Wednesday, April 02, 2008

 

Hiram Caton defends his attack on Derek Freeman

Prof. Caton is referring to this. Despite his disclaimer, his amateur psychiatric speculations have been used to discredit Freeman and I think it is disingenuous to think that he intended anything other than that

You comment on my evidence that Derek Freeman suffered the Narcissistic Personality Disorder seems to be based on an article by Peter Monaghan that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education in January 2006. It doesn't seem to be informed by a reading of the article (The Exalted Self: Derek Freeman's Quest for the Perfect Identity). I'm prompted to say this because you allege that I attempt to discredit his scholarship by discrediting the man whereas I explicitly distance my descriptions from any relevance to assessing the validity of his scholarly claims about Margaret Mead's Samoan ethnography ('Nothing said here is intended as argumentation in the on-going contestations implicated in the nature-nurture dispute or the Samoa dispute'.)

You and the anthropologists whom Monaghan quotes also ignore David Williamson's play about Derek, Heretic (1996), to which I give detailed attention. Why? Because of its subtle portrayal of Derek's personality, which Williamson based on detailed interviews with Derek and his wife Monica. Heretic is a graphic and often brutal depiction of Derek's personality, yet Derek was delighted by it.

Thus, when Monaghan quotes Michael Young as stating that 'I sense an almost scary determination to lay the man bare', he ignores Williamson's play, which attempts exactly that. The quotation of Peter Hempenstall that my analysis is 'too extreme and unconvincing' is no more the attitude of one unacquainted with clinical evidence. If he were serious (and as Derek's biographer he SHOULD be serious) he would write a critique of my analysis. Then there is the amazing quotation of Don Tuzin that my study 'must be added to the long list of works that approach Derek Freeman ad hominem — this one with a vengeance — and prefer to dwell on his style and personality instead of the quality of his arguments.'

When I queried Don about this statement, he said that he thought my analysis of Derek's personality was 'brilliant'. If Monaghan accurately reported Tuzin, he's on both sides of the street. I also circulated a draft of the article to David Williamson, who strongly commended it. The same is true of George A. Appell, a former Freeman student and co-editor of the Freeman Festschrift. Six psychiatrists to whom I sent a draft for comment were also positive. One of them, who is familiar with the Samoa controversy, expressed his satisfaction that someone had finally made a disciplined study of a theme otherwise treated as gossip.

Finally, John, your association of my essay with Leftist attempts to discredit his evidence is … well, let’s leave at saying contrary, drastically contrary, to my numerous publications on Derek, Margaret, and Samoa.

Update:

Hiram Caton replied to my leading comments above as follows:

You're out of your league.

Think about it: my peer reviewed article was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in a TWO PAGE spread in The Australian Higher Education, the Canberra Times, Historians in the News, etc. If you think my detailed analysis ('speculations' is a blogism) is deficient, by all means write a criticism. Doubt that you will because, among other things, you'd need to read the hundreds of pages of ANU archives that are critical to my evaluation. You would also need to immerse in the clinical psychology of personality disorders, which isn't your kind of thing. Have you even read the DSM-IV? Yes or No?

My suspicion that Derek was burdened by the NPD hardened when I read his 1991 public lecture, Paradigms in Collision (have you heard of it?). It magnifies his established contrast between himself, as advocate of interactionist anthropology/social science, and Mead as advocate of the culture only point of view. Magnifies: his challenge now becomes the TURNING POINT of post-Boas intellectual history!! Derek is the turning point: hello pathology! The next thing was Williamson's play and Derek's enthrallled reaction: he couldn't get enough of it despite its devastating exhibition of his vanity. The next item was Frank Heimans' Australian Oral History interview just six months before his passing. His repeated expressions about his exalted self don't leave much room for doubt about the pathology. But, I needed data, and the Archive provided that, as you can see if you read my article, Conversion in Sarawak. Did you know that Derek said, in 1961, that 'either I am mad or Tom [Harrisson] is'? That he was seen by FOUR shrinks in March-April 1961? That his stability was a matter of official concern by senior university officers during that time? That he underwent a self-initiated psycho-analytic analysis in 1963?

You say: 'I think it is disingenuous to think that he intended anything other than that [discrediting Freeman]. Congrats, mate, for knowing my intentions better than I do! But, should it occur to you actually to THINK about what you're saying, have a look at my website on the Samoa caper to see whether Margaret comes away spotless (//4hiram.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/margaret-mead-and-samoa).

I replied to that from my viewpoint as an academic psychologist:

Psychologists require scores on standardized tests before they make clinical judgments. To most psychologists, ALL psychiatry is speculation. DSM4 is a psychiatry manual that deserves no respect. Look how they suddenly went into reverse over homosexuality, for instance. It is at best a Bible of intellectual fashion.

I think however that you have probably established that Freeman was egotistical -- but so are lots of people, most of the political Left for a start and much of academe.

posted by JR 10:11 PM

Sunday, August 05, 2007

 

The Legal Project to Defend Robert Spencer from CAIR

News from the Legal Project, Middle East Forum. Press release of August 2, 2007

PHILADELPHIA - The Legal Project of the Middle East Forum announces its support of Robert Spencer and the Young America's Foundation (YAF), the latest victims of what appears to be a targeted intimidation and defamation campaign by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) designed to silence critics of its organization.

Spencer, a well-respected author and the director of www.jihadwatch.org, spoke today for YAF on "The Truth about CAIR" on the campus of George Washington University. As a consequence of this invitation, YAF's president Ron Robinson received a threatening and possibly defamatory letter written by CAIR's acting attorney, Joseph E. Sandler, of the law firm Sandler, Reiff & Young, P.C.

Sandler's letter (available in pdf format here) accuses Mr. Spencer, without offering any factual support, of being a "well-known purveyor of hatred and bigotry against Muslims," with "a history of false and defamatory statements." Sandler goes on to "demand that YAF cancel the subject session or else take steps to ensure that false and defamatory statements are not disseminated," and states an intention to pursue a "legal remedy" against YAF, should CAIR deem statements made by Spencer at the session "false and defamatory."

CAIR's letter appears to be aimed at maliciously harming Spencer's reputation, interfering in his lawful employment, and aimed to discourage both Spencer and YAF from exercising their fundamental rights to free speech and assembly. Furthermore, the letter wrongfully implies that YAF has an independent duty to censor Spencer, and that it may be subject to suit for allowing Spencer to speak on private property. It is our opinion that CAIR's pre-emptive accusations are without merit, without any legal basis, and that CAIR has yet to prove any of its statements as true.

Therefore, the Legal Project hereby gives CAIR and its attorneys notice that it, too, will pursue "every available and appropriate legal remedy to redress any false or defamatory statements that are made" or have been made by CAIR and its attorneys against Spencer. We advise CAIR's staff to govern themselves accordingly.

The Legal Project, established by the Middle East Forum in June 2007, is dedicated to safeguarding the democratic liberties afforded by the Constitution to U.S. citizens, namely the rights to free speech and free assembly. The Legal Project protects researchers and analysts working on the topics of terrorism, terrorist funding, Islam, and Islamism against those who seek to silence them through intimidation, defamation, and predatory lawsuits.

Immediate release

For more information: John Matthies, (215) 546-5406, ext. 16, or Matthies@MEForum.org

Source.

posted by JR 5:45 PM

Friday, July 06, 2007

 

"Out Of the Silence" – Book review

A science fiction novel by Erle Cox

Review by "Ken"

Unusually for science fiction, this novel can be reviewed as much for its literary qualities as for its social and political commentary. The first few chapters are reminiscent of Neville Shute’s ‘A Far Country’ and the reader is quickly absorbed in the characters’ prosaic lifestyle and urbane relationships. The writing style is crisp and compelling, drawing the reader into the friendships that motivate the township.

