A Behavioral Analysis of Personality

MASAYA SATO

Summary. The concept of personality was conceptually analyzed from the standpoint

of radical behaviorism. In this attempt, personality was defined as the total behavioral
repertoire of a particular individual, and trait was defined as a cluster of respondents
or operants that are controlled by common variables. Then, the author attempted
to define the main common controlling variable of each of the four temperaments
and three characters of TCI and the five traits of NEO. Our empirical data fairly well
supported these guesses.
Keywords. Radical behaviorism, Behavior analysis, Personality, NEO, TCI

This chapter intends to analyze the concept of personality from the standpoint of
radical behaviorism. Radical behaviorism is a philosophy of psychology founded by
B.F. Skinner (Skinner 1974). Radical behaviorism is distinguished from methodological behaviorism, which is accepted by most contemporary experimental psychologists
except Skinnerians or behavior analysts.
Although there are several differences between methodological behaviorism and
radical behaviorism, the following two are most important. First, methodological
behaviorism excludes private events such as consciousness from the direct subject
matter of psychology, because methodological behaviorists believe that private events
cannot be studied objectively, and objectivity is the essence of science. For methodological behaviorists, any private event that is a cause of behavior must be inferred
from observable or public behaviors. On the other hand, radical behaviorism accept
private events as legitimate subject matter of psychology, because radical behaviorists
believe that private events such as consciousness are not causes of behavior but behaviors themselves and can be studied objectively in the same way as observable or public
behaviors. Second, methodological behaviorism accepts inner causes of behavior
including intervening variables whereas radical behaviorism rejects all kinds of inner
causes of behavior. Radical behaviorists believe that the ultimate causes of behavior
are not inside the organism but in the phylogenic and ontogenic environments.
There are many definitions of personality. These can be classified into two types: one
is the hypothetical-construct view of personality and the other is the behavioral reper-

Department of Psychology, Teikyo University, 359 Otsuka, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0395, Japan

417

418

M. Sato

toire view of personality. Here is Gordon W. Allport's definition of personality: Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical
systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment (Allport 1937, p. 48).
This definition is an example of the hypothetical construct view of personality.
Allport's view of personality assumes personality is something within an individual.
Most traditional theorists of personality take this view, and they believe personality
can be a cause of behavior. The concept of personality based on this view is a conceptual cause of behavior. So, from the standpoint of radical behaviorism, such a
concept of personality is fiction, and behavior analysts cannot accept it.
Here is John B. Watson's definition: Personality is the sum of activities that can be
discovered by actual observation of behavior over a long enough time to give reliable
information (Watson 1930, p. 274). This is an example of the behavioral repertoire
view of personality. Watson's view defines personality not as something within an individual that causes behavior but as behavior itself. Watson was not a radical behaviorist because he excluded private events from the subject matter of psychology, but
he denied inner causes of behavior. Behavior analysts can accept this view without
hesitation.
The science of behavior based on radical behaviorism is called behavior analysis.
A behavior analytical definition of personality might be this: personality is the total
behavioral repertoire of a particular individual. Then, the goal of the behavior analysis of personality is to reveal the structure of the behavioral repertoire.
Behavior analysis classifies behaviors into two kinds: one is respondent behavior
and the other is operant behavior. Respondent behavior is reflexive behavior, and it is
elicited by unconditioned or conditioned stimulus. The unit of respondent behavior
is called a respondent. Operant behavior is voluntary behavior, and it is emitted by an
organism. The frequency of operant behavior is controlled by its consequences. If the
consequences have rewarding or reinforcing value, the operant behavior will increase.
If the consequences have punishing value, the frequency of the operant behavior will
decrease. The unit of operant behavior is called an operant.
The total behavioral repertoire of a particular individual consists of various respondents and operants. It is probable that there is a cluster of respondents or operants.
Such a cluster might be considered as a trait. For behavior analysts, a trait is a cluster
of respondents or operants that are controlled by common variables.
In the Keio Twin Project, we are using Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI)
and NEO-PI-R. TCl's seven-factor model assumes that there are four temperaments
and three characters. The four temperaments are Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), and Persistence (P), and the three characters
are Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (C), and Self-Transcendence (ST). Table
1 shows my ideas about the main controlling variables of each temperament and character. NEO's five-factor model assumes that there are five traits: Neuroticism (N),
Extraversion (E), Openness (0), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C). Table
2 shows my ideas of the main controlling variable of each trait.
If my guesses are correct, high positive correlations are predicted between TCI's
Reward Dependence (RD), and Cooperativeness (C), between TCl's Harm Avoidance
(HA) and NEO's Neuroticism (N), between TCl's Cooperativeness (C) and NEO's
Agreeableness (A), and between TCl's Persistence (P) and NEO's Conscientiousness
(C). High negative correlations are predicted between TCI's Harm Avoidance (HA)

