The trait approach

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

A person’s unique and relatively stable behavior patterns; the consistency of who you are, have been, and will become

Question 2

character

Answer 2

Personal characteristics that have been judged or evaluated

Question 3

temperament

Answer 3

Hereditary aspects of personality, including sensitivity, moods, irritability, and adaptability

Question 4

personality trait

Answer 4

Stable qualities that a person shows in most situations

Question 5

personality type

Answer 5

People who have several traits in common

Question 6

personality types

Answer 6

categorical

Question 7

what does the type approach assume?

Answer 7

each of us fits into one personality category (type) and that all people within a category are basically alike.

each personality type is different from all other types.

Question 8

personality traits

Answer 8

continuous

The Trait approach categorises people according to the degree to which they manifest particular characteristics.

People’s unique personalities are explained by having relatively greater or lesser amounts of the traits that are consistently found across people.

Question 9

what is a trait?

Answer 9

traits are “dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions” (McCrae & Costa, 1990).

a trait is “a generalized and focalized neuropsychic system (peculiar to the individual) with capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent and to initiate and guide consistent (equivalent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.” (Allport, 1937, p. 295).

Consistent patterns in the way that people think, act, and feel

Question 10

what does the trait approach examine?

Answer 10

the relationship between personality characteristics, thought and behaviour.

Question 11

basic views shared by trait theorists

Answer 11

Traits are fundamental building blocks of personality

Traits can be organized

Question 12

questions that concern trait researchers

Answer 12

How many personality traits are there and what are they?

Are personality traits stable predictors of behaviour across different situations?

Do personality dispositions change over time?

Where do the various personality traits come from?

Question 13

2 major assumptions that underlie the trait approach

Answer 13

1. There are personality differences between people. These differences are relative rather than absolute
2. Personality traits are relatively stable across time and situations

Question 14

There are personality differences between people. These differences are relative rather than absolute

Answer 14

We all share the same traits (ordinal measurement – no true ZERO) but the composition or pattern of traits varies from person to person

The trait approach tries to measure the degree to which a person is more or less sociable, dominant or introverted compared with someone else (compared with norms), rather than trying to measure these traits in any absolute sense.

Question 15

Personality traits are relatively stable across time and situations

Answer 15

Trait researchers are not interested in predicting one person’s behaviour in a given situation. Instead, they want to predict how people who score within a certain part of the trait continuum will typically behave.

Compare the behaviour of people who are relatively high on a trait with those who are relatively low on the trait.

Question 16

what does personality consist of?

Answer 16

patterns of traits which form a unique combination in each person that is stable over time and across situations.

Question 17

the trait continuum

Answer 17

Traits are normally distributed.

Scores will have a normal distribution (fewer people score in the extreme on any trait)

Any personality characteristic can be illustrated with the trait continuum.
Wide range of behaviors can be represented on trait continuum
- E.g. achievement motivation: highly driven and persistent on one end, indifference and no drive at all on the other extreme

Traits are bipolar: for any trait, there is an opposite lying on the same continuum (e.g., high/low optimism).

• Each person can be placed somewhere on continuum
  
  • More or less aggressive, more or less friendly, etc.

Different traits are generally seen as independent – a person’s position on one trait has little or nothing to do with their position on another trait.
- Contrast this with the Type approach whereby similar clusters of traits are used to classify people into particular Types.

Question 18

traits

Answer 18

are continuous

Question 19

how do you have more/less of a trait?

Answer 19

by demonstrating behavior:

• More/less frequently.
• More/less intensity.
• Often/rarely across a wide range of situations.

Question 20

how can traits be distinguished from states?

Answer 20

Traits are enduring and stable over long periods and across situations.

States are brief and situation-specific.

Question 21

why sit here controversy around traits

Answer 21

whether they are independent

Highlighted by the essential trait approach

Different approaches to Factor Analysis

Question 22

ways traits are studied

Answer 22

The typological approach attempts to classify people into distinct categories using particular clusters of traits.

The single-trait approach focuses on one particular personality trait to explain (a range of) important behaviours.

The many-trait approach focuses on many dimensions of personality, and correlates these with behaviour.

The essential trait approach attempts to reduce the ‘many traits’ to a few traits that are essential to understanding personality.

Question 23

Gordon Allport (1897-1967)

Answer 23

In 1921 Allport, with brother Floyd, published the first work on traits “Personality Traits: Their Classification and Measurement”

“Psychologists would do well to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing the unconscious” (1968, p. 384).

