The General Factor of Personality (GFP): Its Current Status and its Presumed Relation with Life history Strategy
Dimitri van der Linden1
1Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
It is widely acknowledged that a general factor of intelligence (g) exists in the domain of cognitive abilities. The implications of this general intelligence factor for various life outcomes have now been confirmed in numerous studies (Jensen, 1998; Hernstein & Murray, 1996). In the domain of personality however, the existence of a general factor to date remains a rather controversial topic with many questions yet to be answered. The notion that a general factor of personality (GFP) exists is not new as it was already mentioned by Galton (1887), and after that by several others (e.g., Hofstee, 1993). Yet, systematic research on the GFP started from 2007. The GFP emerges from the intercorrelations of lower-order personality dimensions and consists of a mix of socially desirable traits. One of the leading explanations for the GFP is that it reflects social effectiveness (Loehlin, 2012). Specifically, high-GFP individuals may have the knowledge and ability to display socially desirable behavior that increases their chances of reaching social goals (e.g., attaining high social status, obtaining a mate). As such, some researchers have proposed that there may be quite some overlap between the GFP and social or emotional intelligence (Van der linden, Staousis, Petrides, 2012). It has also been proposed that the GFP is one of the manifestations of the so-called life history strategy (Rushton, Bons, & Hur, 2008). Life history theory provides a mid-level evolutionary account of reproductive strategies in which a fast strategy indicates a tendency for high mating effort and relatively low parental investment, whereas a slow strategy is associated with relatively low mating effort and high parental investment. The life history strategy is assumed to be related to a wide range of individual differences. Figueredo and Rushton (2009) argued that “…the conditions favoring slow life history strategy are those favoring the cooperative sociality of the GFP.” (p. 556). In this presentation I will provide a overview of the current status of the GFP and will address several questions and predictions arising from the notion that the GFP and Life History strategy are related. For example, one prediction is that the GFP should be associated with cognitive intelligence (the g-factor). Evidence on this topic is mixed. Another prediction is that the GFP would be related to a range of other Life History indicators. Evidence on this topic is stronger as it has been confirmed that the GFP consistently relates to validated measures of Life History strategy such as the Arizona Life History Battery or its short form, the Mini-K. From Life History Theory it can also be predicted that the GFP will have a genetic component indicating that it was under recent evolutionary selective pressure. Recent evidence supports this prediction. For example, Verweij et al. (2012) found that direct inbreeding indicators were negatively related to the GFP. Finally, there may be group (or national) differences in the GFP that are in accordance with group differences in Life History Strategies.
I'm not sure what to make of the GFP yet. His findings would have been a bit more convincing if it was measured on the HEXACO, which, while itself imperfect, is a much more complete and likely more accurate system than the Big Five. This is especially acute because of Honesty-humility dimension of the HEXACO. One would imagine that socially competent people would be some level higher on certain aspects of the Dark Tetrad (especially Machiavellianism), but perhaps lower on others.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that there is not really a single general factor of personality, because it would seem to suggest that a slow strategy is uniformly adaptive and a fast strategy is uniformly maladaptive. This idea was tested in a 2013 paper examining the correlates of fast and slow strategies. They found that the slow and fast strategies respectively combine a mix of socially desirable and undesirable traits. To quote from the abstract:
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, slow-LH individuals tended to behave in a manner that was considerate, kind, hard-working, and reliable but also socially awkward, insecure, and overcontrolling. Fast-LH individuals came across as talkative, socially skilled, dominant, and charming but also unpredictable, hostile, manipulative, and impulsive. These results are consistent with the evolutionary interpretation of LH strategies as being adapted to systematically different environments rather than better or worse approaches to reproductive fitness overall.
This seems difficult to reconcile with the idea that a general factor combines all of the desirable traits into a unitary suite. These findings imply that some of the socially undesirable traits, e.g. the dark triad, may be adaptive under some circumstances, as JayMan notes. Other research has found that men with dark triad traits are more physically attractive to women and are more successful at short-term mating.