesses. This is consistent with the idea that each one may be adaptive under some circumstances, yet maladaptive under others. On the other hand, the results appear to contradict the notion that one strategy is globally better than the other. Furthermore, in terms of personality traits expressed, neither strategy appears to fit in with the notion of a general factor of personality which combines all socially desirable traits in a uniform way. Participants who demonstrated a slow strategy could be described as agreeable, conscientious, and honest, yet also introverted and to a certain extent neurotic. On the other hand, those who demonstrated a fast strategy showed the opposite pattern of disagreeableness, dishonesty, and low conscientiousness, but were also more extraverted and emotionally stable. The fast life history strategy also seems consistent with a group of socially undesirable traits known as the “dark triad” of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. One study found that people who are high in “dark triad” traits tend to manifest a pattern of being selfish, disagreeable and low in conscientiousness, yet also extraverted, confident and socially dominant (Jonason, Li, & Teicher, 2010). This particular pattern of traits may allow people to successfully exploit others for selfish reasons and yet escape social punishment due to their social skills and charms. The authors of this paper compared this personality configuration to James Bond. Another real life example is the Italian adventurer Casanova. This fascinating fellow, notorious for his many love affairs, was noted as a sparkling conversationalist who stated that the chief business of his life was cultivating sensory pleasure. He also admitted to swindling people who he managed to convince that he had magical powers.  

Why do bad boys have all the fun?

Researchers have argued that “dark triad” traits may have evolved to facilitate short-term mating. Evidence for this comes from a study which found that women rated men with dark triad traits as having more attractive personalities than men who were low in these traits (Carter, Campbell, & Muncer). Another study found that men who were high in psychopathic traits (one of the components of the dark triad) were rated by female observers as being more physically attractive than men who were low in these traits (Visser, Pozzebon, Bogaert, & Ashton, 2010). Perhaps, these findings might help to explain why so many people are so fascinated by “dark” characters both from fiction and real life. Casanova for example was not the most moral person but he knew how to live in style!

What these findings suggest that the traits associated with the slow life history strategy represent a “good” personality in the traditional sense of being unselfish and of respecting society’s rules of good behaviour but not in a global sense of being generally better implied by JP Rushton. However, people who follow a slow strategy seem to be less socially skilled and may not experience as much immediate pleasure as their more selfish fast strategy counterparts, who are more focused on having a good time, often at the expense of other people. One of the differences that emerged between the two strategies, is that people with the slow style appear over-controlled and lacking expressiveness, whereas those with the fast style are more lively and impulsive. This suggests that one of the key differences may be in how much people inhibit expression of their impulses. Some people may be overly concerned with not doing anything that might give offense to others, whereas other people are more focused on expressing themselves, being less anxious about what other people might think.

The findings from Sherman et al. suggest that neither a fast nor a slow life history strategy is associated with a complete set of desirable traits that a general factor of personality would entail. In my previous post, I suggested that a general factor of personality might not represent a unitary dimension underlying all personality traits, but instead a particular cluster of separate traits combined in a way that maximises a person’s well-being. Perhaps this entails a personality type that can strike a balance between the conflicting demands of expressing the self on the one hand and exercising the self-control needed to comply with social expectations and rules for getting along with other people.

Footnote

[1] Another minor difference from the Big Five is that in the HEXACO model neuroticism is replaced with “emotionality”. 

     

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This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. Any version of this article appearing on sites other than Eye on Psych or my blog at Psychology Today has been ripped off without my consent.

Further reading: 
What is an Intelligent Personality? - discusses the relationship between personality and various concepts of intelligence, particularly in regard to claims that a general factor of personality is correlated with general intelligence. 

Image Credits

Darth Vader by Dualspades at DeviantArt

Sacrifice poster created at http://diy.despair.com/ using image from Flickr

Sean Connery as James Bond from Wikia

 References

Carter, G. L., Campbell, A. C., & Muncer, S. The Dark Triad personality: Attractiveness to women. Personality and Individual Differences(0). doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.08.021

Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., & Teicher, E. A. (2010). Who is James Bond? The Dark Triad as an Agentic Social Style. Individual Differences Research, 8(2), 111-120.

Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41(6), 1213-1233.

