What are the Scientific Evidence?

There are different personality theories in psychology, as frameworks for understanding and explaining individual differences in personality.

Some of the most widely accepted personality theories include:

  1. The Five Factor Model (also known as the “Big Five” personality traits): This theory proposes that personality can be described in terms of five dimensions, i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

  2. Psychoanalytic theory by Sigmund Freud and other followers proposes that personality is shaped by unconscious drives and conflicts, determined by early childhood experiences.

  3. The trait perspective proposes that personality is made up of a set of enduring traits, or characteristics, that are relatively stable over time and across situations.

  4. The social-cognitive perspective suggests that personality is shaped by an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and expectations about themselves and others.

My Psychoanalytic and Psychological research on personality theory

According to a psychoanalyst Karen Horney (1945), there are at lease three distinctive types: those “moving toward people”, “moving against people” and “moving away from people.” These personality types are not fixed categories but rather represent coping strategies that individuals adopt in response to their early life experiences and emotional needs. According to her, many individuals may exhibit a combination of these personality traits to varying degrees, and these traits can change over time going through phases as people develop and adapt.

 

Various psychoanalytic literature of the past 100 years, including Object Relations Theorists, shows one’s personality may vary dialectically across a lifetime and through different cultural influences without being consciously formed. In other words, one’s personality established in adulthood may have been beyond one’s control and may not change through one’s deliberate and conscious choice. Though there may be genetic factors in the form of pre-existing constitutional traits, many scholars claim that early childhood environment influences one’s personality through traumas, which can subsequently be reinforced through various parenting styles by the parents, cultural influences, psychotherapy, or other life-changing experiences (Kim, 2021). Therefore, each personality may have positive (bright) and negative (dark) features within the same personality. 

 

Since the formation of one ‘s personality may have been attributable to many pre-determined factors, it is wrong to judge one ‘s personality beyond anyone’s control as good or bad. 

 

Empirical Research

Of the many theories regarding personality, few have proven robust over time, and many do not guarantee its predictability in various human relationship settings. The models of ARC personality types (Asendorpf, Wilson, & Caspi, 2001) and the Big Five personality traits (MacCrae & Costa, 1999), which were initially formulated based on the theory of ego control by Block (1971), are currently the two most prevailing theories on personality. 

These five personality types that my 5-Stage or 5 planet phase personality theory hypothesizes may also be related to Bowlby and Ainsworth’s observations on infants’ attachment styles.

Identifying empirical verification of the existence of the integrated development model of personality has presented a challenge. However, Gerlach et al. (2018) and Isler et al. (2017)’s recent empirical study using factor analysis found that there are four personalities, regardless of whether the Five-Factor model (the Big Five) or six-factor personality model (HEXACO model) was used to predict the personality. The findings are just one type short of the personalities predicted by the current planet personality model while the Expanded ARC model concurs with my proposed theory. 

Gerlach et al.’s study (2018) utilized four large data sets comprising more than 1.5 million U.S. and U.K. participants. Their four personality types have been derived empirically through a factor analysis of the responses to the self-report questionnaire based on the Big Five personality traits, initially identified by MacCrae and Costa (1999). 

 

 Interestingly enough, the empirically derived four personality types found by Gerlach et al. (2018) resemble at least four of the five personality types predicted by the proposed 5 planet personality theory, except for the trait clusters of Neuroticism score for two personality types. This discrepancy may be due to the overrepresentation by the female participant. Another reason could also be ambiguous question items in the Five-Factor questionnaire, from the perspective of my five planet personality model derived from psychological and psychoanalytic theories. Despite some criticism about the robustness of the model (Katahira et al., 2019), however, Gerlach et al.’s (2018) four personality types provide strong empirical evidence to verify at least four personality types predicted by my five Planet Personality theory. The finding further supports the validity of the 5 planet theory of personality which can be both categorial and dimensional in the personality classification.

References

 

Block, J. (1971). Lives through time. Bancroft Books.

Gerlach, M., Farb, B., Revelle, W. R., & Amaral, L. A. N. (2018). A robust data-driven
approach identifies four personality types across four large data sets. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(10),
735-742. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0419-z

Horney, K. (1945). Our inner conflicts. W. W. Norton & Company.

Isler, L., Fletcher, G. J. O., Liu, J. H., & Sibley, C. G. (2017). Validation of the four-profile configuration of
personality types within the five-factor model. Personality and Individual Differences, 106, 257–262.

            https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.058

Katahira, K., Kunisato, Y., Yamashita, Y, & Suzuki, S. (2019). Commentary: A robust data-driven approach identifies four personality types across four large data sets. General commentary article, front. big data, 25 February 2020, Sec. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2020.00008

McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr., P. T. (1999). A five-factor theory of personality. In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology
(pp. 139-153). Guilford.

Robins, R. W., John, O. P., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (1996). Resilient, overcontrolled, and
undercontrolled boys: Three personality types in early adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 70, 157-171. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.1.157Katahira, K., Kunisato, Y., Yamashita, Y, & Suzuki, S. (2019). Commentary: A robust data-driven approach identifies four personality types across four large data sets. 

General commentary article, front. big data, 25 February 2020

Sec. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2020.00008