PST - Trait Theory Lesson

 

Trait Theory

While psychoanalysts focus on hidden thoughts and past experiences, and Humanists focus on the search for self-actualization, trait theorists see personality as set by biology at birth. Trait theory focuses on primarily describing personal individual differences. Traits are a person's underlying characteristics that make them behave in certain ways. A trait theory of personality attempts to identify, describe, and measure those individual differences.

Psychologist Gordon Allport found more than 4,000 words in the dictionary that could be used to describe personality. Later, trait theorist Raymond Cattell took Allport's list of thousands of traits and reduced them to 16 characteristics by eliminating those that seemed uncommon or redundant. He believed that these 16 factors represented the essential source traits that make up human personality. Each trait represents a dimension that ranges between two extremes, like shy to outgoing or trusting to suspicious.

Many trait theorists found Raymond Cattell's theory too complex. Today, trait theorists typically use self-reported inventories to assess a person's personality based on a small number of traits.

The five-factor theory, or "Big Five," states that the essential building blocks of personality can be described in five dimensions.

The most widely used personality inventory today is one created by Catherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers. Their personality inventory, the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator), assesses a person's preferences in four categories: inward vs outward focus, ideal information source, emotionality, and decision-making.

A trait theorist sees personality as determined at birth and consistent throughout life.

 

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