Rushton, J. P., & Irwing, P. (2011). The General Factor of Personality: Normal and Abnormal. In T. Chamorro-Premuzic, S. v. Stumm & A. Furnham (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Individual Differences ( First ed.): Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Sherman RA, Figueredo AJ, & Funder DC (2013). The behavioral correlates of overall and distinctive life history strategy. Journal of personality and social psychology, 105 (5), 873-88 PMID: 23915038

Visser, B. A., Pozzebon, J. A., Bogaert, A. F., & Ashton, M. C. (2010). Psychopathy, sexual behavior, and esteem: It’s different for girls. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 833-838. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.008

Race, penis size, and pseudoscience

A forthcoming paper's claims about racial differences in penis size are unfounded.

A soon to be published study by Richard Lynn claims to have found scientific evidence that there are substantial differences in the average penis length of men from different races. These claims are in line with vulgar racial stereotypes and are part of a larger research agenda based on a belief in ‘race realism’. Advocates of race realism argue that there are real and pervasive differences between racial groups in personality, intelligence and social behaviour, that these differences have a genetic and evolutionary origin and that they can explain disparities in important social and economic outcomes between races. Lynn’s theories about race rest on shaky foundations and the data sources he uses as evidence for his claims about penis sizes are untrustworthy. For these reasons, his claims should be disregarded as unscientific.

World map of penis sizes - looks impressive, but where did this information come from?

Lynn’s (2012) proposal is based on the theories of the late J. Philippe Rushton. As noted in a previous article, Rushton, a notorious advocate of race realism, proposed that the major races can be sorted into a human hierarchy based on their supposed reproductive strategies. According to Rushton’s r-K life history theory, there are two main reproductive strategies forming ends of a continuum. The r-strategy involves large numbers of offspring with minimal investment, whereas the K-strategy involves fewer offspring and greater investment. According to Rushton, Africans are the most r-selected whereas Asians are the most K-selected, and Europeans are somewhere in between, although closer to Asians than Africans. Rushton claimed that these two reproductive strategies were associated with a whole suite of mental and physical characteristics including brain size, intelligence, criminality, and of course penis length. According to this theory, African men have the smallest brains and the largest penises, whereas Asian men are the opposite. This has been described as a ‘Goldilocks’ theory of race, in which European men are ‘just right’ having a combination of high intelligence and a reasonable genital endowment.

Rushton responded to criticisms of his racist theories by arguing that scientific theories should be judged on the merits of their evidence. Unfortunately for him, it is on scientific grounds that his theories fall apart (Weizmann, Wiener, Wiesenthal, & Ziegler, 1990). Weizmann et al. have argued that Rushton’s assignment of particular traits to either r or K strategies is completely arbitrary. He claims that the K strategy promotes altruism and cooperative behaviour, whereas the r strategy promotes inter-male aggression and criminality. However, according to biological models K strategies appear under conditions of intense competition for limited resources and so there is no reason to associate K with altruism or r with criminality. Additionally, the original theory predicts that unstable fluctuating environments would favour r-strategies, whereas stable, predictable environments would favour K strategies. Hot topical environments have higher levels of stability than colder ones. Therefore, according to this theory Africans, who developed in tropical environment, should be highly K-selected, contrary to Rushton’s theory.

 Rushton’s theory has also been criticised for naïveté about sexual matters (Weizmann, et al., 1990). He assumed that larger genital size means less sexual restraint, more frequent intercourse and therefore more frequent procreation. These assumptions are unjustified as humans regularly engage in non-procreative sexual activity. Furthermore, sexual mores within a society can change within a generation from prudishness to permissiveness and back again. Rushton’s theory assumes that sexual interests are genetically based, yet genes cannot substantially change within a generation. Rushton and Bogaert (1987) argued that blacks are more sexually precocious and less sexually restrained than whites, based on Kinsey’s out-dated and non-representative data. However, they ignore information from the same source that contradicted their theory, such as that blacks were more prudish than whites about nudity, and that blacks were less likely to have a prostitute as a first sexual partner. Kinsey also found that whites engage in more non-coital sexual behaviour, such as oral-genital contact, than Blacks. Rushton interprets this as indicating that Whites are less reproductively oriented (hence more K-selected) even though this contradicts his argument that K-strategies are associated with greater sexual restraint an presumably less sexual activity in general (Weizmann, et al., 1990).

Rushton assumes that because K-strategies are less reproductively oriented, members of the K-selected races should have fewer children. However, fertility is sensitive to environmental and social conditions (Weizmann, et al., 1990). In colonial times, North America experienced historically high rates of fertility, yet in modern times fertility in North America has declined to the low rates seen in modern European countries. Furthermore, Chinese peoples have historically had very high rates of fertility, in spite of being highly K-selected according to Rushton.      