Mr Cox paints a character-rich idyll of a small country town in Northern Victoria. The central character introduces us to an erudite, privileged bush community, centred around an exclusive tennis club whose restricted membership includes the local professionals and businessmen. The locals carry on the traditions of a colonial outpost with the same moral and social imperatives and semi-elitist prejudices. The repartee between the town’s elite is teasing, witty and friendly, leaving the reader in no doubt that these countrymen are well-versed in the arts and sciences. Literary references are scattered liberally and unselfconsciously throughout the dialogue.

When the central character encounters an alien structure while digging a dam, the reason for his erudition gradually becomes clear.

Just as we are becoming familiar with the characters and the slowly unfolding story we reach chapter twenty where the first sense of disquiet makes us squirm uncomfortably.

Because of our empathy with the central characters we find our loyalties divided and our sensibilities seriously compromised.

The intentions of a newly awakened stranger are subtly revealed in a way that carries us with them until we find ourselves falling into the trap of condoning the ideas of eugenics.

It is only then that we begin to realise that the central character is not the hero of the piece but merely a dupe. The secondary character takes the reins and, so good is the writing that the reader finds it difficult to switch allegiance.

This original and unexpected literary technique is carried off with consummate skill and is very disturbing to experience.

The resolution of the dilemma is played out for us in a fairly conventional way but leaves us unsure of which side of the eugenics argument the author sits. We get the feeling that the inevitability of the outcome overruled the intent of the text.

Mr. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking work that is worthy of the great science fiction writers in history. He combines the empathy of H.G.Wells with the imagination of Jules Verne while managing to remain indubitably Erle Cox.

My only criticism would be that Mr. Cox’ imagination occasionally wanders unnecessarily too far into fantasy. There were times when I questioned the attributes given to the stranger and felt that they were merely a device to allow the plot to move on more quickly than it would otherwise have been necessary to do. With a little more thought and commitment to a longer novel, I think they could have been avoided altogether to the advantage of the overall work.

It is a pity that this worthy novel is not more widely read in the 21st century; it deserves a place among the classics.



Available on Amazon

posted by JR 8:17 AM

Monday, May 14, 2007

 

Conflict puts Sacramento State University in a sorry state

By Marcos Breton - "Sacramento Bee" Columnist

The walls of a men's room are never good reading, especially when the message is:

"Never hire a beaner to do a white man's job."

Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez was the target of this vulgarity, which was discovered in late April scrawled near a Sequoia Hall toilet, and came to light last week in the campus newspaper. Penned with black markers, the sentiment exemplifies the dark side of a caustic climate afflicting Sacramento's public university. How caustic? When a call for comment went out to the chancellor of the California State University system last week, Charles Reed called back in minutes. "That is totally uncalled for on a university campus," he said.

No one is saying there's a link between the racist graffiti smeared in anonymity in a Sac State bathroom and the professors on campus at odds with Gonzalez. Those Gonzalez opponents -- 77 percent of the faculty members who participated in a referendum -- went very public on April 27 with a vote of "no confidence." "It was not about Alexander Gonzalez the man," Juanita Barrena, a professor of biological sciences and campus fixture since 1975, said of the vote. "It's about what's happening inside the university."

Put more bluntly, it's about power. "We're supposed to work under a shared system of governance," Gonzalez said of his relationship with the Faculty Senate. "That is being tested." On the surface, it appears Gonzalez's massive plans to upgrade Sac State's facilities ran afoul with faculty concerns over class size, class availability and rising student fees. But strip this dispute down to its essence -- dissect why faculty members have sharply denounced Gonzalez in campus protests and letters to The Bee -- and you have an even more basic reason for a warring campus. Gonzalez is like an NBA coach whose players want to call the plays, too.

By some accounts, faculty enjoyed such privileges with Gonzalez's predecessor, Donald Gerth. Barrena said the role of past faculty leaders was to "train the president in the whatevers of the university." "When I had opposition to President Gerth, I would go to him first ... I don't have that kind of relationship with (Gonzalez)." That's because the 61-year-old Gonzalez doesn't want to be trained. He assigned his deans and provosts to handle faculty beefs so he could fund-raise. And -- at least off campus -- he's become a respected figure who could land $12 million deals with Pepsi. But on campus? Reviled is not too strong a word.

Sadly, it's all so unnecessary. Even Gonzalez's foes don't doubt his commitment. He admits he's made mistakes and is setting up committees to reach out to faculty. He also held off cutting $1.6 million from the Academic Affairs budget, instead dipping into university reserves. Academic Affairs encompasses the seven academic colleges on campus, the library, continuing education and several other programs. It has a budget of $104 million, the largest on campus by far. So you're telling us that cutting $1.6 million out of a $104 million budget is cause for revolution? That the only way to deal with a president credited with raising the profile of a sleepy university is a vote of no-confidence?

Meantime, the discourse at Sacramento's public university dips into the toilet -- or is scrawled in racist epithets near campus toilets. There is plenty of fault to go around. But if you're going to have a college president, you should let him be one.

Source

posted by JR 9:10 AM

Thursday, March 08, 2007

 

A small protest against the Anti-War Cognitive Elites In Pasadena, California

By Wayne Lusvardi

Pasadena, California is known as a hot bed of anti-war sentiment. Its City Council adopted an anti-war resolution in 2003. When Senator John Kerry was stumping for Democrats before the November 2006 elections he made his infamous anti-war faux paus to a receptive audience at Pasadena City College ("if you don't get an education, you get stuck in Iraq")

Pasadena is also known for the infamous I.R.S. complaint about an anti-war sermon delivered in 2004 prior to national elections by Reverend George Regas at All Saints Episcopal Church

The local Pasadena newspaper, the Pasadena Star News, was the first to break this story which eventually spiraled to national and international attention. What was never disclosed was that the editor of the same newspaper goes to the All Saints church. Moreover, the I.R.S. complaint was filed a year after the infamous anti-war sermon by an anonymous person who for all we know could have been from the church itself. All Saints Church eventually hired a New York law firm to handle its phony legal defense against a simple I.R.S. inquiry letter that involved no administrative law hearing or sanctions or penalties at that time. The church reaped an undisclosed windfall from this fund raising stunt. The anti-war effort received free advertising on a grand scale.

Then again in September 2005 the local newspaper broke a story about a local Pasadena couple, Mary and Patrick Briggs, who sued the City of Pasadena in Federal Court over the City of Pasadena's restrictive sign ordinance which forbade them from displaying a 6-foot long anti-war banner on their home in a residential neighborhood. The sign repeated the anti-war cliche "Bush lied, people died." And again this story became national and international news. Eventually the City of Pasadena revised its sign ordinance to allow large banners with political speech on residential buildings and by paying the Briggs' legal bills subsidized their anti-war speech. And again the local newspaper gave them free advertising which gained national attention.

Then on February 21, 2007 the editor of the Pasadena Star News promoted in his weekly editorial a forum that was being held at Pasadena City College ostensibly on "What Families Need to Know About Military Recruitment." He also ran a large story about this forum in the Sunday edition of the newspaper's weekly magazine (called the "U" Section). The purpose of this forum was to dissuade low income youth from joining the military and supporting the Iraq War. What was never entirely disclosed was that the organizer of this forum was a former newspaper staffer of the Pasadena Star News who was apparently working in consort with its editor (online link no longer posted).

