1. Personality as a collection of traits

2. Trait theory  Personality viewed as a group of discrete, consistent, long-lasting tendencies in behavior  Multi-dimensional  Based on rigorous statistical analysis  A reaction against the vague, non- empirical nature of the Freudians and Humanists  Also, much more modest in scope

3. How many?  Gordon Alport started with 18,000 and then eliminated synonyms and antonyms to reduce list to  Cattell used factor analysis to arrive at 35  Eyesnik argued for just 3

4. The big 5 (+2)  Currently the most influential trait theory  Developed over the last 40 years through the contributions of many  McCrae and Costa applied the final labels

5. neuroticism  Hypersensitive to adverse stimuli  Opposite – stability  Other pairings: worrying/calm worrying/calm high-strung/relaxed high-strung/relaxed anxious/laid-back anxious/laid-back  Heritability correlation coefficient -.31

6. extraversion  Out-going, sociable  Opposite – introversion  All the way back to Carl Yung  Also: fun loving/sober joiner/loner joiner/loner talkative/quiet talkative/quiet  Heritability Correlation : -.36

7. Openness to experience  Enjoying new ideas and experiences  Opposite – tied to tradition  Other pairings: creative/uncreative creative/uncreative independent/conforming independent/conforming daring/shun adventure daring/shun adventure  Heritability -.46

8. Agreeableness  Compassionate and flexible  Opposite – rude  Other pairings: good-natured/irritable good-natured/irritable sympathetic/callous sympathetic/callous lenient/unforgiving lenient/unforgiving  Heritability -.28

9. conscientiousness  Self disciplined and productive  Opposite – undependable  Others: careful/careless careful/careless hardworking/lazy hardworking/lazy persevering/giving up persevering/giving up  Heritability -.28

10. +2 ?  Familiar qualities  Intelligence and  Activity level – temperament?  Both are heavily influenced by genetics

11. Is the Big 5 valid?  These traits have emerged again and again in various factor analyses  These traits are relatively stable over time although levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness increase as we mature although levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness increase as we mature  As we have seen, moderate levels of heritability have been found  Works for males and females