 Lynn attempts to justify his belief that there are differences between races in penis length on the basis that European and Asian males have lower levels of testosterone than Africans and that the “reduction of  testosterone had the effect of reducing penis length, for which evidence is given by Widodsky and Greene (1940).” Widodsky and Greene (1940) is actually a study of the effects of sex hormones on the penises of rats. This is hardly convincing evidence that there are racial differences in testosterone levels or that a reduction in penis length ever occurred in human history.

Lynn's claims about differences in penis length between races build on earlier claims by Rushton and Bogaert (1987). The Rushton and Boagert paper is striking for its use of non-scholarly sources (Weizmann, Wiener, Wiesenthal, & Ziegler, 1991). These include a book of semi-pornographic “tall tales” by an anonymous nineteenth century French surgeon that makes wildly inconsistent claims about genital sizes in people of different races. Lynn also refers to this book without mentioning any problems with this as a source of information. Another odd data source cited by Rushton and Bogaert is an article authored by a certain “P. Nobile” published in Forum: International Journal of Human Relations. This publication is better known to the public as “The Penthouse Forum”, a popular men’s magazine.

The data sources that Lynn uses in his recent paper are hardly much better. One of them is a book by Donald Templer (another self-professed race realist^[1]) called Is Size Important? Templer is not a urologist but a psychologist so why he would claim to be an authority on this subject is unclear.^[2] Lynn’s other source is the world penis size website. These are both self-published sources that have not been independently verified. A blogger named Ethnic Muse has carefully examined this site’s references and found that a number of articles listed on the site either do not exist under the name given or do not discuss penis size at all. There are also numerous discrepancies between the values provided by the website and the actual values given by the references.^[3] Therefore, the information on this website cannot be trusted and no conclusions should be drawn from it.

Lynn’s paper was an attempt to validate one of the claims of Rushton’s r-K theory that there are predictable differences between races in a range of physical and psychological characteristics, including penis length. However, this theory is unscientific and makes arbitrary claims, many of which have been refuted in considerable detail (Weizmann, et al., 1990, 1991). Furthermore, Lynn did not consult authoritative sources for his paper, such as urologists or urology journals. The data sources he did use for his paper are untrustworthy and therefore his results, like his theory, should not be taken seriously.^[4] The very relevance of penis length to understanding whatever racial differences may exist would seem to be highly doubtful.

Notes
[1] Among other things, Templer apparently advocates the voluntary sterilisation of welfare recipients on eugenics grounds.
[2] I am grateful to an anonymous blog article for pointing this out.
[3] I can confirm this. One of the references cited is titled “Male penis length average in sub-Saharan Africa, circumcision and relation to AIDS: a review” and supposedly appeared in the journal AIDS and Behavior in 2007. I searched this journal and no article by this name could be found.
[4] A paper by Tatu Westling makes the ludicrous claim that a country’s economic growth is inversely correlated with penis size based on data from this website. 

This article also appears on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else on Psychology Today. 

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.  

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References
Lynn, R. (2012). Rushton’s r–K life history theory of race differences in penis length and circumference examined in 113 populations Personality and Individual Differences DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2012.02.016

Rushton, J., & Bogaert, A. (1987). Race differences in sexual behavior: Testing an evolutionary hypothesis Journal of Research in Personality, 21 (4), 529-551 DOI: 10.1016/0092-6566(87)90038-9

Weizmann, F., Wiener, N. I., Wiesenthal, D. L., & Ziegler, M. (1990). Differential K theory and racial hierarchies. Canadian Psychology, 31(1), 1-13. doi: 10.1037/h0078934

Weizmann, F., Wiener, N., Wiesenthal, D., & Ziegler, M. (1991). Eggs, eggplants and eggheads: A rejoinder to Rushton. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 32 (1), 43-50 DOI: 10.1037/h0078958

What does a General Factor of Personality really represent?

 A number of research studies suggest that there is a general factor of personality (GFP) at the apex of the hierarchy of personality traits (Musek, 2007). Evidence for this derives from studies examining correlations between the factors in the Big Five model of personality. Proponents of the Big Five model have argued that the five factors are independent of each other and represent the most basic personality factors. In contrast, proponents of a GFP have argued that this "Big One" is a real substantial trait. Rushton and Irwing (2011) even argued that high scores on the GFP represent : "good personality" as opposed to a "difficult" one. They stated that: “Individuals high on the GFP are altruistic, agreeable, relaxed, conscientious, sociable, and open, with high levels of well-being and self-esteem…. The GFP can be viewed as a dimension of social effectiveness.” They have argued that this general factor is a product of natural selection.