A Behavioral Analysis of Personality

419

TABLE 1. Temperaments and characters of TCI and their main controlling variable
Trait

Main controlling variable

Novelty Seeking (NS)

Harm Avoidance (HA)
Reward Dependence (RD)
Persistence (P)
Self-Directedness (SD)
Cooperativeness (CO)
Self-Transcendence (ST)

Rewarding value of trying to obtain stimulus changes

Punishing value of aversive events
Rewarding value of having intimate relationships with other people
Rewarding value of achieving desired goals perfectly
Reflexive insensitivity to aversive events
Rewarding value of other people's positive reactions
Rewarding value of mysterious experiences

TABLE 2. Traits of NEG and their main controlling variable

Trait

Main controlling variable

Neuroticism (N)
Extraversion (E)
Openness (0)
Agreeableness (A)
Conscientiousness (C)

Reflexive sensitivity to aversive events

Rewarding value of the existence of other people
Rewarding value of novel events
Rewarding value of other people's positive reactions
Rewarding value of performing socially significant acts

TABLE 3. Correlation between TCI's seven factors and NEO's five factors (n = 467)
NS
NS
HA
RD
P
SD
CO
ST
N
E
0
A
C

HA

RD

SD

CO

-0.20
-0.52
-0.26
-0.21

0.13
0.06
0.49
0.13

0.22
0.25
0.22

0.32
0.06

0.20

0.65
-0.61

0.01
0.41
0.12
0.44
0.12

-0.14
0.17
0.22
0.07
0.57

-0.59
0.31
0.24
0.13
0.40

-0.29
0.33
0.23
0.58
0.24

ST

0.32
0.12
0.21

0.14
0.18

0.10

~.41

0.10
-0.16
0.07
0.02
0.13
~.19

0.45
0.17
-0.12
-0.30

~.08

~.27

-0.02
-0.23

-0.03
0.24
0.39
0.16
0.11

~.38

-0.09
-0.12
-0.40

and Self-Directedness (SD) and between TCl's Self-Directedness (SD) and NEO's Neuroticism (N). Table 3 shows phenotypic correlation between TCI's seven factors and
NEO's five factors in our study. All six of these predictions are fulfilled.

References
Allport GW (I937) Personality: a psychological interpretation. Holt, New York
Skinner BF (1974) About behaviorism. Knopf, New York
Watson JB (I930) Behaviorism (rev edn). University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Genetic Structure of Personality:

Comparison Between TCI and NED
(Big Five Model)
JUKO ANDO

Summary. Although the "Big Five" were recently said to be the "human universals" of

personality structure, these five factors are not genetically independent. On the contrary, the Basic Three temperamental dimensions (novelty seeking, harm avoidance,
and reward dependence) proposed by C.R. Cloninger are genetically unique and independent. By multivariate genetic analysis with 296 Japanese twins, it was revealed that,
among the five big factors, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness could be genetically explained only by the "Big Three". Openness to experience could be explained by the Big Three as well as by an additional genetic
contribution (perhaps intelligence).
Keywords. Genetic structure, Personality, Twins, Big Five Model, Temperament,

Character

Introduction
How many dimensions are necessary and sufficient to describe human personality?
For many years, psychologists have been arguing about the number of personality
dimensions. Recently, it has been claimed that those variations could be summarized
by the five-factor model as a comprehensive classification of the major sources of individual differences of personality by recent progress of the factor analytical method.
The most common terminology for those five factors is neuroticism (N), extraversion
(E), openness to experience (0), agreeableness (A), and conscienciousness (C). This
model of five-factor structure, or the so-called Big Five (BS), has been frequently replicated in different cultures, and McCrae and Costa claimed this to be the "human universal" (McCrae and Costa 1997).
If the Big Five model provides the universal structure of human personality, it is
necessary to show any plausible reason why those five factors are necessary and sufficient to describe human personality structure. However, at least up to now, it seems
that no reasonable explanations have been proposed. One of the possible reasons
could be provided by genetics. Many twin and adoption studies have showed subFaculty of Letters, Department of Education, Keio University, 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo
108-8345, Japan