Taking advantage of the City's new relaxed sign ordinance about political speech, the local Throop Memorial Unitarian Church has erected a sign on its downtown property reading "No More Troops," apparently referring to the Iraq War "surge." Now a local gagster has apparently turned the tables on the local newspaper and the anti-war cognitive elites in the City of Pasadena with a small, hardly noticed act. Someone pasted a letter "H" on the sign so that it re-read "No More Throops!" Other than the letter to the editor of the local newspaper below, this small anti-antiwar act received no newspaper photos or national notoriety like the other editorially "staged" anti-war stunts.



Mark Helprin once wrote that "Marxists are people whose insides are torn up day after day because they want to rule the world and no one will publish their letter to the editor." I might add, except if they are the editor. For the first counter anti-war letter see below:

Letter to Pasadena Star News - March 7, 2007

Adding extra letter

As a former Pasadenan, I was in town last week for a doctor's visit and happened to be driving by the Throop Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church on Del Mar and Los Robles avenues.

The church has erected an anti-war sign on the corner which reads: "No More Troops!" - promoting opposition to the Iraq War "surge." In a play on words, someone had added a letter "H" on the sign so that it sarcastically read: "No More Throops!"

I'm sure I was not the only person who witnessed this, as that is a very busy intersection especially around 5p.m. I checked and saw nothing about this in the online newspaper.

I must have been, as the Roman historian Tacitus once wrote, "an eye-witness to what never happened." I guess only anti-war signs, not anti-antiwar signs, are newsworthy in Pasadena.

Sean Christopher
La Quinta

posted by JR 4:46 PM

Saturday, February 24, 2007

 

How many dimensions of personality?

- The 'Big 5', the 'Gigantic 3' or the 'Comprehensive 6'?



By: CHRISTOPHER R. BRAND.
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
7, George Square,
Edinburgh EH8 9JZ.



From: Psychologica Belgica 4, 4, 257-275 (1994)

Abstract

Eighteen criticisms of the 'Five Factor Model' of personality (FFM) are indicated : there is too much variation for comfort in the number and the nature of the personality dimensions that are currently recognized by researchers, whether in 'lexical' studies or in questionnaire data. It is suggested that there are actually six main dimensions of normally-distributed human psychological difference; and that each of the six psychometric dimensions is connected with a particular underlying difference in both ability and emotion. A comprehensive scheme representing major dimensions of personality, ability and emotion is outlined. However, psychometric fusion sometimes occurs within two pairs of the Comprehensive 6 dimensions - when testing methods are less sensitive or when testees are of lower sophistication or general intelligence (g); such lack of differentiation results in only four or five dimensions being seen. Additionally, three of the six dimensions (extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness) are particularly easily found in conventional questionnaire studies. These three resemble the three most familiar personality concepts of Freud (id, ~ego, superego) and Eysenck (Extraversion, Neuroticism, ~Psychoticism); anyhow, a 'Freudian' combination of short yet reliable ipsative versions of them yields correlations with sexual permissiveness and militarism/punitiveness. Like g itself, other dimensions of personality crystallize into differences in attainment and into attitudes regarding sex and aggression.

Keywords: personality; intelligence; differentiation; moods; id; ego; superego.
(in French): personnalité; intelligence; différentiation; humeurs; ça; moi; surmoi.


Introduction

The past ten years have seen a 'converging consensus' among empirically oriented personality theorists. The 'Five Factor Model' (FFM) proposes five main constituent dimensions of personality: Openness (O), Conscientiousness (C), Extraversion (E), Agreeableness (A) and Neuroticism (N). These 'Big 5' ('OCEAN') factors are said to be the important, observable, uncorrelated ways in which people differ from each other in personality. The dimensions appear in ratings and questionnaires in several European languages. They have considerable statistical power - typically yielding a multiple correlation of around .60 with any sizeable factor from a traditional multi-scale test (McCrae et al., 1993; McCrae and Costa 1994). They are relatively 'real' - emerging rather more clearly when raters know ratees better (Wiggins and Pincus, 1992; Borkenau and Liebler, 1993). And something is known of their origins: twin studies have shown long-term causal influences on most of them from additive genetic factors, from genetic epistasis and from within-family environmental influences (see Brand, 1989). (Deary and Matthews (1993) and Goldberg (1993) provide helpful reviews of the FFM.)

The FFM has been a welcome arrival in differential psychology. It seems to provide a long-sought compromise in the titanic struggles of the great psychometrician-psychologists, R.B.Cattell, H.J.Eysenck and the late J.P.Guilford. It certainly provides a firm-looking reply to behaviourists, 'situationists', 'holists' and 'constructivists' who have doubted the importance of biologically based personality differences; and it has given rise to a new internationalism of theorizing, research and conferencing. However, the present paper points out eighteen weaknesses of the FFM and suggests an improvement. Four broad psychological dimensions of ability and emotion are suggested to provide the minimum number of dimensions recovered in adequate researches; but six independent dimensions should be expected in reasonably sophisticated testing of intelligent testees; and just three of these dimensions appear especially readily in questionnaires and resemble the three key personality concepts deployed in the writings of both Freud and Eysenck.


Eighteen problems for the Five-Factor Model (FFM)

1. In a matter as weighty as that of what are the major human personality variations, advocates of the FFM change their views with startling speed. McCrae and Costa (1983) offered "strong evidence for the validity of the proposed three-dimensional domain model of personality" (involving N, E, and O) and went on to publish a test of their own 'Big 3' dimensions. Yet soon afterwards McCrae and Costa (1987) announced the "validation of the five-factor model". Today, McCrae (1994) allows that six factors can easily be found - "the Big 5 plus general intelligence". Both of two 'integrative' studies are now said by McCrae to "support Brand's view (1984, 1995) that intelligence is an independent sixth factor". [By contrast, it took Freud twenty years to complement eros with thanatos; and it took Eysenck twenty years to add Psychoticism to his two dimensions of normal personality, Neuroticism and Extraversion. More rapid 'breakthroughs' suggest not only open-mindedness but a possible lack of depth, breadth and resilience in the personality theory or 'model' in question.]

2. Why had the previous forty years' work of differential and social psychologists failed to yield the correct number of dimensions? - Just what had Cattell (e.g. 1973), Eysenck (e.g. Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985), Guilford (e.g. Guilford, Zimmerman and Guilford, 1976) and C.E.Osgood (1962; Goldberg, 1993) done wrong? [The question 'How many main dimensions are there?' has, after all, been central to differential psychology at least since the paths of Eysenck and Cattell diverged sharply around 1960.]

3. Most FFM studies examine differences occurring amongst relatively intelligent, young, healthy, law-abiding, higher-educated subjects. These testees are clearly chosen to suit the convenience of investigators as much as to examine the realities of human individual differences. [The virtual exclusion of the unskilled, the unemployed and the long-term low-waged is specially strange.]

4. Likewise, 'lexical' and 'taxonomic' studies (of how raters think adjectives in their own language overlap in meaning) usually involve university-educated, socio-culturally unrepresentative raters.

5. Beyond excluding very rare descriptors, lexical studies pay little heed to the frequency with which adjectives are actually used by modern native speakers, or to the objectivity with which adjectives can be applied to the same target by different raters. Such studies are thus not directly concerned with the person-describing schemes that are actually in regular use in the cultures from which raters are drawn.

