On the Dual Nature of Extraversion

TLDR

The study examines whether extraversion comprises two distinct components, sociability and impulsiveness. The authors aim to determine whether extraversion is unitary, whether it is independent of adjustment, and whether sociability and impulsiveness are separate traits. A factorial analysis of a 70‑item questionnaire was conducted on two independent samples of 300 participants each to confirm the factor structure. The analysis found that extraversion is largely unitary and independent of adjustment, while sociability and impulsiveness emerge as separate traits with low intercorrelation; sociability correlates slightly positively with adjustment and impulsiveness slightly negatively.

Abstract

A factorial study is reported of a 70‐item matrix containing extraversion‐introversion, neuroticism, and lie scale items; the correlations were obtained from a sample of 300 men and women, and questionnaire responses were also available from another similar sample of identical size for the purpose of confirming certain findings. The questions to be answered related (1) to the unitary nature of extraversion, and (2) to the independence of extraversion from adjustment. A third problem raised was the possibility that there might be two identifiable components of extraversion, sociability and impulsiveness; the study was designed to investigate the existence and relationship of these two traits. The results showed (1) that extraversion may be regarded as a unitary factor, depending somewhat on the definition of the term ‘unitary’ (a) that extraversion and adjustment are essentially independent; and (3) that sociability and impulsiveness do emerge as separate traits, correlating about 0–5 with each other in two independent samples. It was also found (4) that sociability has a slightly positive correlation with adjustment, whilst impulsiveness has a slight negative correlation.