Beyond resilients, undercontrollers, and overcontrollers? an extension of personality prototype research

Abstract

Prototypes of personality were investigated in two studies. In study I, clusters of Big‐Five‐based prototypes were examined using a general population sample of 1908 German adults. Convergent evidence suggested the appropriateness of a five‐cluster solution, which corresponds to previously identified temperament based prototypes. In study II, the five‐cluster solution was cross‐validated in a sample of 256 prisoners. Moreover, it was shown that a population‐based approach (using discriminant functions derived from study I) was superior over the traditional sample‐based cluster approach (using Ward followed by k‐means). The authors argue that future typological research can be sufficiently grounded on a five‐prototype conception rather than on a three‐prototype conception, and suggest a new and flexible assignment procedure. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.