6. Lexical studies usually omit adjectives on which ratees produce little variance. Adjectives related to intelligence are especially likely to be jettisoned because of: (i) the limited range of many of the 'targets' (often acquaintances of the raters); (ii) the day-to-day unfamiliarity of many university students with people who differ much from themselves in intelligence; and (iii) the unwillingness of many social science students to 'label' almost anyone at all as 'dense', 'dim', 'dull', 'simple', 'slow' or 'ignorant'. The major Dutch taxonomic programme for personality traits expressly omitted altogether "stable traits of capacity, ability, intelligence or skill" (Brokken, 1978; De Raad, Hendriks and Hofstee, 1992; McCrae, 1994). By contrast, when ability traits are included, a general Intellectance dimension subsumes variance from terms like 'creative' and 'imaginative' (Angleitner and Ostendorf, 1989; McCrae, 1994).

7. Perhaps because of the last four problems, general intelligence (g) has often had only a walk-on part - within the FFM's O dimension. (O has often seemed to involved Intellectance (as well as Extraversion and youthful 'anti-rule heterodoxy') (Johnson and Ostendorf, 1993); and it correlates at about .35 with g even in samples having restricted g range (Brand, 1994).) 8. The FFM is a static, non-dynamic model of personality. As presented, it seems to have little to do with the major human motivational systems that surely centre on sex (or procreation), aggression (or competition) and curiosity (or creativity); it does not concern itself with how such drives are expressed (or repressed); and it has no theory of the structure of the mind. (See Magnusson and Törestad, 1993; McAdams, 1992; Ozer and Reise, 1994; Pervin, 1994.) [Even Eysenck - no advocate of psychoanalysis - has talked of sex and aggression as basic to attitudinal differences (Eysenck, 1954) and of his Psychoticism as a 'superego' factor (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1976).]

9. The FFM does not connect its dimensions systematically even to any static underlying dimensions of emotions, sentiments, skills or abilities. There is systematic evasion of psychology here. [Notably, the FFM's A dimension envisages a bald opposition between love and hate, or between co-operation and competition. Many social and psychological theorists have rejected such simple dichotomy (see Brand, 1994,1995): for example, just as Freud added thanatos to eros in his theorizing, so Adler (moving in the opposite direction) had to add altruistic, affectionate 'social interest' to the force of antagonistic, competitive 'personal interest' with which his break from Freud had begun.]

10. Agreement on five as the correct number of dimensions (whether 'perceived' or 'real') is far from complete (Brand, 1984; Pervin, 1994). Twenty large, modern programmes of work report more than five independent factors - most commonly six . (See e.g. Linveh & Linveh, 1989; Brand & Egan, 1989; Shmelyov & Pokhilko, 1993; Deary & Matthews, 1993; Brand, Egan & Deary, 1993; Matthews & Oddy, 1993). [Deary (1995) further claims that the same six-factor structure is even found in the first-ever correlation matrix of reliable personality assessments - collected under Spearman's supervision in London (Webb, 1915).] On the other hand, numerous investigators have favoured recognizing just three or four super-factors. These are usually N, E, g and some version of C (e.g. 'anality', 'obsessionality', superego, 'solidity' or (social) conservatism vs impulsion and alienation) - e.g. Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985; Kline, 1992; Bjorgvinsson & Thompson, 1994.

11. There are sometimes correlations as high as .40 amongst the scales of McCrae and Costa's NEO-PI and amongst other supposed indicators of the Big 5 (Caprara et al, 1993); and the 'facets' (i.e. oblique sub-factors) of the Big 5 sometimes have their highest loadings on unexpected dimensions (Church and Burke, 1994).

12. There is no precise agreement among researchers on when to halt factor extraction. The most reasonable modern procedures seem to yield six or more dimensions (Matthews and Oddy, 1993). Yet five factors are sometimes extracted by researchers even when six seem clearly indicated (e.g. by Zuckerman et al., 1993).

13. Despite investigators' optimistic naming of their factors, the factors called O, C, etc. (let alone other unnamed 'representatives of the Big 5') differ substantially in nature from one study to another (e.g. Hofstee, De Raad and Goldberg, 1992; Stumpf, 1993); and O can disappear altogether (e.g. fusing with Intellectance (Johnson and Ostendorf, 1993)) or correlate with any evaluatively positive traits, especially Agreeableness (Borkenau and Liebler, 1993).

14. Some psychometric batteries involve substantially more reliable variance than can be accounted for by OCEAN variables alone (e.g. Goh and Leong, 1993; Waller, 1995).

15. The temporal stability of OCEAN-type differences is only around .50 over a ten-year period (Whitborne, Zuschlag, Elliot and Waterman,1992) even though much longer (and thus more short-term-reliable) measures have been used than formerly in personality research.

16. The FFM takes no account of the fluctuating nature of personality 'superfactors'. For many years, Eysenck maintained that 'sociability' and 'impulsivity' correlated at >.40 and were both facets of a broad dimension of Extraversion on which criminals would have high scores; yet today it is generally agreed that E and C (vs impulsion) are independent factors. Likewise the rather broad and evaluatively loaded FFM A factor may split (with help from the non-g variance that is found on O, if g is removed as a separate factor) into two separate factors of dependence (vs will) and tender-mindedness (affection) vs realism. (This phenomenon was first observed in Cattell's tests by Royce and Powell (1983).) Such systematic changeability of superfactors and conflict of evidence requires theoretical integration, not neglect.

17. Though Eysenck's personological stance centres on his 'Gigantic 3', he has also classically recognised at least three or four more largely independent dimensions: g, social conservatism vs liberalism, tough-mindedness vs idealism, and 'Lie'/Conventionality. So the 'Big 5' do not embrace Eysenck's opus, let alone Cattell's.

18. Authors' theoretical approaches can be erratic and hard to understand. On finding that O correlated with IQ, McCrae and Costa (1987) at first maintained the unitariness of O and the adequacy of the FFM. Today, McCrae and Costa (see Deary & Matthews, 1993) claim to recover their O even when IQ is partialled out, but it is far from clear that this is possible in studies of the unselected, normal population (Brand, 1995). McCrae and Costa are only just beginning to acknowledge (McCrae, 1995) that, by implication, they must work with an explicit six-factor personology. They have yet to see much of what their factors look like when marker variables are regularly included in their studies to ensure that the g is adequately retrieved from correlation matrices. Reliable dimensional 'personality' differences are hard to identify in infants and young children, and personality is commonly said to be 'destroyed' when intelligence declines in Alzheimer's disease; yet the many of the latest generation of psychometrician-pyschologists have been trying to insulate their concepts (and the field of personality as a whole) from the central reality of the human condition - general intelligence (g).


Resolving the main problem: a theory.

There are probably important interaction effects between the major psychometric dimensions of general intelligence (g) and neuroticism (n). Neuroticism normally has a slight negative correlation with many forms of achievement (Francis, 1993); but higher levels of n often seem to yield higher artistic achievement in high-g people (Prentky, 1980). Again, Lienert (see Eysenck, 1994) has found that g itself can be markedly stronger (more unitary as a factor, accounting for more variance) among higher-n people. (This may occur because more specific abilities are just too unreliable to yield specific, non-g factors in more emotional, more variable, higher-n people.) Key psychometric correlations themselves thus differ across different ranges of g and n. Examination of such 'zonal' effects (McKenzie and Tindell, 1993) is probably the next big, general task of psychometric psychology.

Differences in g ranges may likewise help explain current variations in estimates of personality dimensions and structure. At around IQ 75, people differ from each other psychologically in rather few ways that are of socio-economic consequence: they show basic temperamental differences, but such variations will probably be of less practical importance to them than is their low level of g that they share. By contrast, at around IQ 125, some people are highly creative, hard-working and highly rewarded, while others are in prison, die early from drugs or AIDS, spend many hours daily watching TV, or give themselves to unremunerative charitable work. More independent dimensions of variation in ability and knowledge can sometimes be found in testees having higher g levels (Detterman and Daniel, 1989; Deary, Gibson, Egan, Brand and Kellaghan, 1996); and wider variance on personality tests has sometimes been observed in personality amongst higher-g people (Brand, Egan and Deary, 1993). Although no factor other than g makes a reliable appearance in factor analyses of ability data in the normal population (Brand, 1993), at higher g levels people specialize more obviously in some particular stratagems, skills and knowledge systems as opposed to others.

