
Gerard SaucierUniversity of Oregon | UO · Department of Psychology
Gerard Saucier
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Publications (78)
A “big two” model has shown stronger cross-cultural replicability and links to theory than other contemporary models of personality trait structure. However, its theoretical and measurement models require better specification. We address this to create an initial English-language version of the Cross-Cultural Big Two Inventory with an empirically i...
A ‘Big Two’ model has shown stronger cross-cultural replicability and links to theory than other contemporary models of personality trait structure. However, its theoretical and measurement models require better specification. We address this to create an initial English-language version of the Cross-Cultural Big Two Inventory (CCB2I) with an empir...
Objective
Past applications of the lexical approach to type‐noun personality structures have yielded different results compared with those generated for adjectival personality structures, since then new methods have arisen for identifying robust higher‐dimensionality structure in data. This research aims to identify an optimal taxonomy of English l...
A promising method for detecting careless or insufficient effort (C/IE) responders is the infrequency/frequency-item method. Infrequency items are items that should be endorsed by almost no one (e.g., "I like being frustrated") and frequency items are items that should be endorsed by almost everyone (e.g., "I keep some of my thoughts to myself"). P...
“Once upon a time, we had no personalities” (Goldberg, 1993, p. 1) or, said another way, once upon a time “highly generalized behavioural consistencies [had] not been demonstrated, and the concept of personality traits as broad response predispositions [was] thus untenable” (Mischel, 1968, p. 146). Fortunately for personality psychologists, this no...
Personality is a broad concept used to organize the myriad ways that people differ psychologically from one another. There is evidence that such differences have been important to humans everywhere, in that personality-relevant terms appear in all known languages. Empirical attempts to identify the most useful individual differences and their struc...
Objective: This study explores a personality inventory derived from the results of an indigenous lexical study of personality. From the 272 most commonly used personality descriptors in Khoekhoegowab, the most-spoken of extant Khoesan click languages of southern Africa, an 11-factor model of personality-trait structure was identified. Here, the Kho...
Personality psychology relies heavily on evidence from North America and Europe. Lexical studies, based on the rationale that the most important psychological distinctions between people will be encoded in the natural languages, can provide input from underrepresented contexts by defining locally relevant personality concepts and their structure. W...
There are two plausible hypotheses for why those high in the Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) behave immorally: (1) They do not understand morality and are, consequently, unable to act morally or (2) they understand morality but simply disregard it when deciding how to act. In two studies, we tested these hypotheses...
Prediction of outcomes is an important way of distinguishing, among personality models, the best from the rest. Prominent previous models have tended to emphasize multiple internally consistent “facet” scales subordinate to a few broad domains. But such an organization of measurement may not be optimal for prediction. Here, we compare the predictiv...
The current research examined how perceptions of the Dark Triad traits vary across occupations. Results from two studies (N TOTAL = 933) suggested that participants believe it is acceptable, if not advantageous, for lawyers and musicians to be high in the Dark Triad traits. Participants, likewise, indicated that teachers should be high in narcissis...
Contemporary structural models of personality, like the Big Five, are rooted in natural-language lexicons in which socially important individual-differences concepts are sedimented. But key studies of these lexicons have been narrow in scope and mainly sought confirmatory evidence for one model of interest, rather than the maximum number of meaning...
It has become widely recognized that religiousness has a predictable pattern of small associations with Big Five personality dimensions, and has some intersections with cultural psychology. But just how large are those culture-religiosity intersections, and are there additional associations with personality when one extends beyond the restricted sp...
What leads personality to develop in adulthood? Values, guiding principles that apply across contexts, may capture motivation for growth and change. An essentialist trait perspective posits that personality changes only as a result of organic factors. But evidence suggests that psychosocial factors also influence personality change, especially duri...
The field of psychology relies heavily on evidence from North America and Northern Europe. Universally applicable models require input from around the globe. Indigenous lexical studies of personality, which define the most salient person-descriptive concepts and their structure in a population, provide this. Such results are reported from two nonin...
Objective
This study investigates a set of variables related to the relative valuing of narrow self‐interest versus the concerns of a larger community. These values likely capture stable dispositions. Additionally, because ethics‐relevant values are associated with ongoing cultural and moral socialization, they may develop over time as in May's the...
It has become clear that there are multiple “moralities”: diverse bases that guide people’s judgments of right and wrong. The widely known Moral Foundations Theory stipulates that there are at least five such moralities, measurable via questionnaire, and tends to assume that these distinct foundations are rooted deep in humanity’s evolutionary past...
Major routes to identifying individual differences (in diverse species) include studies of behaviour patterns as represented in language and neurophysiology. But results from these approaches appear not to converge on some major dimensions. Identifying dimensions of human variation least applicable to non-human species may help to partition human-s...
