Psychology

Objective  Explain the history, main features, and limitations of the trait theory of personality

Trait Approach  Trait?  Aspect of personality that is considered to be reasonably stable.  A person has certain traits based on how the person behaves.  A “shy” person? How do they behave?  An “outgoing” person? How do they behave?  Trait theorists, believe traits generally are somehow fixed or unchanging.  Try to answer the ? Where do traits come from?

Hippocrates  Greeks: Body contains fluids called Humors.  Traits are a result of different combinations of these bodily fluids.  Believed 4 basic fluids  Yellow Bile  Quick-tempered disposition  Blood  Warm and cheerful temperament  Phlegm  Sluggish and cool disposition  Black Bile  Melancholic, thoughtful temperament

Gordon Allport  1930s  Catalogued 18,000 different traits  Traits can be inherited and they are fixed in the nervous system. People’s behavior is a product of their particular combinations of traits.  “short” and “brunette” – Physical  “Shy” and “emotional”– behavioral  “Honest” – Moral

Raymond Cattell  Determine the number of basic traits human personality can be boiled down to.  Studied groups rather than individuals  Identified obvious personality traits (surface traits)  Integrity  Friendliness  Tidiness

Raymond Cattell  Clusters of surface traits seemed to occur together.  If a person showed 1 trait in cluster, they usually showed the others in the cluster.  A single underlying trait (source traits) gives rise to all the traits in each cluster.  16 source traits  Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionaire

Hans Eysenck  Focused on the relationships between two personality dimension  Introversion-Extroversion  Emotional stability-instability  Introverts: imaginative and look inward rather than to other people for their ideas and energy  Extroverts: tend to be active and self-expressive and gain energy from interaction with other people  Stable: usually reliable, composed, and rational  Unstable: agitated and unpredictable Eysenck

Eysenk’s personality dimensions

The Big Five  5 basic personality dimensions  Introversion-Extroversion  Emotional Stability-Instability  Conscientiousness-carelessness  Agreeableness-disagreeableness  Openness to new experience– closed-mindedness  Established at a young age and remains stable.

Evaluation of the Trait Approach  Where do traits come from?  Most trait-theorists describe traits  Matching people to educational programs and jobs on the basis of personality traits.

Take Personality Quizzes  Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire  The Big 5 Test  Meyer Brigg Test win/jtypes2.asp