In the modern history of psychology, there are two psychometric ability contrasts that have notoriously proved to be more 'visible' at higher-g levels. These are (1) field-independence vs field dependence (Flexer & Roberge, 1983) and (2) creativity (vs clerical ability) (Hargreaves & Bolton, 1972). However, g-related differentiation probably occurs also for (3) short-term memory vs long-term memory (Miller and Vernon, 1983) and for (4) verbal vs performance / spatio-mechanical abilities (Detterman and Daniel, 1989). [Right- vs left-handedness is another psychometric dimension that is more clearly defined outwith low-g ranges - for the very young and the mentally handicapped show relatively mixed and unreliable hand preferences (Soper & Satz, 1987).]

The above four bipolar mental ability contrasts can all be argued to be related to familiar personality distinctions. (1) Witkin and Cattell held the analytic, logical perceptuo-cognitive style of field-independence to be related to specificity of response, lateralization of function and independence-of-mind as opposed to agreeableness (Witkin, Goodenough and Oltman, 1979); and the competitive, relatively interpersonally insensitive, field-independent personality presents a low-n version of the core of 'Type A' personality (Yarnold, Bryant and Litsas, 1989). (2) Abilities for close, vigilant attention and clerical work (as vs peripheral processing, imagery and creative abilities) correlate with obsessionality, judgement (vs perception), social conservatism, non-Psychoticism and age (Claridge, 1981; Katz and Pestell, 1989). (3) Relatively good integrative attention and short-term memory, but poorer long-term memory, seem to be broadly characteristic of extraverts (possibly related to cholinergic function) (Matthews, 1993; Logue and Byth, 1993). (4) Verbal (vs performance) shift is more common in non-psychopaths, in females, in more socially adjusted and responsible children and in arts-oriented adults (Smith, 1964; Flor-Henry, 1974).

Thus there is reason to expect that the non-g personality differences which can be observed and measured will themselves vary with g-level; and that the number of retrieved factorial dimensions in ratings and questionnaires will vary too. At lower g-levels, rather broad and general factors like Osgood's ACTIVITY (or Liveliness vs Inhibition) and POTENCY (or Forcefulness vs Agreeableness) could be expected. By contrast, at higher-g levels such global distinctions should differentiate: ACTIVITY into extraversion (e) vs introversion and, almost independently, into impulsivity vs conscientiousness (c) / inhibition; and POTENCY into will (w) / assertiveness vs deference and, independently, into hostility vs receptiveness / affection (a). Which of these dimensions are seen will also depend somewhat on the complexity and subtlety of the information available to the psychological researcher (Borkenau and Liebler, 1993; De Raad and Hofstee, 1993).

Such differentiation of personological phenomena at higher levels of intelligence and information-processing may also be hypothesized in the realm of emotional experience. Just like personality items, estimates of emotion quite often exhibit a crude, two-dimensional circumplex (Conte and Plutchik, 1981). This circumplex contrasts ACTIVE, action-ready states of Joy and Anticipation with those of Sadness and Surprise; and POTENT, antagonistic sates of Anger and Disgust with those of Acceptance and Fear. However, this two-dimensional model is itself a simplification of four independent dimensions of contrast in mood and emotion. The four basic emotional contrasts that are commonly recognised today are: (1) Anger vs Fear; (2) Surprise / attentiveness / alertness vs Anticipation / boredom; (3) Joy vs Sadness; and (4) Disgust / hostility / rejection vs Acceptance (Oatley & Jenkins,1992). Modern 'cognitive' theorists commonly hold that these mood variations differentiate further into the social emotions of guilt, shame, jealousy, love, contempt, etc., in so far as they are experienced as responses to particular, specifiable events in appropriate cognitive contexts (involving reasoned expectations). These four basic dimensions of emotion look likely candidates for having connections, respectively, with the personality dimensions of w, c, e and a. For example, self-rated attentiveness can be found correlated at .80 with conscientiousness, joviality at .84 with extraversion, and hostility at -.63 with Agreeableness (Watson and Clark, 1992).

In addition to the four dimensions of emotion that differentiate from the two-dimensional mood 'circumplex', empirical work usually allows identification of two further factors of mood. One is a dimension of Intensity vs Composure (Howarth, 1980; Daly, Lancee and Polivy, 1993). This looks intrinsic to n: for high-n is notoriously related to intense and more rapidly changing experience of many different moods (Williams, 1993). The other is a Clear-headedness vs Confusion factor (Howarth, 1980): this looks promising as a way of recognizing such (slight) temporal variability as is found in fluid g (gf) (Rauscher, Shaw and Ky, 1993).

Changes along these six dimensions of mood may yield cognitive shifts and temporarily changed approaches to problem-solving. Longer-term personality differences will presumably arise from underlying tendencies to differ from others, on average, in such affecto-cognitive states. A unifying structural scheme (see Table 1) would link six personality dimensions (g, n, e, c, w, and a) to the six dimensions of ability and mood indicated above, while noting at the same time the broader dimensions into which some of these six dimensions may collapse - yielding only four dimensions when less specific information is available.



Table 1: Variants of the 'Comprehensive 6' dimensions of personality.
6 6 6
Ability Personality Mood
dimensions dimensions dimensions
Global Global Contrasts Contrasts
* *
_________________________________________

g(fluid) g Clear-
(crystallized) headedness
Intellectance
Culture
+ |Reason*
EVALUATION (classical) *
- |Passion*
Responsiveness n Uncertainty,
to reinforcement; Degree of emotional event memory. variability. NEGATIVE
Intensity of mood
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Short-term memory e Joy
(vs Long-term memory) (vs Sadness)
+ |Liveliness * POSITIVE
ACTIVITY * * Activity
- |Inhibition *
Clerical c Alertness ATTENTIVE
(vs Creative) (vs Impulsion due to
low cerebral, 'upper' arousal)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Field-independence w Anger
(vs Field-dependence) (vs Fear)
+ |Forcefulness *
POTENCY *
- |Agreeableness * *Pleasantness
Symbolic abilities, intuition a Acceptance
(versus spatio-mechanical) (vs Disgust)

_______________________ ___________________________
*CAPITALS = Osgood's terms. CAPITALS = Watson & Clark's* Italics = terms suggested in text (1992) terms
* for broad g vs n, e vs c and w vs a. Italics = Daly et al.'s (1983) terms*


g = general intelligence; n = neuroticism/emotionality; e = extraversion/energy;
c = conscientiousness; w = will/independence; a =affection/tendermindedness.





Such a structured scheme acknowledges that the number of visible personality dimensions will vary - depending on the intelligence of testees and on the sophistication of the approach adopted by testers. In contrast, the 'Big 5' personality dimensions provide an estimate of central tendency for what is actually a bimodal distribution of theoretical possibilities. The Comprehensive 6 can support a linkage of personality dimensions to all the main, empirically distinct, psychological dimensions of contrast for both moods and abilities. It handles many of the anomalies of the 'Big 5' - notably that the classic programmes of work with population samples by Eysenck, Cattell and Osgood never homed in on them. It spells out the 'inextricable intertwining' of affect and cognition, and the 'implacable logic' of the emotions that are such popular but minimally articulated ideas in cognitive psychology today (e.g. Oatley and Jenkins, 1992; Lazarus, 1993). And the relations between the six dimensions as g differentiates into four dimensions (e, c, w and a) on which n creates short-term variability can be conveniently illustrated as a 'double cone' (Brand, Egan and Deary, 1993).