This paper presents new data and reviews the available evidence pointing to the existence of three main ingredients of militant extremist mindset (MEM). Three different methods of item development identified factors that we have labeled Nastiness, Grudge, and Excuse. In other words, there are in our midst nasty people who are more prepared than oth...
It is commonplace observation that situations can affect the expression of personality dispositions. But psychology has typically addressed this relationship in a broad, unspecific way, with little attention yet to which situations might particularly affect which dispositions. Here, our premise is that critical information might arise from examinin...
We know that there are cross-cultural differences in psychological variables, such as individualism/
collectivism. But it has not been clear which of these variables show relatively the greatest
differences. The Survey of World Views project operated from the premise that such issues
are best addressed in a diverse sampling of countries representin...
The Big Five is a useful model of attributes now commonly used in cross-cultural research, but without the support of strong measurement invariance (MI) evidence. The Big Six has been proposed as a cross-culturally informed update, and the broader Big Two (Social Self-Regulation and Dynamism) draws on even more cross-cultural evidence. However, nei...
It has been unclear which human-attribute concepts are most universal across languages. To identify common-denominator concepts, we used dictionaries for 12 mutually isolated languages-Maasai, Supyire Senoufo, Khoekhoe, Afar, Mara Chin, Hmong, Wik-Mungkan, Enga, Fijian, Inuktitut, Hopi, and Kuna-representing diverse cultural characteristics and lan...
A general consensus on the Big Five model of personality attributes has been highly generative for the field of personality psychology. Many important psychological and life outcome correlates with Big Five trait dimensions have been established. But researchers must choose between multiple Big Five inventories when conducting a study and are faced...
In this article, the authors describe procedures used in the development of a new scale of militant extremist mindset. A 2-step approach consisted of (a) linguistic analysis of the texts produced by known terrorist organizations and selection of statements from these texts that reflect the mindset of those belonging to these organizations and (b) a...
We suggest some refinements to earlier approaches to generating “comprehensive” personality inventories and address some methodological concerns that accompany their use. By applying cluster analysis to Saucier’s (1997) list of the 504 most frequently used trait adjectives, we identified 61 clusters that can be used to represent the lower-order str...
In the present article, the authors report on the development of a scale for the measurement of the militant extremist mind-set. A previous pilot study identified 56 statements selected from writings of various terrorist groups as well as from psychological, historical, and political texts on terrorism. These statements, together with measures of p...
Previous evidence for both the Big Five and the alternative six-factor model has been drawn from lexical studies with relatively narrow selections of attributes. This study examined factors from previous lexical studies using a wider selection of attributes in 7 languages (Chinese, English, Filipino, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and Turkish) and found 6...
From the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, 3,159 personality descriptors were selected and then ranked by the frequency of use. Among those, the top 413 terms with the highest frequency were administered to two independent large samples in China for self-ratings and peer ratings to explore the emic Chinese personality structure as well as to test th...
Although previous research has examined cross-cultural differences in personality, many of these studies neglected to first establish that the measures being used were equivalent in meaning across cultures. Using samples of Chinese, Greek, and American respondents, the measurement equivalence of the Big Five Mini-Markers [Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-m...
Environmental variables are often assumed to constitute a qualitatively different domain from personality variables, and unlike personality variables, their structure is relatively poorly understood. We studied retrospective descriptions of families-of-origin in 3 samples using the items of Moos's (1974) Family Environment Scale (FES). Using cluste...
A taxonomy of personality-relevant situations will provide a valuable complement to the taxonomy of personality attributes. To identify some of the most important modifying factors, we asked laypersons what modifies expression of their own traits. Spontaneously generated situation descriptors were elicited from 77 university students, leading to ov...
Some psychologists treat religious/spiritual beliefs as a unitary aspect of individual differences. But a distinction between mysticism and orthodox religion has been recognized by scholars as well as laypersons, and empirical studies of "ism" variables and of "spirituality" measures have yielded factors reflecting this distinction. Using a large s...
We review progress on an important scientific issue--how attributes of personality and character can best be organized and structured. We explain the rationale for studies of the language of personality, and then review the most salient findings from lexical studies of person-descriptors in 16 languages. Using a wide range of criteria for the value...
Personality descriptors--3,302 adjectives--were extracted from a dictionary of the modern Greek language. Those terms with the highest frequency were administered to large samples in Greece to test the universality of the Big-Five dimensions of personality in comparison to alternative models. One- and 2-factor structures were the most stable across...
