Chapter 6

Cybernetic Trait Complexes Theory

CHAPTER SUMMARY

1. Our data provide novel insights that depict a new theory of personality-intelligence relations, building on existing work.
2. Individuals are cybernetic systems trying to leverage resources to achieve goals (e.g., survival, reproduction, getting promoted, running a marathon). They adjust their behavior and goals based on feedback loops.
3. Cybernetic loops consist of three stages (i.e., current state, transition state, and goal state), which each involve three steps (i.e., sense, evaluate, and decide).
4. Cybernetic loops involve goals, strategies, and behaviors that can be mapped along two fundamental dimensions: homeostasis vs. change and internal vs. external.
5. Personality and intelligence jointly impact how individuals balance homeostasis and change internally and externally in order to pursue self-preservation and self-evolution.
6. Individuals’ personalities and abilities can only be fully understood by considering both their genes/biology and their environments.
7. Personality represents typical strategies for dealing with internal and external stimuli in pursuit of self-preservation and self-evolution. Intelligence indexes how effectively information is leveraged to set goals and employ strategies that maximize the probability of goal achievement. These traits work in concert to maximize odds of surviving and thriving by orchestrating growth and homeostasis in environmentally sensitive ways.
8. Individuals have multiple goals at any given time, and personality and intelligence co-function to prioritize, balance, and pursue these goals effectively.
9. Cybernetic Trait Complexes Theory (CTCT) identifies constellations of personality traits and cognitive abilities optimized to support goals and strategies associated with internal and external homeostasis and change.

Examining over a century of quantitative research on personality and intelligence, the vast meta-analyses summarized and discussed in this volume reveal patterns of relations that form the basis of a theory for thinking about how personality and intelligence are connected and interrelated.

These meta-analyses were exhaustive, yet not driven by strong initial hypotheses. We were open to the emergence of new, previously unknown relations. We thus sought to meta-analytically construct a high-resolution picture using all personality-cognitive ability relations from the past 100 years.

We looked across the meta-analytic results to discern patterns, inductively identifying general trends (see Woo et al., 2017). The lack of previous inductive research in examining personality-cognitive ability relations has had a choking effect in the study of individual differences, limiting researchers to previously discovered or hypothesized relations (e.g., openness-cognitive ability [von Stumm & Ackerman, 2013], and extraversion-cognitive ability [Wolf & Ackerman, 2005], respectively). Limiting research only to questions that have theoretical or previous empirical support discourages discovery and advancement of knowledge (Spector, 2017).

In our work, we followed meta-analytic induction to abduct1 a new theory. That is, using meta-analytic findings and inductive reasoning, we derived the most plausible explanations of the observed personality-cognitive ability relations. The Cybernetic Trait Complexes Theory (CTCT) we articulate below aims to explain and provide a basis for future research concerning why personality-ability relations exist.

CTCT builds on existing theories (e.g., Cattell’s Investment Theory [1987]; Ackerman & Heggestad’s Emergence of Trait Complexes [1997]; Ortony et al.’s Affects, Behaviors, Cognitions, and Desires (ABCD) Theory [2005]; von Stumm & Ackerman’s Theory of Intellectual Engagement [2013]; and DeYoung’s Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T) [2015]). It is also consistent with other prominent individual differences frameworks (e.g., behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition [Gray, 1981, 1982], getting along and getting ahead [Hogan & Holland, 2003], and promotion and prevention focus [Lanaj et al., 2012]).

In sum, CTCT has been built by applying inductive and abductive reasoning to this volume’s meta-analytic findings. Yet we also acknowledge that it incorporates major tenets from existing theories, where they were consistent with the empirical findings. CTCT can thus also be viewed as an evidence-based synthesis of these theoretical accounts.

Cybernetic Beings: Individuals as Cybernetic Systems

The term “cybernetic” denotes goal-directed systems that self-regulate via feedback (DeYoung, 2015). Individuals are cybernetic systems that must prioritize finite resources among competing goals and strategies.2 Individuals set goals, detect their current state and movement toward goal states, consider their options, can take action to try to advance toward their goal state, and iteratively adjust their behaviors and goals based on feedback loops. This process can be summarized by three stages, each with a sub-loop of three steps (see Figure 18).

Figure 18. Stages and steps of cybernetic self-regulation.

*Includes behaviors, affects, desires, and cognitions.
Note. The cybernetic process may be halted at any stage/step (e.g., if a goal is abandoned).

Three Stages of Being: Current State, Transition, and Goal State.

The current state describes the present self and its environment, including the cumulative impact of historical events as well as forecasts of the future. The transition stage signifies movement between the current state and goal state, which involves identifying behavioral options that best reduce the discrepancy between current state and goal state while satisfying other criteria (e.g., alignment with personal values, availability of resources). The goal state represents the desired self and/or its environment.

The “behavioral” options noted for the transition stage can involve behaviors and actions as well as affects, desires, and cognitions associated with transition. That is, reducing discrepancies between current and goal states may be achieved by altering actions, changing cognitions, adjusting affect, and/or transforming desires. Current state vs. goal state discrepancies can also be reduced or increased by changes in the individual’s environment.

Three Steps of Action: Sense, Evaluate, and Decide

Three operational steps occur within each stage. Sensing involves perception of current self and environment in the context of one’s goals, awareness of behavioral options available to move toward goal states, and vision of desired self and/or environment. Evaluating involves prioritizing a portfolio of goals based on factors like alignment with identity and importance to future, weighing the value of behavioral options, and considering the desirability and likelihood of achieving the goal state compared to alternative outcomes. Deciding involves ongoing decisions to continue pursuing a goal; what level of energy to commit as well as what actions to take; and whether or not the goal has been achieved, is in-progress, or should be altered.