Resolving a minor problem: a short measure of the readily measurable.

If there are truly six main super-factors of psychological variation, within and between people, which of these are the more important and readily measurable? In accounting for people's real-life, socio-economic outcomes, intelligence is undoubtedly the most important dimension (see Brand, 1987, 1993; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994); and it is readily and reliably measurable in thirty minutes of group-testing. However, people are often unaware of the population range of intelligence levels, and are therefore poor at rating their own. Moreover, because there is rather little daily variation in gf, people do not look to g to explain much of their own behaviour and experience. Finally, occupational selection by g means that, within many job contexts, the important personal differences between people will consist in factors other than g.

In research with students, adult volunteers and job candidates in Edinburgh and Birmingham, equal numbers of adjectives for each of the above 'Comprehensive 6' dimensions were used to form a 144-adjective ipsative test. A first factor of affection/neuroticism (strongly loaded by 'loving', 'tender-hearted', 'compassionate' and 'passionate' vs 'thick-skinned', 'composed', 'level-headed' and 'unsentimental') provided quite the largest component of self-ratings (both before and after scree-tested reduction and Varimax rotation of factors) (Brand & Egan, 1989). This factor seemed interpretable as one of emotionality / neuroticism / sensibility vs sluggishness / ego strength / sense - though it captured rather more of the positive and affectionate aspects of emotionality than is usual for neuroticism factors. The next two Varimax factors seemed to reflect surgency / extraversion / id strength vs stoicism / introversion; and scrupulosity / conscientiousness / superego strength vs spontaneity / impulsiveness. Recently, in 54 Edinburgh adults, Vincent Egan and I have observed that even mere eight-item packages assessing these three dimensions (using contrasted adjectives - see Brand and Egan, 1989, Table 2) have split-half reliabilities of around .70, and strong correlations with Eysenck's E (id, ~superego) and ~N (ego). These findings exemplify three now well recognised phenomena: (i) the general tendency for the three Big 5 dimensions of N, E and C to emerge especially clearly (as do the three corresponding mood dimensions of 'Negative', 'Positive' and 'Attentive / Constrained') (Tellegen, 1992; Watson and Clark, 1992; Wiggins and Pincus, 1993); (ii) for broad E dimensions of the original Eysenckian type to break up into independent components of e and c (as in Table 1); and (iii) for emotionality / neuroticism to be higher in women especially when the highest loading items for n are used (Francis, 1993).

The above three ego vs n, id / e and superego / c factors were combined to yield a crude operationalization of expressed eros (cf. Freud) as
[ id² - ( ego x superego)] (after eliminating zeros by adding 1 to all three scores). Analysis of data from twenty-four 2-adjective items given to 66 London University psychology students shows eros (or, more prosaically, spiritedness) to correlate significantly (p<.001, 2-tailed) with approval (in a very brief survey) of abortion, polygamy, pornography and prostitution. Similar operationalization of expressed thanatos (or strong-mindedness) as [ id x ego x superego] also showed a significant correlation (p<.01, 2-tailed) with a package of more 'aggressive' attitudes involving approval of hanging and Thatcherism and opposition to agnosticism and pacifism; and, in 69 Scottish adults, thanatos was related (p<.02) to favouring Nationalism as opposed to holding no party-political views. These explorations thus suggest ways of beginning to link dimensions of modern differential psychology at once to some of the basic and original concepts of Freudian theory and to the major attitudinal variables of permissiveness / hedonism and militarism / punitiveness.


Conclusion

It seems reasonable to say that the three most recognizable dimensions of personality in self-report data are presently e, n and c. These three dimensions are similar to Eysenck's 'Gigantic 3'; they have strong relations to general dimensions of mood and emotion as is increasingly demanded in post-cognitive psychology (Sutherland, 1994); and they could apparently bear some psychoanalytic interpretations. However, as the new surge of empirical work on personality has shown in the past decade, it is as well to acknowledge three additional dimensions. Two of these - the POTENCY dimensions of w and a - are less reliably retrieved, perhaps because they reflect rather deep aspects of personality (e.g. connected with motivations for - rather than restraints on - aggression and sex); and many of today's psychometrician-psychologists would shudder at the political incorrectness of admitting the intellectual dimension of g as fully part of personality variation. Yet psychologists need not be surprised that six dimensions are needed to describe personality even half-adequately: for European languages remind us that we can each be said to possess, to varying degrees and with varying qualifications, six key folk-psychological components of personhood - a mind (cf. g), a heart (n), a soul (a), a spirit (e), a will (w) and a conscience (c). After a century of psychology that has been largely dominated by empiricist and idealist opponents of realism (see Brand, Egan and Deary, 1994), it is perhaps time to admit something like the Comprehensive 6 as the state of the art for differential psychology, psychoanalysis, folk psychology and their many hoped-for interfaces in applied psychology - for all that the Freudian / Eysenckian 3 will long remain the best known and most widely used in settings where g variance is negligible.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Greg Baird, Claude Charpentier, Vincent Egan and Adrian Furnham.



