What are Trait Theories of Personality ?

Trait Theory is defined as “any unique, comparatively lasting way in which one individual diverges from another”.

Trait theory, as the name gives away, is a method to study human personality that recognizes and measures the gradation to which certain personality traits be present from individual to individual. The individual personality is determined involving a study of set number of personality traits.

Allport’s 4,000 Traits

Gordon Allport a well-known trait theorist, was one of the pioneers of personality psychology. In 1936, Allport in went through a lexicon and picked out more than 4,000 words that describe the human personality and grouped them into three main categories, believing that only a few traits really delineate who we are.

The Central Traits, according to alllport is a small number of traits that together dominate a person’s behavior. The traits segment the makeup of a personality, and can be portrayals like shy, intelligent or honest, sharp, etc.

Secondary Traits, which are a less influential traits are aspects of a personality that may be situational, such as not a party lover, or someone who enjoys gatherings or crowded places.

Finally, a Cardinal trait, that mounts as a dominant force in a personality, and that which overshadows all other

Raymond Cattell Revision of 4000 Traits

Albeit, Allports 4,000 traits were considered impractical for applications, yet this theory remained the most influential. So in the 1940s, Raymond Cattell simmered down the Trait Theory to something wieldier, who went through the list scrutinizing it and got him to a list of 171 characteristics after combining the similar words and eliminating the unnecessary or rare ones.

According to Cattell, all these traits are present in every individual, but which trait is more dominant or which is recessive defines our personality as an individual.

Eysenck’s Three Categories

Still discontented with the wide-ranging list of personality traits, Hans Eysenck further narrowed the list to three main categories. He said everyone could be distinguished on bases of two categories—Introversion-Extroversion and Neuroticism-Emotional Stability. But after further research and study he found out that some personalities couldn’t be tied to any of these categories, hence he came up with the third category-mental illness—Psychoticism.

The 5 Key Personality Traits

Over the time, many years of study and research was carried out but Allport’s theory still considered too inclusive, and Eysenck’s was too simplified, so many psychologist after a lot of study and recategorisation of traits to meet a satisfactory ground settled upon five key personality traits. [sky]

This theory is called the Big Five, or as some call it OCEAN to outline these traits. These five key personality traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Strong points and Reproaches

Even though the Trait theory has had its share of ups and downs, its biggest plus point is it is objective followed by another that it is easily understandable and it’s the kind of theory, unlike personality theory, which is quite intuitive and implemented easily, like it has been implemented on patients successfully for many years.

On the other side, the fact that it does not address or clarify how or why the traits develop, is the biggest shortcoming of a trait theory. And because it’s objective, it’s very light on interpretation or analysis. Its nature of being more of an observational system makes it easy to access to the roots of personality.

In the same way, the group or category of traits is not quite effective or accurate in predicting a specific behavior. A behavior that might be analyzed to be an expected trait on the basis of key indicators, might be quite different in practice

For example, a subject might rate heavily towards introversion which is a tendency in which a person avoids socializing, but next week might be enjoying a gathering in a crowded event. A conclusion that a person does not necessarily behave according to their tendencies but situations and moods matter.

Application

Highly considered a solid, objective tool for evaluating a personality, this trait theory has over the time have had its professionals have managed to get good measurements of the key personality traits by some tactful methods.

Guidance counsellors are responsible for carrying out personality trait assessments, one of the most common uses of trait theory, or students who seek their future career. A simple example of which may be an employer screening his staff to get a better judgment of what person fits the most for a specific post in a company.

Self-reporting, is yet another important tool for assessing the strength of a person’s character, this can be extremely murky, because people are never the best interpreters of their own behavior. But to dig out the most accurate results researches, over the years of effort, have designed tests with thousands of questions.

For instance, the MMPI test (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), after going through a lot of reconstructions and turning points and tunings has developed a sharp way of spotting the subject or test-takers tendency to give in accurate answers. That means, it does not only rates the subjects on the basis of behavior but also evaluates them on the basis of faking, being defensive or their habit of lying.

These Tests like the MMPI are used by clinicians to evaluate mental illness, but they are also used in a number of other applications. Personality tests have been successfully and effectively used in anything from criminal trials to custody disputes, and are often used to screen applicants for high pressure or dangerous jobs.