On the other hand, other researchers have argued that the big five personality factors are actually independent of each other and that the general factor is a statistical artefact (Ashton, Lee, Goldberg, & de Vries, 2009; de Vries, 2011). Ashton et al. (2009) argued that correlations between personality factors can be explained without invoking higher order factors. They argued that these correlations are due to the existence of blended personality traits that combine features of two or more factors. For example, interpersonal circumplex models feature traits based on various combinations of extraversion and agreeableness. Notably, the combination of high extraversion and low agreeableness is associated with a socially dominant style of interpersonal behaviour. It could be argued that this particular style is favoured by natural selection in men because interpersonal dominance is attractive to females looking for high status mates. However, if the GFP has developed through natural selection than the more "socially desirable" combination of high extraversion and high agreeableness would be expected to be the norm.

Ashton et al. argued that certain combinations of personality factors are considered socially important. For example, the combination of high agreeableness and conscientiousness, and low neuroticism tend to describe someone who is well socialised and well-behaved. Correlations between factors might represent the special importance of certain combinations of traits rather than true higher order factors. Research by de Vries (2011) using two different personality measures found that a distinctly different GFP emerged from each of these factors and that they were negatively correlated with each other. He concluded that a GFP is an artefact of the measure and analysis used. Danay and Ziegler (2011) used a multirater approach and found that the GFP was not consistent across self-reports and peer-ratings. They argued that the appearance of the GFP reflects impression management. That is, people try to convince others that they are more agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable than they really are. The GFP may represent skill in impression management. However, this interpretation is based on purely correlational data, and the authors acknowledge that the GFP may have no substance.

Muncer (2011) has also argued that there is no evidence that natural selection would favour a single general factor. The environments humans have lived in throughout their evolutionary development have been varied and subject to change. For natural selection to favour a GFP would require that environmental conditions have nearly always favoured a homogenous suite of personality characteristics that have varied in a uniform way, which does not seem likely.

If the GFP is not a substantive personality trait, then how to explain findings that measures of the GFP are associated with subjective well-being, self-esteem and social desirability? It is possible that the Big Five personality traits are indeed independent in regards to their aetiology, e.g. their genetic basis. The hypothetical GFP might represent a particular cluster of traits that happens to be associated with particular outcomes, such as subjective well-being. As noted earlier, interpersonal circumplex models describe traits associated with combinations of two independent factors. Cloninger has also catalogued and described different combinations of the three character traits of self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence and provided names for all eight possible combinations (Josefsson et al., 2011). For example, someone high on all three is the "creative" type, whereas someone low on all three is the "depressed" type. Someone on high on self-transcendence and low on the other two traits has the "disorganised" or "schizotypal" combination. Cloninger has not proposed a general factor of character traits, yet he clearly considers the ‘creative’ type as the most "mature". Similarly, it might be more appropriate to consider the so-called general factor of personality, not as a higher-order continuous factor, but as a particular combination of traits that happens to be socially desirable and associated with high subjective well-being and self-esteem. The GFP might be an especially prominent blend of traits due to these associations. Other combinations of traits might usefully be described and their correlates studied.

This approach could help us better understand personality in the context of natural selection. Women tend to be higher than men on some of the ‘desirable’ traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness yet they are also higher on the ‘undesirable’ trait of neuroticism. If the GFP were the most basic factor of personality this would be difficult to understand. However, from the viewpoint of natural selection it is readily understandable that females would be both highly nurturing (agreeable) and risk avoidant due to anxiety (associated with neuroticism). Conversely, natural selection seems to have favoured boldness and dominance in men, which again does not fit in with selection for a GFP, but instead suggests that particular combinations of traits would be adaptive for particular social roles. Some researchers have proposed that different combinations of masculine traits might be favoured by sexual selection depending on changing social circumstances. For example, highly aggressive males would be favoured in societies characterised by ongoing violent conflict, but disdained in more stable peaceful societies. Therefore, rather than proposing that there is general factor atop the hierarchy of personality, it seems more likely there are a variety of possible combinations of several basic personality traits that could be favoured by natural selection in different circumstances. Additionally, within a given society different combinations of traits may be adaptive within particular social niches. Some researchers (Coyne & Thomas, 2008) have suggested that psychopaths have developed a predatory "cheater-hawk" strategy (combining cheating and aggression) that may be ‘adaptive’ in some sense for people who are unlikely to prosper using more socially acceptable strategies. Psychopathy combines elements of low agreeableness, high boldness, and low fear, a suite of characteristics that do not fit into a homogenous GFP wherein all socially desirable traits vary together. Therefore, even though particular combinations of traits may be regarded by some as representing a "good personality", what is most adaptive from an individual's perspective probably depends on their social context.

