Resilients,Overcontrollers, and Undercontrollers: The replicability of the three personality prototypes across informants

The study of patterns in personality structure reveals three replicable prototypes: Resilients, Overcontrollers, and Undercontrollers. The three prototypes were first identified in children using ratings based on the California Child Q‐set (see Block, 1971). Only recently, the three prototypes were replicated in self‐reports on questionnaires intended to assess the Big Five (see e.g. Asendorpf, Borkenau, Ostendorf, & van Aken, 2001). This paper addresses the question of whether the three prototypes are replicable across different data sources. Cluster structures in self‐, peer, and behaviour ratings, all based on the Big Five, were examined in a sample of 600 monozygotic and dizygotic twins ranging in age from 18 to 70 years. The three prototypes could be clearly identified in the self‐reports only, whereas in ratings by others only the Resilient prototype could be replicated. In both peer and behaviour ratings, the second and the third cluster reflected a Non‐desirable and an Average type. The analysis of cross‐data consistency revealed only moderate agreement in assignments of individual subjects to types. The findings suggest that personality types depend strongly on personality measures and informants. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.