References

BJORGVINSSON, T. & THOMPSON, A.P. (1994). 'Psychometric properties of an Icelandic translation of the Basic Personality Inventory: cross-cultural invariance of a three-factor solution.' Personality and Individual Differences 16, 1, 47-56.
BORKENAU, P. & LIEBLER, Annette (1993). 'Convergence of stranger ratings of personality and intelligence with self-ratings, partner ratings and measured intelligence.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 65, 3, 546-553.
BRAND, C.R. (1984). 'Personality dimensions: an overview of modern trait psychology.' In J.Nicholson and Halla Beloff (eds.), Psychology Survey 5, 175-209. Leicester, UK : British Psychological Society.
BRAND, C.R. (1989). 'A fitting endeavour'. Nature 341, 7 ix, p.29.
BRAND, C.R. (1993). 'The importance of the g factor.' - A review of J.B.Carroll's Human Cognitive Abilities: a Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies. Times Higher Educational Supplement, 1094, 22 x, p.22.
BRAND, C.R. (1994). 'Open to Experience - Closed to Intelligence: Why the 'Big Five' are really the 'Comprehensive Six'. European Journal of Personality 8, 299-310.
BRAND, C.R. (1995). 'Egoism and altruism: Alfred Adler's dimensions of personality.' (A review of A. Adler (1928/1992), Understanding Human Nature and A.Adler (1931/1992), What Life Could Mean to You. ) Behaviour Research and Therapy 32, ^^^^^
BRAND, C.R. & EGAN, V. (1989). 'The 'Big Five' dimensions of personality? Evidence from ipsative, adjectival self-attributions.' Personality and Individual Differences 10, 1165-1171.
BRAND, C.R., EGAN, V. & DEARY, I.J. (1993). 'Personality and general intelligence.' In G.L.Van Heck, P.Bonaiuto, I.J.Deary & W.Nowack, Personality Psychology in Europe 4. Tilburg University Press.
BRAND, C.R., EGAN, V. & DEARY, I.J. (1994). 'Intelligence, personality and society: 'constructivist' versus 'essentialist possibilities.' In D.K.Detterman (ed.), Current Topics in Human Intelligence 4, pp. 29-42. Norwood, NJ : Ablex.
BROKKEN, F.B. (1978). The Language of Personality. Ph.D. Thesis, Universty of Groningen, The Netherlands.
CAPRARA, G.V., BARBARANELLI, C., BORGOGNI, Laura & PERUGINI, M. (1993). 'The "Big Five Questionnaire": a new questionnaire to assess the five-factor model.' Personality & Individual Differences 15, 3, 281-288.
CATTELL, R.B. (1973). Personality and Mood by Questionnaire. New York : Jossey Bass.
CHURCH, A.T. & BURKE, P.J. (1994). 'Exploratory and confirmatory tests of the Big Five and Tellegen's three- and four-dimensional models.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66, 1, 93-114.
CLARIDGE, G. (1981). 'Psychoticism.' In R.Lynn, Dimensions of Personality. Oxford : Pergamon.
CONTE, H.R. & PLUTCHIK, R. (1981). 'A circumplex model for interpersonal personality traits.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 43, 443-457.
DALY, E.M., LANCEE, W.J. & POLIVY, J. (1983). 'A conical model for the taxonomy of emotional experience.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45, 443-457.
DE RAAD, B., HENDRIKS, A.A.J. and HOFSTEE, W.K.B. (1992). 'Towards a refined structure of personality traits.' European Journal of Personality 6, 301-319.
DE RAAD, B. & HOFSTEE, W.K.B. (1993). 'A circumplex approach to the five factor model: a facet structure of trait adjectives supplemented by trait verbs.' Personality & Individual Differences 15, 5, 493-505.
DEARY, I.J. (1995). 'A (latent) big five personality model in 1915?: a re- analysis of Webb's data.' In submission to Journnal of Personality and Social Psychology.
DEARY, I.J., EGAN, V., GIBSON, G.J., BRAND, C.R. and KELLAGHAN, T. (1996). ‘Intelligence and the differentiation hypothesis.’ In submission to Intelligence.
DEARY, I.J. & MATTHEWS, G. (1993). 'Personality traits are alive and well.' The Psychologist 6, vii, 299-311.
DETTERMAN, D.K. & DANIEL, 1989, 'Correlations of mental tests with each other and with cognitive variables are highest for low-IQ groups.' Intelligence 13,349-359.
EYSENCK, H.J. (1954). The Psychology of Politics. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.
EYSENCK, H.J. and EYSENCK, S.B.G. (1976). Psychoticism as a Dimension of Personality. London : Hodder & Stoughton.
EYSENCK, H.J. (1994). Special review of J.B.Carroll, Human Cognitive Abilities. Personality and Individual Differences 16,1, 199.
EYSENCK, H.J. & BARRETT, P. (1993). 'The nature of schizotypy.' Psychological Reports 73, 59-63.
EYSENCK, H.J. & EYSENCK, M.W. (1985). Personality and Individual Differences: A Natural Science Approach. New York : Plenum.
FLEXER, B.K. & ROBERGE, J.J. (1983). 'A longitudinal investigation of field independence - dependence and the development of formal operational thought.' British Journal of Educational Psychology 53, 195-204.
FLOR-HENRY, P. (1974). 'Psychosis, neurosis and epilepsy.' British Journal of Psychiatry 124, 144-150.
FRANCIS, L.J. (1993). 'The dual nature of the Eysenckian neuroticism scales: a question of sex differences?' Personality & Individual Differences 15, 1, 43- 59.
GOH, D.S. & LEONG, F.T.L. (1993). 'The relationship between Holland's theory of vocational interest and Eysenck's model of personality.' Personality and Individual Differences 15, 5, 555-562.
GOLDBERG, L.R. (1993). 'The structure of phenotypic personality traits.' American Psychologist 48, 1, 26-34.
GUILFORD, J.S.,ZIMMERMAN, W.S. & GUILFORD, J.P. (1976). The Guilford- Zimmerman Temperament Survey. San Diego : Edits.
HERRNSTEIN, R.J. & MURRAY, C.M. (1994). The Bell Curve. New York : Free Press.
HOFSTEE, W.K.B., DE RAAD, B. & GOLDBERG, L.R. (1992). 'Integration of the Big Five and circumplex approaches to trait structure.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 63, 1, 146-163.
JOHNSON, J.A. and OSTENDORF, F. (1993). 'Clarification of the five-factor model with the abridged big five dimensional circumplex.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65, 3, 563-576.
HARGREAVES, D.J. & BOLTON, N. (1972). 'Selecting creativity tests for use in research.' British Journal of Psychology 63, 3, 451-462.
HOFSTEE, W.K.B., DE RAAD, B. & GOLDBERG, L.R. (1992). 'Integration of the Big Five and circumplex approaches to trait structure.' Journal of Personality & ocial Psychology 63, 1, 146-163.
HOWARTH, E. (1980). Primary Objective Mood State Battery. San Diego : Educational and Industrial Testing Service.
JOHNSON, J.A. & OSTENDORF, F. (1993). 'Clarification of the five-factor model with the abridged big five dimensional circumplex.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 65, 3, 563-576.
KATZ, A.N. & PESTELL, Debbie (1989). 'Attentional processes and the finding of remote associates.' Personality & Individual Differences 10, 10, 1017-1025.
KLINE, P. (1992). 'The factor structure in the fields of personality.' In A.Gale & M.W.Eysenck, Handbook of Individual Differences: Biological Perspectives. Chichester : Wiley.
LAZARUS, R.S. (1993). 'From psychological stress to the emotions: a history of changing outlooks.' In L.W.Porter & MR.Rosenzweig, Annual Review of sychology 44, 117-154.
LINVEH, H. & LINVEH, C. (1989). 'The five-factor model of personality: is evidence for its cross-measure validity premature?' Personality & Individual Differences 10, 75-80.
LOGUE, Nicola A. & BYTH, W. (1993). 'Extraversion and the McCullough Effect.' British Journal of Psychology 84, 67-84.
MAGNUSSON, D. and TÖRESTAD, B. (1993). 'A holistic view of personality: a model revisited.' Annual Review of Psychology 44, 427-452.
MATTHEWS, G. & ODDY, K. (1993). 'Recovery of major personality dimensions from trait adjective data.' Personality and Individual Differences 15, 4, 419-431.
MATTHEWS, G. (1993). 'Extraversion, arousal and performance.' In A.P.Smith & D.M.Jones, Factors affecting human performance. London : Academic.
McADAMS, D.P. (1992). 'The five-factor model in personality: a critical appraisal.' Journal of Personality 60, 329-361.
McCRAE, R.R. (1995). 'Openness to experience: expanding the boundaries of Factor V.' European Journal of Personality.
McCRAE, R.R. & COSTA, P.T., Jr. (1983). 'Joint factors in self-reports and ratings: Neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience.' Personality and Individual Differences 4, 245-255.
McCRAE, R.R. & COSTA, P.T., Jr. (1987). 'Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 52, 81-91.
McCRAE, R.R., COSTA, P.T., Jr. & PIEDMONT, R.L. (1993). 'Folk concepts, natural languages and psychological constructs: the Californian Psychological Inventory and the Five-Factor Model.' Journal of Personality 61, 1, 1-26.
McCRAE, R.R. & COSTA, P.T. (1994). 'Does Lorr's Interpersonal Style Inventory measure the five-factor model? 'Personality & Individual Differences 16, 1,195-197.
McKENZIE, J. & TINDELL, G. (1993). 'Anxiety and achievement: further Furneaux factor findings.' Personality & Individual Differences 15, 609-617.
MILLER, Linda T. & VERNON, P.A. (1992). 'The general factor in short-term memory, intelligence and reaction time.' Intelligence 16, 5-29.
OATLEY, K. & JENKINS, J.M. (1992). 'Human emotions: function and dysfunction.' In M.R.Rosenzweig & L.W.Porter , Annual Review of Psychology 43, 55-85.
OSGOOD, C.E. (1962). 'Studies on the generality of affective meaning systems.' `American Psychologist, 17, 10-28.
OZER, D.J. & REISE, S.P. (1994). 'Personality assessment.' In L.W.Porter and M.R.Rosenzweig, Annual Review of Psychology 45, 357-388.
PERVIN, L.A. (1994). 'A critical analysis of current trait theory.' Psychological Inquiry 5, 2, 103-113.
PRENTKY, R.A. (1980). Creativity and Psychopathology. New York : Praeger.
RAUSCHER, F.H., SHAW, G.L. & KY, K.N. (1993). (Scientific correspondence.) Nature 365, 611.
ROYCE, J.R. & POWELL, S. (1993). A Theory of Personality and Individual Differences: Factors, Systems and Processes. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall.
SHMELYOV, A.G. & POKHILKO, V.I. (1993). 'A taxonomy-oriented study of Russian personality-trait names.' European Journal of Personality 7, 1,1-17.
SMITH, I.M. (1964). Spatial Ability: its Educational and Social Significance. London University Press.
SOPER, H.V. & SATZ, P. (1987). 'Handedness distribution in the residential population with severe or profound mental retardation.' American Journal of Mental Deficiency 92, 94-102.
STOUGH, C., MANGAN, G., BATES, T. & PELLETT, O. (1994). ‘Smoking and Raven IQ.’ Psychopharmacology.
STOUGH, C., MANGAN, G., BATES, T., FRANK, N., KERKIN, B. & PELLETT, O. (1994b). ‘Effects of nicotine on perceptual speed.’ (Department of Psychology; University of Auckland.)
STUMPF, H. (1993). 'The factor structure of the Personality Research Form: a cross-national evaluation.' Journal of Personality 61, 1, 27-48.
SUTHERLAND, N.S. (1994). 'Emotional arguments.' Nature 369, 2 vi, p. 367.
TELLEGEN, A. (1992). The Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Minneapolis : National Computer Service.
THOMSON, C. (1993). 'Stress and homesickness in first-year university students, in association with personality, mood and cognitive variables.' M.A.Honours Thesis, Department of Psychology, University of Dundee.
WALLER, N.G. (1995). 'Evaluating the structure of personality.' In R.Cloninger (ed.), Personality and Psychopathology. Washington, DC : American Psychiatric Association Press.
WATSON, D. & CLARK, L.A. (1992). 'On traits and temperament: general and specific factors of emotional experience and their relation to the five-factor model.' Journal of Personality 60, 2, 441-476.
WEBB, E. (1915). 'Character and intelligence.' British Journal of Psychology Monographs 1, 3, 1-99.
WHITBORNE, Susan K., ZUSCHLAG, M.K., ELLIOT, Lisa B. & WATERMAN, A.S. (1992). 'Psychosocial development in adulthood: a 22-year sequential study.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63, 2, 260-271.
WIGGINS, J.S. and PINCUS, A.L. (1993). 'Personality: structure and assessment.' In M.R.Rosenzweig & L.W.Porter, Annual Review of Psychology 43, 473-504.
WILLIAMS, D.G. (1993). 'Are personality effects upon average mood due to personality effects upon mood variation?' Personality & Individual Differences 14, 1, 199-208.
WITKIN, H.A., GOODENOUGH, D.R. & OLTMAN, P.K. (1979). 'Psychologicaldifferentiation: current status.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 37, 7, 1127-1145.
YARNOLD, P.R., BRYANT, F.B. & LITSAS, F. (1989). 'Type A behaviour and psychological androgyny among Greek college students.' European Journal of Personality 3, 249-268.
ZUCKERMAN, M., KUHLMAN, D.M., JOIREMAN, J., TETA, P. & KRAFT, M. (1993). 'A comparison of three structural models for personality: the Big Three, the Big Five, and the Alternative Five.' Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 65, 4, 757-768.

