SYMLOG vs.
Personality measures
A personality inventory with five domains (the five-factor model), measured originally with 240 items (now 60), used to describe human personality. Each global factor has a cluster of more specific descriptive characteristics. Traits used to describe aspects of the factor below the broad domain are separate but correlated. e.g., for the Extraversion factor, outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved is used. There is no indication these words are actually opposite in meaning or part of the same continuum.
So, unlike SYMLOG with 3 bi-polar dimensions, the NEO appears to be missing a critical factor. Where the P-N and F-B dimensions are adequately covered, the NEO does not seem to take into consideration the importance of the U-D dimension of dominance/submissiveness, which can manifest behaviorally in all the five factors.
Adding a SYMLOG analysis to this personality measure will tap the values others’ perceive you showing in behavior, or the actual behavior you are observed to show. This analysis allows for behavior modification in order to be perceived as more effective, and have your intentional behavior better understood by others.
The Five-Factor Model of personality has grown out of efforts by many researchers, beginning over a half century ago with McDougall and Thurstone, to reduce the myriad elements of personality to an elemental set.
The NEO (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness) Personality Inventory is a recent product of this ongoing endeavor, and owes much to Costa and McCrae's work of the past ten years.
The five broad domains of the five-factor model are:
Preference for social interaction, activity for activity's sake
Orientation toward compassion and caring about others, and away from antagonism
Degree of organization, preference for goal-oriented activity
Tendency toward negative emotionality, instability, inability to cope
Tolerance for new ideas and new ways of doing things, experientially oriented
Heuristic Plot in SYMLOG Space of
Big Five Personality Factors
(Click image to enlarge)
Professor R. F. Bales, the author of SYMLOG Theory, has written a number of books, in which, among other things, he addresses the relationship of various other factor-based models to SYMLOG. In comparing the NEO Personality Inventory's five-factor model with the SYMLOG model, which is also the product of factor-analytic studies, he observes that Big Five Extraversion tends to be treated as a unidirectional scale. It does not currently have an opposite, in contrast to the SYMLOG vector on dominance, which has submissiveness as its opposite.
Bales suggests hypothetical relationships between the Big Five dimensions and the SYMLOG space, as shown in the following table:
1. Extraversion
Values on dominance
U (Upward)
Negative Extraversion
(Negative Extraversion is not usually recognized as a separate factor.)
Values on submissiveness
D (Downward)
2. Agreeableness
Values on friendly behavior, accepting authority
PF (Positive-Forward)
3. Conscientiousness
Values on unfriendly behavior, accepting authority
NF (Negative-Forward)
4. Neuroticism
Values on unfriendly behavior, opposition to authority
NB (Negative-Backward)
5. Openness
Values on friendly behavior, opposition to authority
PB (Positive-Backward)
Explore other models in comparison to SYMLOG
