A Cybernetic Model of Global Personality Traits

作者：Van Egeren Lawrence F^*

来源：Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2009, 13(2): 92-108.

DOI：10.1177/1088868309334860

• personality structure
• self-regulation
• individual differences
• Big Five traits

Neurobehavioral studies of human and animal temperament have shed light on how individual personality traits influence human actions. This approach, however, leaves open questions about bow the entire system of traits and temperaments function together to exercise control. To address this key issue, I describe a cybernetic model of control and then apply it to the Big Five (BS) personality traits. Employing evidence from descriptive trait terms, temperamental behavioral processes associated with traits, and empirical correlates of traits, I relate distinct cybernetic processes of self-regulation to the BS traits. The BS traits broadly parallel basic cybernetic self-regulation processes. For example, the core behavior activation property of the BS Extraversion trait can be mapped onto the device output function of automated cybernetic control systems. Implications and limitations of interpreting personality traits in self-regulation terms are discussed.

• 出版日期2009-5