Trait Theories of Personality
• They believe that we
can describe people’s
personalities by
specifying their main
characteristics
(traits).
• Traits like honesty,
laziness, ambition,
outgoing are thought
to be stable over the
course of your lives.
Trait
• A characteristic of
behavior or a
disposition to feel
and act as
assessed by selfreported
inventories or
peer reports.
Gordon Allport
• Founder of the trait
perspective
• Interview with Freud
– What about the
conscious mind?
Other Trait Theorists
• Carl Jung – introversion
(psychic energy flows
inward) vs. extraversion
(psychic energy flows
outward)
• Hans Eysenck  2 axes;
researched biological
causes of differences
• Raymond Cattell (16
personality factors) –
warmth, reasoning,
emotional stability, etc.
Factor Analysis
• A statistical procedure used to identify
different components of your intelligence
or personality (depending on the test).
•FA takes the answers you give on tests
and compiles them into general traits.
The Big Five
• Emotional Stability (calm/anxious,
secure/insecure, self-satisfied/selfpitying).
•Extraversion (sociable/retiring, funloving/sober, affectionate/reserved).
•Openness (imaginative/practical,
variety/routine, independent,
conforming)
The Big Five (Continued)
• Agreeableness (soft-hearted/ruthless,
trusting/suspicious, helpful/uncooperative).
•Conscientiousness
(organized/disorganized, careful/careless,
disciplined/impulsive).
The Big Five
According to Big Five trait theory:
Your traits are stable over time.
They can be attributed to your genetics
They describe personalities equally
well across different cultures
They predict other attributes.
Correlations with the Big Five:
stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness,
conscientiousness
Protested injustice
- Emotionally stable, open
Fell in love at first sight
- Extraverted
Have not been in therapy
- Emotionally stable
Been in therapy
- Open
Not likely to have a lover whose name
they forgot
- Agreeable
Thrown a large party
- Extraverted
Kept a diary
- Open
Listen to music by self in dark
- Open
Correlations with the Big Five:
stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness,
conscientiousness
Read fewer than 12 books per year
- Extraverted
Never cheated on a test
- Conscientious
Never pulled all-nighter to finish
assignment
- Conscientious
Not likely to become addicted to
Internet
-Extraverted
Dated a person of a different race
- Open
Written a poem spontaneously
- Open
Smoke marijuana
- Open
Assessing Our Traits
• Personality Inventories: a
questionnaire where people respond to
items attempting to gauge different
aspects of their personality
Examples of personality inventories:
Myers-Briggs (Kiersey Temperament
Sorter), 16PF, MMPI, BFI, NEO-FFI)
MMPI
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory:
•the most widely used personality test.
•Originally used to identify emotional disorders.
Now used for screening purposes.
MMPI put to the Test
The Person-Situation
Controversy
• Are traits really
stable?
Kind Of….
They change according to
the situation.
Biological Theories of Personality
• What % of the
variation in a
population is
attributable to
genes? - heritability
• We are not sure
BUT temperaments
do seem to be stable
from infants to old
age.
Somatotype Theory
• A biological Theory by
William Sheldon.
• Endomorphs (Fat) tend
to be friendly and
outgoing.
• Mesomorphs (muscular)
tend to be more
aggressive.
• Ectomorphs (thin) tend
to be more shy and
secretive.
• Study has not been
replicated.