420

Genetic Structure of Personality

421

stantial genetic contribution to those five factors (Loehlin 1992). However, when there
is a substantial genetic contribution to a certain trait, it does not necessarily mean
that this trait is genetically independent or has its own trait-specific genetic origin.
Actually, recent multivariate genetic analyses of the Big Five model revealed that these
five personality factors are not unique genotypically but rather overlapped with each
other, even though they are phenotypically independent, robust, and genetically influenced (Ono et al. 2000). That conclusion means the Big Five model is just a phenotypic structure, not a genetic structure, which might be because these five factors are
constructed by mere conceptual categorization of personality descriptions (adjectives
and sentences that describe varieties of human personality) and are not based upon
any biological or physiological assumptions and mechanisms.
Contrary to the FFM, Cloninger's theory on temperament and character (Cloninger
1986; Cloninger et al. 1993) provides a biologically based structure of personality. On
the basis of clinical examples and animal studies, Cloninger originally proposed a
tridimensional theory of temperament that contained three genetically independent
components: novelty seeking (NS), harm avoidance (HA), and reward dependence
(RD) (Cloninger 1986). According to his theory, NS is viewed as the activation or initiation of behavior and is thought to be related to dopamine; HA is viewed as the inhibition of behavior and related to serotonine; and RD is viewed as the maintenance or
continuation of ongoing behavior and is related to norepinephrine. Cloninger's latest
theory (Cloninger et al. 1993) proposed a fourth temperament dimension,persistence,
and three other new character dimensions, self-directedness, cooperativeness, and selftranscendence. Those seven factors are measured by the TCI (Temperament and Character Inventory).
An interesting finding is that Cloninger's tridimensional temperament factors
might be genetically independent. Heath et al. (1994) indicated that Cloninger's four
temperament dimensions are genetically more homogeneous than Eysenck's and
Gray's personality factors. Stalling et al. (1996) analyzed the genetic and environmental structure of four temperaments and revealed that those three temperament
factors were genetically independent, especially in males. Ando and Ono (1998) verified a mutual genetic independence among them.
It is interesting to compare these two comprehensive personality structure models
from a behavioral genetic point of view. If Cloninger's three temperament dimensions
provide the fundamental structure of human personality, genetic factors of the Big
Five dimensions should be completely explained by those of Cloninger's. If any of the
Big Five factors taps unique personality dimensions, there should be some specific
genetic contribution other than Cloninger's temperament dimensions. There have
been no such comparisons, especially for the Japanese population. In this study, we
compared the genetic structures of the Big Five model and Cloninger's temperament
model measured by NEO-PI-R and TCI.

Materials and Methods

Materials
The Big Five factors were measured by the Japanese version of NEO-PI-R
(Yoshimura et al. 1998; Costa and McCrae 1985). Cloninger's temperament

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J.Ando

TABLE 1. Goodness of fit statistics (AIC, Akaike's information criteria) for the three models
Only B3
Independent
Mixed

-120.62
-75.21
-113.75

-125.00
-72.94
-123.00

-158.98
-148.04
-160.74

-135.31
-103.55

-118.41

-134.95

-79.19
-1l9.41

N, neuroticism; E, extraversion; 0, ope~ness; A, agreeableness; C, conscienciousness

The lowest AIC (bold) indicates the best fit model, and the second lowest AIC (boldlitalics) is not significantly different from the best one. The "only the Basic Three (B3) model" assumes that each of the
Big Five dimensions overlaps and could be thoroughly explained by NS (novelty seeking), HA (harm
avoidance), and RD (reward dependence); the "independent contribution model" assumes that each
Big Five dimension is genetically independent from each dimension of the Basic Three and has its
own specific genetic contribution; and the "mixed model" assumes that each of the Big Five dimensions contain both the Basic Three and its specific genetic contribution. Nand E were explained only
by the Big Three; A and C could be explained either by only the three Basic factors or by B3 plus the
specific genetic contributions; 0 could be explained exclusively by the mixed model.

factors were measured by the Japanese version of the TCI (Cloninger et al. 1993;
Kijima et al. 1996).

Participants
Participants in this study were 296 pairs of twins including 184 pairs of monozygotic
(MZ) twins (124 female and 60 male pairs), 77 pairs of same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins
(49 female and 28 male pairs), and 35 pairs of opposite-sex twins. Zygosity was determined by the twins' physical resemblance (Ooki et al. 1991) and by polymorphism of
D4DR and serotonin transporter genes with more than 93% accuracy. The average age
of the female sample was 20.2 years (3.4), ranging from 14 to 29 years, and the average
age of the males was 19.4 years (3.4), ranging from 15 to 28 years.