Further Reading
Personality's "Big One" Revisited: The Allure of the Dark Side - follow up to the present article, presents new evidence against a general factor of personality.

What is an Intelligent Personality? - discusses the relationship between personality and various concepts of intelligence, particularly in regard to claims that a general factor of personality is correlated with general intelligence. 

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

References

Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., Goldberg, L. R., & de Vries, R. E. (2009). Higher Order Factors of Personality: Do They Exist?  Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13 (2), 79-91 DOI: 10.1177/1088868309338467

Coyne, S. M., & Thomas, T. J. (2008). Psychopathy, aggression, and cheating behavior: A test of the Cheater–Hawk hypothesis. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1105–1115. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.002

Danay, E., & Ziegler, M. (2011). Is there really a single factor of personality? A multirater approach to the apex of personality. Journal of Research in Personality. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2011.07.003

de Vries, R. E. (2011). No evidence for a General Factor of Personality in the HEXACO Personality Inventory.  Journal of Research in Personality, 45 (2), 229-232 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2010.12.002
Josefsson, K., Cloninger, C. R., Hintsanen, M., Jokela, M., Pulkki-Råback, L., & Keltikangas-Järvinen, L. (2011). Associations of personality profiles with various aspects of well-being: A population-based study. Journal of affective disorders, 133(1), 265-273. 

Muncer, S. J. (2011). The general factor of personality: Evaluating the evidence from meta-analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and evolutionary theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 51 (6), 775-778 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.029

Musek, Janet (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the Big One in the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41 (6), 1213-1233 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2007.02.003

Rushton, J. P., & Irwing, P. (2011). The General Factor of Personality: Normal and Abnormal. In T. Chamorro-Premuzic, S. v. Stumm & A. Furnham (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Individual Differences ( First ed.): Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Conscientiousness, intelligence, and a pseudo-scientific hierarchy of humanness

 Researchers with an agenda based on "race realism" would have people believe that all the "socially desirable" characteristics that people can have are clustered together, and as a corollary all the unpleasant and antisocial traits cluster together too. More pointedly, the desirable traits are supposedly concentrated in certain racial groups, whereas the undesirable ones are characteristic of other races. According to a recently published paper (Templer, 2012) conscientiousness and intelligence apparently are positively correlated. The author states that: “The same conditions conducive to the evolution of greater intelligence would appear to be conducive to the evolution of greater conscientiousness.” The “same conditions” are assumed to involve challenges to survival. The author also links the development of intelligence to the development of a general factor of personality (GFP). The argument is that the GFP is associated with agreeable, altruistic, and conscientious behaviour that in turn helped foster greater cooperation leading to longer life spans and the development of larger brains. The author goes on to discuss Richard Lynn’s argument that dysgenic patterns of fertility are currently occurring in which highly intelligent people are having fewer children, while the less intelligent are having more. The author states that “Since intelligence is positively related to conscientiousness, such a fertility pattern is not one that generates optimism.” Incredibly, the author does not cite any evidence for this bizarre claim that higher intelligence is associated with higher conscientiousness. The only reason for making this claim appears to be the author's commitment to race realism and an associated "hierarchy of humanness".

A number of recently published studies have actually found that higher conscientiousness is associated with lower intelligence. There is even a paper called “Why is conscientiousness negatively correlated with intelligence?” published in an earlier issue of the same journal as Templer’s recent paper (Moutafi, Furnham, & Paltiel, 2004). Templer explicitly stated that conscientiousness is measured by the NEO-PI-R, the same personality trait measure used by Moutafi et al., so it cannot be the case that he is talking about a different construct with the same name. Templer equates low conscientiousness with psychopathic personality traits and then cites Lynn’s (2002) work on racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic traits as evidence for inter-racial differences in conscientiousness. Lynn’s study has been criticised as invalid for a host of reasons, such as confounding ‘psychopathy’ with antisocial personality disorder and citing purely behavioural data as evidence of psychopathy without consideration of environmental variables (Skeem, Edens, Sanford, & Colwell, 2003). Templer also links Lynn’s psychopathic characteristics to J. Philippe Rushton’s K differential theory, which theory has been criticised as scientifically invalid (Weizmann, Wiener, Wiesenthal, & Ziegler, 1991). Rushton’s theory argues that some human races are more ‘K-selected’ and hence more altruistic, whereas other are more ‘r-selected’ and hence more prone to criminality and psychopathy.