posted by JR 6:22 AM

Thursday, December 28, 2006

 

The Voice of the Neuter is Heard Throughout the Land

This article originally appeared in January on American Digest but was offline at the time of writing so I have posted it here

LIKE SOME HAGGARD CRACK WHORE banging on the door of a dealer's den willing to do anything , the hapless Joel ("I despise our troops") Stein has been passed randomly about the blogsphere in the last couple of days. Once a blogpile of such mountainous proportions starts, there's little left to comment on in terms of the content of Stein's small dry excretion after the first five hours. By that time the whole quisling screed has been pretty much picked apart like a biology major dissects an owl's pellet and glues the contents to a board with captions.

Then it is time for the masters of the trade to go to work and perform, live and on the air, "The Final Evisceration." In this case, Hugh Hewitt comes forward with what is perhaps one of the best full flensings of his career. [Pointer and "flensing" courtesy of LILEKS (James) ] If you have ever wanted to hear a classic radio interview cooly calculated to have the interviewee reveal himself in all his naked smallness before a national audience, you owe it to yourself to listen and read the audio and transcript of Hugh Hewitt interviewing Joel Stein. You owe it to yourself to listen to this segment -- and you'll need to listen in order to understand what comes next. You don't have to listen to all of it, although it is hard to turn the ear away. Just listen attentivily to the voice of Stein himself for a minute or so.

Go ahead. I'll wait here.

Back? Good.

What is of interest to me here is not what Stein writes or says. His own words damn him more decisively than a thousand bloggers blathering blithely What interestest me is how he speaks. If you focus on it, you realize that you hear this voice every day if you bounce around a bit in our larger cities buying this or ordering that, and in general running into young people in the "service" sector -- be it coffee shop, video store, department store, boutique, bookstore, or office cube farm. It's a kind of voice that was seldom heard anywhere but now seems to be everywhere. It is the voice of the neuter.

I mean that in the grammatical sense:

"a. Neither masculine nor feminine in gender.
"b. Neither active nor passive; intransitive,"

and in the biological sense:

"a. Biology Having undeveloped or imperfectly developed sexual organs: the neuter caste in social insects.
"b. Botany Having no pistils or stamens; asexual.
"c. Zoology Sexually undeveloped."

You hear this soft, inflected tone everywhere that young people below, roughly, 35 congregate. As flat as the bottles of spring water they carry and affectless as algae, it tends to always trend towards a slight rising question at the end of even simple declarative sentences. It has no timbre to it and no edge of assertion in it.

The voice whisps across your ears as if the speaker is in a state of perpetual uncertainty with every utterance. It is as if, male or female, there is no foundation or soul within the speaker on which the voice can rest and rise. As a result, it has a misty quality to it that denies it any unique character at all. It is the Valley Girl variation of the voices that Prufrock hears:

I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.

It's parting wistful wish for you is that you "Have a good one."

Above all, it is a sexless voice. Not, I hasten to add, a "gay" voice. Not that at all. It is neither that gentle nor that musical. Nor is it that old shabby lisping stereotype best consigned to the dustbin of popular culture. No, this is a new old voice of a generation of ostensible men and women who have been educated and acculturated out of, or say rather, to the far side of any gender at all. It is, as I have indicated above, the voice of the neutered. And in this I mean that of the transitive verb: To castrate or spay. The voice and the kids that carry it is the triumphant achievement of our halls of secondary and higher education. These children did not speak this way naturally, they were taught. And like good children seeking only to please their teachers and then their employers, they learned.

This is not to say that the new American Castrati of all genders live sexless lives. On the contrary, if reports are to be credited, they seem to have a good deal of sex, most often without the burden of love or the threat of chlldren, and in this they are condemned to the sex life of children.

No, it is only to say tha