Sl. Hershberger et al., TRAITS AND METATRAITS - THEIR RELIABILITY, STABILITY, AND SHARED GENETIC INFLUENCE, Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(4), 1995, pp. 673-685
Metatraits measure individual differences in construct relevancy, wher
eas traits measure individual differences in construct extremity. Twen
ty-four traits and metatraits were examined in this study using 157 pa
irs of identical twins reared together, 95 pairs of identical twins re
ared apart, 211 pairs of fraternal twins reared together, and 228 pair
s of fraternal twins reared apart obtained from the Swedish Adoption/T
win Study of Aging (see N. L. Pedersen et al., 1991). Reliability and
stability analyses of the metatraits revealed generally lower reliabil
ity and stability across time compared to traits. Quantitative genetic
analyses of the relationship between traits and metatraits indicated
that approximately 69% of the metatrait's genetic variance is shared w
ith the trait, with 31% of its genetic variance unique to the metatrai
t. These results suggest that metatraits provide a useful additional v
iew of personality.