Rushton’s argument has been condemned not only for its unscientific basis but for promoting a “barely disguised hierarchy of humanness” in which “everything human and desirable is K and everything animalistic and evil is r” (Weizmann, et al., 1991). Perhaps this belief in a “hierarchy of humanness” can provide a clue as to why Templer would claim without any evidence at all that conscientiousness is positively correlated with intelligence. Templer supports Rushton’s theory of evolutionary selection for a ‘general factor of personality’ that combines all the socially desirable personality traits. Naturally, the general factor of personality is assumed to be ‘K-selected’ and not only that, it actually supported the development of greater intelligence in human evolution if the theory is to be believed. Therefore, Templer argues that some races have evolved not only larger brains and higher intelligence than others but this is because of their socially desirable traits, including greater conscientiousness. Therefore, it seems that Templer has just decided that conscientiousness and intelligence must be positively correlated because it fits into this hierarchy of humanness. A serious scientific problem with this hierarchy of humanness theory is that it appears to be built on a house of cards. Not only is the claim for a positive association between conscientiousness and intelligence contrary to evidence, nearly all the assumptions built into this hierarchical theory appear to be unfounded. For example, Muncer (2011) has argued that evolutionary theory does not support the existence of a general factor of personality. The environmental heterogeneity of environments during human evolutionary history supports a diversity of traits, because certain traits would be adaptive in some environments and not in others. Rushton’s theory on the other hand requires that a homogenous suite of personality traits ordered along a single dimension has been adaptive though all of human history, which would require a constant homogenous environment throughout this vast period. Weizmann et al. (1991) dissected Rushton’s theory in detail and showed how scientifically wanting it really is.

Presumably Templer believes high conscientiousness is important for the welfare of society. Since lower intelligence actually appears to be associated with higher conscientiousness, then perhaps these ‘dysgenic’ trends that worry Templer so, really are grounds for optimism. If people of lower intelligence are outbreeding the more intelligent, the result could be a generation of hard-working rule-abiding conscientious people rather than a society of psychopaths.

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

Posts discussing the General factor of personality

Personality’s “Big One”: Reality or Artifact?

Personality’s Big One Revisited: The Allure of the Dark Side

What Is An Intelligent Personality? 

Other posts discussing intelligence related topics

Emotional intelligence is not relevant to understanding psychopaths

Why there are sex differences in general knowledge

The Knowledgeable Personality

Intelligence and Political Orientation have a complex relationship

Think Like a Man? Effects of Gender Priming on Cognition

Cold Winters and the Evolution of Intelligence: A critique of Richard Lynn’s Theory

The Illusory Theory of Multiple Intelligences – a critique of Howard Gardner’s theory

References

Lynn, R. (2002). Racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 32(2), 273-316. doi: 10.1016/s0191-8869(01)00029-0

Moutafi, J., Furnham, A., & Paltiel, L. (2004). Why is Conscientiousness negatively correlated with intelligence? Personality and Individual Differences, 37 (5), 1013-1022 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2003.11.010

Muncer, S. J. (2011). The general factor of personality: Evaluating the evidence from meta-analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and evolutionary theory. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(6), 775-778. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.029

Skeem, J. L., Edens, J. F., Sanford, G. M., & Colwell, L. H. (2003). Psychopathic personality and racial/ethnic differences reconsidered: a reply to Lynn (2002). Personality and Individual Differences, 35(6), 1439-1462. doi: 10.1016/s0191-8869(02)00361-6

Templer, D. I. (2012). Richard Lynn and the evolution of conscientiousness Personality and Individual Differences, 53 (2), 94-98 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.023

Weizmann, F., Wiener, N. I., Wiesenthal, D. L., & Ziegler, M. (1991). Eggs, eggplants and eggheads: a rejoinder to Rushton. Canadian Psychology, 32 (1), 43-50 DOI: 10.1037/h0078958