Results
We made the following comparison by the model fitting analysis of structure equation modeling. The first model is "the only B3 model" in which each B5 dimension
could be thoroughly explained by NS, HA, and RD. The second model is the "independent contribution model;' which assumes that each B5 dimension is genetically
independent of B3 and has its own specific genetic contribution. The third is the
"mixed model;' which is assumed to contain both B3 and its specific contribution.
Table 1 provides the goodness of fit statistics (AIC) of each of the three models
for each B5 factor. For Nand E, the only B3 model fit best. For A and C, no significant
difference could be found between the only B3 model and the mixed model. We
can modestly take the only B3 model for the reason of parsimoniousness. Only for
o (openness), however, was the mixed model exclusively the best fit model. Therefore,
there must be an additional specific genetic contribution other than B3 factors.
Under the best fit models, each of these five factors from B5 could be explained as
shown in Fig. 1.

Genetic Structure of Personality

N=(-NS), ++HA, (-RD)

A=+NS, -HA, ++RD

E=+NS, -HA, +RD

423

O==+NS, HA, +RD, +'1

c= -NS, -HA, +RD

FIG. I Genetic relationships between the Basic Three temperamental dimensions (NS, HA,
and RD) and four Big Five factors (N, E, 0, A, and C), All the Big Five factors, except for 0, can
be explained by the Basic Three and there are no genetic components specific to the traits. Only
o needs an additional specific genetic contribution other than B3, Because the main focus of
this chapter is the genetic structure of personality, these pictures do not contain the environmental structures, Gns, genetic component of NS; Gha, genetic component of HA; Grd, genetic
component of RD; Go, genetic component of 0; NS, novelty seeking; HA, harm avoidance; RD,
reward dependence; N, neuroticism; E, extra version; 0, openness; A, agreeableness; C, conscienciousness

Discussion
Our conclusion now is that the comprehensive personality structure, the Big
Five factors, can be explained mostly by Cloninger's three temperament dimensions.
This result indicates that the Basic Three are the fundamental genetic structure
of human personality. Only openness (0) needs an additional specific genetic
contribution other than B3. We notice that the additive genetic contribution is larger
in 0 than the other four (Loehlin 1992; Ono et al. 2000). Our preliminary
analysis showed that phenotypically 0 and intelligence are significantly correlated,
and that the cross-correlation between twin sibling !\s 0 and twin sibling B's intelligence was larger in MZ than DZ, which indicated a genetic overlap between 0 and
intelligence. Therefore, the additional genetic contribution for 0 could come
from intelligence.
If Individual differences of personality can be completely explained by means
of only genetic contributions of the Basic Three and intelligence, what is B5? It seems
that they are "the socially recognized composites of those four biopsychological
resources:' Please note that all the B5 factors are labels of social attitude. We recognize an individual's behavioral character as a specific combination of one's behavioral
activation (NS), suppression (HA), and maintaining (RD) patterns, plus information
processing efficiency, in a social context.

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J.Ando

References
Ando J, Ono Y (1998) Keio Twin Project: a preliminary report (abstract of the 9th international congress on twin studies). Twin Res 1:81
Cloninger CR (1986) A unified biosocial theory of personality and its role in the development of anxiety states. Psychiatr Dev 3:167-226
Cloninger CR, Svrakic OM, Przybeck TR (1993) A psychobiological model of temperament
and character. Arch Gen Psychiatry 50:975-990
Costa PT Jr, McCrae RR (1985) Comparison of EPI and psychoticism scales with measures
of the five-factor model of personality. Pers Individ Differ 6:587-597
Heath AC, Cloninger CR, Martin NG (1994) Testing model for the genetic structure of personality: a comparison of the personality systems of Cloninger and Eysenck. J Pers
Soc PsychoI66:762-775
Kijima N, Saito R, Kakeuchi M, et al (1996) Cloninger's seven-factor model of temperament and character and Japanese version of Temperament and Character Inventory
(TCI)
Loehlin JC (1992) Genes and environment in personality development: individual differences and developmental series, vol 2. Sage, Newbury Park, CA
McCrae RP, Costa PT Jr (1997) Personality trait structure as a human universal. Am Psychol
52:509-516
Neale MC, Cardon LR (1992) Methodology for genetic studies on twins and families.
Kluwer, Boston
Ono Y, Ando J, Onoda N, Yoshimura K (2000) Genetic structure of five factor model among
Japanese population. Keio J Med 49:152-158
Ooki S, Yamada K, Asaka A (1991) Zygosity diagnosis of twins by questionnaire for twin's
mothers. Shoni Hoken Keikyu 50:71-76
Stalling MC, Hewitt JK, Cloninger CR, et al (1996) Genetic and environmental structure
of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire: three or four temperament dimensions. J Pers Soc Psychol 70:127-140
Yoshimura K, Nakamura K, Ono Y, et al (1998) Reliability and validity of the Japanese
version of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): a population-based survey in
Aomori Prefecture. Jpn J Stress Sci 13:45-53