Trait theory
Trait theory is a prominent framework in the study of personality that proposes that individual personalities are composed of a variety of established traits, which influence behavior and experience. Developed in the mid-20th century, the theory emphasizes the identification and assessment of these distinctive characteristics, aiming to predict how individuals might perform in various situations such as work, school, or relationships. Pioneered by psychologists like Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell, and Hans Eysenck, trait theory categorizes traits into different levels, including cardinal, central, and secondary traits. Allport's classification of traits laid the groundwork for further refinement by Cattell, who distilled personality traits down to sixteen measurable factors, and Eysenck, who highlighted three primary traits: introversion/extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. The Five-Factor Model, also known as the Big Five, emerged in the 1990s, identifying five core traits—openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—that interact to shape personality. While trait theory provides a straightforward means to assess personality, it does not explore how traits develop or predict future behaviors effectively. This makes it a useful tool for understanding individual differences, though it has its limitations.
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Trait theory
Trait theory is a key approach in the study of personality. The theory holds that an individual’s personality is made up of a broad spectrum of established characteristics, or traits, that underlie the behaviors exhibited by that individual. The interplay of a person’s diverse traits shapes a unique personality for each individual. Trait theory seeks to discover and assess these distinctive personality characteristics. Understanding these characteristics, trait theorists believe, can help predict which individuals will do better in a given situation, such as school, work, or in a relationship, and can be used to help guide people toward success and happiness.
Overview
Trait theory emerged in the mid-1930s from the work of Harvard University professor and psychologist Gordon Allport. He had a strong interest in expanding scientific knowledge about human personality and began cataloging all the words in an English-language dictionary that described personality traits. For Allport's trait model, he classified the more than four thousand words into three main levels: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits.
Allport defined a cardinal trait as one that dominates a person’s being to the extent that the individual becomes known for the trait, like Narcissus and the trait of vanity. Cardinal traits are not always present and tend to develop later in one’s life, according to Allport’s premise. Central traits are the ones that serve as the foundation for an individual’s basic personality, such as honesty, greed, or ambition. Both cardinal and central traits are influenced by a person’s early experiences but become entrenched in the individual’s personality over time. Secondary traits include those that arise mainly based on a specific circumstance, such as anxiety before a job interview.
British psychologist Raymond Cattell refined trait theory in the late 1940s by reducing the number of personality traits from thousands to just sixteen. Cattell hypothesized that every person shares the same sixteen traits to varying degrees along a continuum. He developed a widely used personality assessment tool known as the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire that evaluates where on the continuum a person’s specific traits lie.
German psychologist Hans Eysenck created a personality model that honed the list even more to just three key traits: introversion/extroversion, based on how one interacts with the world; neuroticism/emotional stability, which relates to a person’s intrinsic temperament; and psychoticism, which includes those who are antisocial to the point of hostility.
By the 1990s a trait theory emerged known as the Five-Factor Model, also known as the Big Five. This model represents five central traits that interact to form the foundation of human personality. Sometimes referred to as the OCEAN of personality, the five traits are: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion/introversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability).
Trait theory allows for simple, objective assessment of existing human personality traits, but it does not address trait development or application and cannot be used as an effective approach for predicting future behavior.
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