Although type-nouns (e.g., idiot, hero) are important in person description, lexical studies of personality have concentrated on adjectives. This study tested structural hypotheses using 372 highly familiar English-language type-nouns and descriptions by 607 participants of either themselves, a liked, or a disliked target person. One- and 2-factor...
The rationale for lexical studies rests on the assumption that the most meaningful personality attributes tend to become encoded in language as single-word descriptors. We articulate some key premises of the lexical approach and then review a number of studies that have been conducted examining the factor structure of personality descriptors extrac...
The rationale for lexical studies rests on the assumption that the most meaningful personality attributes tend to become encoded in language as single-word descriptors. We articulate some key premises of the lexical approach and then review a number of studies that have been conducted examining the factor structure of personality descriptors extrac...
In judgments about personality, descriptive and evaluative aspects are ordinarily combined; separating them can be important both theoretically and practically. Study 1 showed that two similar descriptive factors can be found in analyses of personality terms, selected independently in English and in German and using different methods to control for...
Two hundred male subjects (81 college students and 119 subjects from an addiction treatment unit) were administered the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and genotyped at the 48 base pair repeat polymorphism of the DRD4 gene. Subjects were divided by genotype into those carrying any < 4 repeat allele, those homozygous for the 4 repeat allel...
Cloninger (Cloninger CR. Neurogenetic adaptive mechanisms in alcoholism. Science 1987: 236: 410-416) proposed three basic personality dimensions for temperament: novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence. He suggested that novelty seeking primarily utilized dopamine pathways, harm avoidance utilized serotonin pathways, and reward depen...
In a previous study (Comings DE et al. Comparison of the role of dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenergic genes in ADHD, ODD and conduct disorder. Multivariate regression analysis of 20 genes. Clin Genet 2000: 57: 178-196) we examined the role of 20 dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine genes in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppos...
Enkephalins have been implicated in the regulation of mood, anxiety, reward, euphoria and pain. One of the major enzymes for enkephalin degradation is neutral endopeptidase [enkephalinase, membrane metalloendopeptidase (MME)]. We identified a dinucleotide polymorphism in the 5' region of the MME gene. Subjects were placed into three genotypes, 3/3,...
In a previous study (Comings DE et al. Comparison of the role of dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenergic genes in ADHD, ODD and conduct disorder. Multivariate regression analysis of 20 genes. Clin Genet 2000: 57: 178–196) we examined the role of 20 dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine genes in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppos...
The noradrenergic system has been implicated in arousal, vigilance, irritability hostility, and memory. This suggests the hypothesis that genetic variants at noradrenergic receptors may be risk factors of these behaviors. To test this hypothesis, the potential association between measures of these traits and genetic variation at the adrenergic2A re...
The present study is based on the proposal that complex disorders resulting from the effects of multiple genes are best investigated by simultaneously examining multiple candidate genes in the same group of subjects. We have examined the effect of 20 genes for dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenergic metabolism on a quantitative score for attention d...
Social attitude measurement has been limited by inadequate structural models. In this study, broad, basic dimensions were sought, with the assumption that crucial variables are represented as terms ending in -ism (isms). 266 isms were extracted from a dictionary, and items were built from their definitions. In a sample of 500 college students, the...
We examined the hypothesis that the dopamine D3 receptor gene (DRD3) is a susceptibility factor for cocaine dependence. The MscI/BalI polymorphism of the DRD3 gene was examined in 47 Caucasian subjects with cocaine dependence and 305 Caucasian controls. Based on prior studies with a range of psychiatric disorders we hypothesized there would be a de...
Prior studies have reported an association between the presence of the 7 repeat allele of the 48 bp repeat polymorphism of the third cytoplasmic loop of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) and novelty seeking behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Tourette syndrome (TS), pathological gambling, and substance abuse. However, oth...
An ideal structural representation of personality attributes would include more than just broad-bandwidth factors. Specific subcomponents help define broad factors while enhancing the fidelity of the representation. There has been no consensus with regard to the necessary specific subcomponents of the Big Five. This problem was addressed by analyzi...
We tested the hypothesis that the alleles at the (CA)n repeat of the proenkephalin gene (PENK) might be associated with opioid addiction in 31 non-Hispanic Caucasian subjects with opioid dependence (heroin), 89 ethnically matched subjects with substance dependence other than opioid dependence and 132 controls. Among the subjects with opioid depende...
An ideal structural representation of personality attributes would include more than just broad-bandwidth factors. Specific subcomponents help define broad factors while enhancing the fidelity of the representation. There has been no consensus with regard to the necessary specific subcomponents of the Big Five. This problem was addressed by analyzi...
Objectives: The opioid system is thought to have a mediating role in anxiety and depression, to exert regulatory influence over learning and memory formation, and to modify both amplitude and latency of the P300 wave of evoked related potentials. The present study sought to determine the relevance of a dinucleotide repeat polymorphism of the endope...