Personality is a real entity with physiological components in the nervous system.

Question 24

highlights of Allport’s theory

Answer 24

1. Personality is dynamic. Adult motivation (growth, coherence, creativity) is different than children’s motivations (tension reduction).
2. A few traits can explain most behavior.
3. Healthy personality is as important as neurosis.
4. Conscious values shape personality

Question 25

idiographic approach

Answer 25

emphasises the uniqueness of individuals and aims to identify the unique combination of traits that best account for the personality of a single individual.

Question 26

nomothetic approach

Answer 26

emphasises comparability among individuals and compares many people along the same personality dimensions/traits.

Question 27

morphogenic approach

Answer 27

Allport’s attempt to blend the nomothetic and idiographic perspectives.

Question 28

idiographic methods

Answer 28

Take into account each person’s uniqueness

Behavioral observations

Flexible self-reports

Interviews

Q-sorts

Takes into account each person’s personal dispositions; people have different traits

In contrast to the nomothetic approach – people have different amounts of a trait, but they all have the same finite set of traits (e.g. Big Five)

Question 29

lexical approach to identifying traits

Answer 29

all important traits are captured by language.

Question 30

Allport and Odbert (1936)

Answer 30

identified 17,953 words in the English language, each describing a personality trait.

• Traits occur in different combinations. These combinations make each of us unique and influence our behaviour.
• Each person has various types of traits organized hierarchically according to how much they influence behavior.

Question 31

Allport - structure of personality

Answer 31

Traits are building blocks

They occur in combinations. Each person’s combination makes them unique.

Organized hierarchically based on how much they influence behavior.

Common traits and personal traits

Question 32

structure of personal traits - hierarchically organised

Answer 32

Most people can identify 5 to 10 traits that describe themselves best.
- It is these traits that make us different from others

central traits

cardinal traits

secondary traits

Question 33

central traits

Answer 33

building blocks of personality. Allport believed that central traits best describe an individual’s personality. These traits in combination organise most of a person’s behavior.

Question 34

cardinal traits

Answer 34

An occasional person can be best described by a single, overriding dominant trait that influences behaviour and defines their life. e.g. Mother Teresa – kindness and compassion

Question 35

secondary traits

Answer 35

many consistent traits which are not often exhibited and are of limited value in understanding individuals but may influence some behavior

Question 36

common traits

Answer 36

Within any particular culture there are common traits ones that are a part of that culture, that everyone in that culture recognizes and identifies.

Traits that we share due to common biological and cultural heritages

Roughly comparable among people

These traits make us the same

Question 37

proprium

Answer 37

organizing structure of personality; the self; the core

• Responsible for self-esteem
• Self-identity
• Self-image
• Begins developing in infancy and continues through adolescence

Question 38

functional autonomy

Answer 38

Our motives become independent of their childhood origins

A likely reaction to Freud - Allport didn’t agree that childhood experiences continue to influence us so strongly as adults
- For example, a child might clean their room to please parent. But as an adult, values being neat and tidy.

Question 39

the Many-trait approach

Answer 39

The California Q-set (Block, 1978): 100 phrases, each describing a personality trait.

• Is shy and reserved.
• Is verbally fluent.
• Is facially and /or gesturally expressive.
• Is a genuinely dependable and responsible person.

Traits measured by the Q-set at very young ages can predict complex behaviours later, such as drug abuse, political orientation and depression.
- Depression in women aged 18 was predicted by specific Q-sort items at age 7: shy and reserved, oversocialised, self-punishing and overcontrolled (Block et al., 1991).

Question 40

the essential trait approach

Answer 40

As the Trait approach has developed it has tried to synthesize and formalize the ‘many’ traits. However, important questions remain today:

• What traits are basic or essential to personality?
• How many essential traits are there?

The debate continues today and is further complicated by the fact that the labelling of traits is subjective. Similar traits have been given different labels by different theorists (e.g., neuroticism and emotional stability usually refer to same trait).
- Look for the meaning that underlies a trait rather than simply looking at its name.

Psychologists began developing statistical approaches to simplify and objectify the structure of personality. They applied the tools of scientific enquiry and scientific theory to human personality.
- The scientific measurement of personality became known as Psychometrics or Psychometric Theory.

Question 41

researchers that focus on the essential trait approach

Answer 41

Hans Eysenck (1947, 1986) short listed 3 essential traits:
- extraversion; neuroticism and psychoticism.