These stages and steps propel the feedback loops that help individuals set, progress toward, and achieve or alter their goals. An excellent explication of cybernetic self-regulation as it relates to psychological individual differences may be found in DeYoung (2015).

Homeostasis vs. Change

At a very broad level, the cycles depicted in Figure 18 result in goals, strategies, and behaviors that vary along two fundamental life strategy axes: homeostasis vs. change, and self/internal focus vs. environment/external focus (see Figure 19). These axes define the balances that characterize life. Such a structure is not meant to imply that the system is hyper-rational; many of these processes occur outside of awareness or are influenced by irrational or subconscious factors.3 Instead, the axes characterize an individual’s strategy for leveraging resources in service of self-preservation and self-evolution, with personality traits and cognitive abilities jointly directing resources. In the string of goals known as life, success hinges on effectively leveraging information to know when to preserve and when to evolve.4 Feedback loops inform resource allocation and help balance homeostasis and change, as well as fit between the individual and environment, rendering the cybernetic system inherently adaptive. Fundamental characteristics of environments vary along two major axes of threats and resources, each varying from none to plentiful.5 Different environments pose differing types of challenges and opportunities based on threat and resource levels.

In summary, personality traits and cognitive abilities jointly support psychological stability and maintain the individual in varying environments, and they also fuel change by energizing adaptation, development, and growth. Indeed, such a self-perpetuating capacity for the coordinated use of energy to achieve balance between homeostasis and change is the essence of life.

Figure 19. Cognitive ability-personality trait fitness complexes.

Note. Each quadrant identifies main individual difference complexes for fitness. Each row represents a fundamental fitness strategy: homeostasis (preservation-focused trait complexes), and change (evolution-focused trait complexes). Each column highlights the focal arena of trait complexes: self/internal (internally-targeted trait complexes), and environmental/external (trait complexes targeting preservation or adaptation to the environment).

Fixed vs. Flexible Selves: Personality and Intelligence in Cybernetics

Individuals have a given range of flexibility around their general tendencies and limits to their capabilities (e.g., Fleeson, 2001; Lykken & Tellegen, 1996). Genetic endowments and environments provide resources and impart constraints, favoring different life strategies. The interplay between these forces results in co-evolution of certain individual differences characteristics. Evolution pressures certain trait complexes to come together as viable strategies for utilizing finite individual and environmental resources to accomplish the cybernetic steps and stages and, therefore, goals. Covariation between personality traits and cognitive abilities reflects these forces.

In general, personality traits represent different cybernetic strategies for sensing, evaluating, and behaving to help individuals effectively balance homeostasis and change. Personality traits represent typical strategies for managing both internal (e.g., emotional) and external (e.g., environmental) stimuli. Cognitive abilities are the tools (e.g., perception, reasoning, and knowledge) to discern, select, and coordinate complex and effective responses to environments. Cognitive abilities index how efficiently, proficiently, and successfully goals are set, and pursued in complex environments.6 That is, cognitive abilities represent how effectively information is leveraged to set goals and employ strategies that maximize the probability of goal achievement.

In a functioning human cybernetic system, both cognitive abilities and personality traits orchestrate homeostasis and growth in environmentally sensitive ways to increase the odds of surviving and thriving. Together, these co-influential, and potentially co-dependent, domains energize action toward goal achievement and help generate new goals, interpretations, and strategies as goals are attained or obstructed or as behaviors are perceived to be productive/unproductive. For example, negative emotions can depress cognitive processing and reduce individuals’ abilities to clearly identify their goals, accurately sense their current state, or productively forecast which actions will advance them toward their goals. Conversely, higher intelligence may help individuals more clearly see how to apply their personality tendencies and channel their predispositions to make progress toward goals. Indeed, cognitive abilities are responsible for perceiving, processing, manipulating, and applying information to drive decisions and actions. They also help to adjust personality expression and behavior based on the environment.7 Although cognitive ability is an evolutionary individual difference tuning parameter, it is one where higher levels have tended to be more adaptive and worth the additional resource costs (e.g., caloric demands).

Complexity arises for individuals, in part, from the multiple competing goal states within and across individuals, intra-individual variance in personality and cognitive abilities, the variety of actions available, the diversity of environments encountered, and the uncertain consequences forecasted for each action. Personality traits have utility in identifying which goals are attractive and prioritized (i.e., considered worthwhile), which actions are preferred, and how uncertainty is weighed. Cognitive abilities involve the effective utilization of information to achieve goals. They involve knowing when to strive for change to maximize the probability of achieving goals in a given environment and when to protect homeostasis. Therefore, cognitive abilities are a key determinant in the effectiveness with which goals are set, pursued, and accomplished.

Cybernetic trait complexes theory (CTCT) proposes that self-regulatory mechanisms for homeostasis and change are responsible for predictable linkages between individuals’ personality tendencies and cognitive capacities. Covariation of ability and personality phenotypes can be thought of as trait constellations or complexes that provide the scaffolding to human psychological systems’ self-regulating mechanisms for setting, progressing toward, and achieving or revising goals via the coordinated use of resources. These trait complexes serve the functions of (1) maintaining psychological homeostasis (i.e., sustaining stability) and (2) enabling change (i.e., supporting adaptive development and growth). These functions can each be bifurcated according to whether they focus internally on the individual or externally on the environment. In concert with our environments,8 cognitive abilities and personality traits are co-influential, and potentially co-dependent, in ensuring adaptive fitness. That is, they serve the evolutionary purpose of helping us achieve goals and the broader functions of self-preservation and self-evolution.

Chapter 7 presents the results of our meta-analyses and interprets them from the perspective of CTCT. These overarching cybernetic patterns of relations have been hitherto overlooked in much of psychological research.

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