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Is The Theory Of Basis Data Scientific?

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1. Is the theory’s basis data scientific? The trait/biological approach is a little scientific. The data used to establish the traits does not include a large and diverse sample. The theorists who did collect data collected it from individuals whose personalities supported their theories. Raymond Cattell collected three types of data: L-data (behavior in everyday situations), Q-data (self-reported questionnaires), and OT-data (objective tests). With the data, Cattell ran a factor analysis and if the data correlated, they would be clustered together to create a factor. The majority of the data he collected is subjective. The five-factor model was developed by opening up the dictionary and picking adjectives. The participants were asked to …show more content…

The biological approach tried to supply the explanation. One explanation is temperament. Hippocrates and Galen proposed there were four humors and temperaments responded to them making up four personalities. Franz Joseph Gall theorized that temperaments existed physically in our heads and he claimed he could identify people’s temperaments by the bumps on their brains. Ernst Kretchmer and William Sheldon believed temperaments were based on three body types: pyknic (heavier, rounder); athletic (fit); and asthenic (thinner). Emil Kraepelin, who was born the same year as Freud approached pathology as links in families. If we had given more recognition to Kraepelin rather than Freud, we would be further in the field. Thomas and Chess identified three different temperaments from parents reporting about their children: easy/well-adjusted, difficult/undercontrolled, and slow-to-warm/inhibited. Strong relationships with how people were identified as children and how they were measured as adults were found. Kegan through more objective observations identified there were only two temperament styles: inhibited (more reactive) and uninhibited (welcome to new people/things). The second explanation is genetics. Research done on twin studies found that identical twins that were raised apart were more statistically similar to each other. A meta-analysis was done that concluded that forty percent of variance in personality can be attributed to genetics. The third explanation of

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