Raymond Cattell (1961) 16 traits are essential:
- intelligence, stability and friendliness. 

The BIG FIVE (McCrae & Costa, 1987): OCEAN
- Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (also called negative emotionality)

Question 42

Winter et al. (1998)

Answer 42

After reviewing classic and current conceptions of trait (as measured by questionnaires) and motive (as measured by the Thematic Apperception Test [TAT] or other imaginative verbal behavior), the authors suggest that these 2 concepts reflect 2 fundamentally different elements of personality—conceptually distinct and empirically unrelated.

The authors propose that traits and motives interact in the prediction of behavior: Traits channel the behavioral expression of motives throughout the life course.

The authors illustrate this interactive hypothesis in 2 longitudinal studies, focusing on the broad trait of extraversion and the 2 social motives of affiliation and power.

In interaction with extraversion, both motives show predicted and replicated relations to independently measured life outcomes in the domains of relationships and careers.

Extraversion facilitates unconflicted motive expression, whereas introversion deflects social motives away from their characteristic goals and creates difficulties in goal attainment.

Question 43

Jayawickreme et al. (2019)

Answer 43

Whole Trait Theory (WTT) was developed as an integrative model of traits that incorporates mechanisms of differential reaction to situations.

Providing an explanatory account to the Big 5 (defined in terms of density distributions of personality states) creates two parts to traits, an explanatory part and a descriptive part.

WTT proposes that the explanatory side of traits consists of social-cognitive mechanisms.

These two parts of traits should be recognized as distinct entities that are nevertheless joined into whole traits.

This review provides an overview of WTT, discusses new directions for considering WIT in personality development, the possible application of WTT to non-Big 5 traits, and possibilities for interventions based on insights from WTT.

Question 44

Wu et al. (2017)

Answer 44

Trait inferences occur routinely and rapidly during social interaction, sometimes based on scant or fleeting information.

In this research, participants (perceivers) made inferences of targets’ big-five traits after briefly watching or listening to an unfamiliar target (a third party) performing various mundane activities (telling a scripted joke or answering questions about him/herself or reading aloud a paragraph of promotional material).

Across three studies, when perceivers judged targets to be either low or high in one or more dimensions of the big-five traits, they tended to be correct, but they did not tend to be correct when they judged targets as average.

Such inferences seemed to vary in effectiveness across different trait dimensions and depending on whether the target’s behaviour was presented either in a video with audio, a silent video, or just in an audio trackperceivers generally were less often correct when they judged targets as average in each of the big-five traits across various information channels (videos with audio, silent videos, and audios).

Study 3 replicated these findings in a different culture. We conclude with discussion of the scope and the adaptive value of this trait inferential ability.

Question 45

Uher (2013)

Answer 45

This article develops a comprehensive philosophy-of-science for personality psychology that goes far beyond the scope of the lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts that currently prevail.

One of the field’s most important guiding scientific assumptions, the lexical hypothesis, is analysed from meta-theoretical viewpoints to reveal that it explicitly describes two sets of phenomena that must be clearly differentiated: 1) lexical repertoires and the representations that they encode and 2) the kinds of phenomena that are represented.

Thus far, personality psychologists largely explored only the former, but have seriously neglected studying the latter. Meta-theoretical analyses of these different kinds of phenomena and their distinct natures, commonalities, differences, and interrelations reveal that personality psychology’s focus on lexical approaches, assessment methods, and trait concepts entails a) erroneous meta-theoretical assumptions about what the phenomena being studied actually are, and thus how they can be analysed and interpreted, b) that contemporary personality psychology is largely based on everyday psychological knowledge, and c) a fundamental circularity in the scientific explanations used in trait psychology.

These findings seriously challenge the widespread assumptions about the causal and universal status of the phenomena described by prominent personality models.

The current state of knowledge about the lexical hypothesis is reviewed, and implications for personality psychology are discussed.

Ten desiderata for future research are outlined to overcome the current paradigmatic fixations that are substantially hampering intellectual innovation and progress in the field.

Question 46

Schwartz (2010)

Answer 46

Three measures of each of six traits (locus of control (I-E), extraversion, neuroticism, cultural estrangement, social desirability, and guilt) were administered to 43 male and 57 female college students.

Multimethod analysis of the resulting multitrait-multimethod matrix revealed eight traits, although informal examination of the matrix revealed only weak evidence for convergent and discriminant validity.

The results were interpreted as supporting the construct validity of most of the measures but indicating the multifactorial nature of the I-E scale.