Objectives: Develop methods to allow the identification of genes involved in polygenic disorders. We hypothesized that the most powerful way to study disorders that are due to the additive effect of multiple genes is to examine the additive effect of multiple genes. Methods: Based on independent studies, the genotypes of 29 genes were scored as 0,...
It has been demonstrated that stress exposure during pregnancy impairs biological and behavioral responses to stress in the adult offspring, and that acetylcholine plays a role in this phenomenon. This prompted us to examine anxiety-related features of CHRNA4-genotyped subjects reared in stressed and unstressed conditions. Methods: One hundred seve...
Objectives: Gender differences in apolipoprotein-E (APOE) ε4 frequencies have been described in elderly non-Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects, and ε4 heterozygosity has been reported to increase AD risk in females while decreasing risk in males. It has also been suggested that vulnerability to AD varies as a function of so-called "brain reserve cap...
Objectives: Asthenia, or heightened fatiguability, is typically characterized by a positive energy balance, often disposes to weight gain, and is comorbid with depression. Conversely, cachexia is characterized by increased energy expenditure despite falling caloric intake, resulting in loss of adipose tissue and muscle mass. The cytokine gammainter...
Previous investigators have proposed that various kinds of person-descriptive content—such as differences in attitudes or values, in sheer evaluation, in attractiveness, or in height and girth—are not adequately captured by the Big Five Model. We report on a rather exhaustive search for reliable sources of Big Five–independent variation in data fro...
The popular NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) has a short form--the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)--that taps the five broad factors with fidelity and reliability. However, conventional scoring of this short form does not provide scores on more specific aspects of the broad-bandwidth factors. In this study, 13 item clusters were fou...
Abnormalities in monoamine oxidase (MAO) levels have been implicated in a wide range of psychiatric disorders. We have examined a VNTR polymorphism at the X-linked MAOA gene to test two hypotheses: (1) Do variants of the MAOA gene play a role in any of the behavioral disorders associated with Tourette syndrome or drug abuse? (2) If so, is there any...
Abnormalities in the dopaminergic reward pathways have frequently been implicated in substance abuse and addictive behaviors. Recent studies by Self and coworkers have suggested an important interaction between the dopamine D1 and D2 receptors in cocaine abuse. To test the hypothesis that the DRD1 gene might play a role in addictive behaviors we ex...
Previous factor-analytic studies of lexical person descriptors have produced some recurrent patterns of results, but their integration has been hampered by divergences in variable sampling, such as disparate criteria for what is considered a personality descriptor. To isolate effects of variable selection on factor structures, 500 of the most famil...
The receptors for tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of marijuana, have been identified. A microsatellite polymorphism (AAT)n at the cannabinoid CB1 (brain) receptor gene (CNR1) consists of 9 alleles. Since the cannabinoid system is part of the reward pathway we examined the hypothesis that genetic variants of the CNR1 gene might be associ...
Studies of the natural language are a prime source of the Big-Five model, yet the factor analysis of a large, representative, and non-clustered set of English-language personality adjectives in a large sample has not yet been published. In order to test the hypothesis that finding the Big Five depends on biasing the variable selection with an inves...
Unfortunately, Block's brilliant critique is terribly biased, much like a legal brief that presents only one side of the issues at suit. It does not distinguish between the Big Five model of phenotypic personality attributes from alternative models of the causal underpinnings of personality differences. Ironically, it attempts to explain away the e...
Unfortunately, Block's brilliant critique is terribly biased, much like a legal brief that presents only one side of the issues at suit. It does not distinguish between the Big Five model of phenotypic personality attributes from alternative models of the causal underpinnings of personality differences. Ironically, it attempts to explain away the e...
Personality attributes typically combine descriptive and evaluative aspects, as do most personality constructs and the factors in the Big Five taxonomy. However, an auxiliary representation, in which the descriptive and evaluative aspects are clearly separated, has technological utility in some areas of research and assessment. D. Peabody and H. G....
Personality attributes typically combine descriptive and evaluative aspects, as do most personality constructs and the factors in the Big Five taxonomy. However, an auxiliary representation, in which the descriptive and evaluative aspects are clearly separated, has technological utility in some areas of research and assessment. D. Peabody and H. G....
We examined the hypothesis that the dopamine D3 receptor gene (DRD3) is a susceptibility factor for cocaine dependence. The Msc I/ Bal I polymorphism of the DRD3 gene was examined in 47 Caucasian subjects with cocaine dependence and 305 Caucasian controls. Based on prior studies with a range of psychiatric dis- orders we hypothesized there would be...