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Personality and Social Psychology Review
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A Cybernetic Model of Global Personality Traits

Lawrence F. Van Egeren

Michigan State University, East Lansing, vaneger1{at}msu.edu

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 how 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 (B5) 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 B5 traits. The B5 traits broadly parallel basic cybernetic self-regulation processes. For example, the core behavior activation property of the B5 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.

Key Words: personality structure • self-regulation • individual differences • Big Five traits

This version was published on May 1, 2009

Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, 92-108 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1088868309334860
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