Categories: Psychology

What are Trait Theories of Personality ?

&NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad1" id&equals;"quads-ad1" style&equals;"float&colon;left&semi;margin&colon;0px 0px 0px 0&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Trait Theory is defined as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;any unique&comma; comparatively lasting way in which one individual diverges from another”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Trait theory&comma; as the name gives away&comma; is a method to study human personality that recognizes and measures the gradation to which certain personality traits be present from individual to individual&period; The individual personality is determined involving a study of set number of personality traits&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">Allport’s 4&comma;000 Traits<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Gordon Allport a well-known trait theorist&comma; was one of the pioneers of personality psychology&period; In 1936&comma; Allport in went through a lexicon and picked out more than 4&comma;000 words that describe the human personality and grouped them into three main categories&comma; believing that only a few traits really delineate who we are&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">The Central Traits&comma; according to alllport is a small number of traits that together dominate a person’s behavior&period; The traits segment the makeup of a personality&comma; and can be portrayals like shy&comma; intelligent or honest&comma; sharp&comma; etc&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Secondary Traits&comma; which are a less influential traits are aspects of a personality that may be situational&comma; such as not a party lover&comma; or someone who enjoys gatherings or crowded places&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Finally&comma; a Cardinal trait&comma; that mounts as a dominant force in a personality&comma; and that which overshadows all other <&sol;p>&NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad2" id&equals;"quads-ad2" style&equals;"float&colon;none&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 0px 0&semi;text-align&colon;center&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">Raymond Cattell Revision of 4000 Traits<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Albeit&comma; Allports 4&comma;000 traits were considered impractical for applications&comma; yet this theory remained the most influential&period; So in the 1940s&comma; Raymond Cattell simmered down the Trait Theory to something wieldier&comma; 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&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">According to Cattell&comma; all these traits are present in every individual&comma; but which trait is more dominant or which is recessive defines our personality as an individual&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">Eysenck’s Three Categories<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Still discontented with the wide-ranging list of personality traits&comma; Hans Eysenck further narrowed the list to three main categories&period; He said everyone could be distinguished on bases of two categories—Introversion-Extroversion and Neuroticism-Emotional Stability&period; But after further research and study he found out that some personalities couldn’t be tied to any of these categories&comma; hence he came up with the third category-mental illness—Psychoticism&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">The 5 Key Personality Traits<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Over the time&comma; many years of study and research was carried out but Allport’s theory still considered too inclusive&comma; and Eysenck’s was too simplified&comma; so many psychologist after a lot of study and recategorisation of traits to meet a satisfactory ground settled upon five key personality traits&period; &lbrack;sky&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">This theory is called the Big Five&comma; or as some call it OCEAN to outline these traits&period; These five key personality traits are Openness&comma; Conscientiousness&comma; Extraversion&comma; Agreeableness&comma; and Neuroticism&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">Strong points and Reproaches<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Even though the Trait theory has had its share of ups and downs&comma; its biggest plus point is it is objective followed by another that it is easily understandable and it’s the kind of theory&comma; unlike personality theory&comma; which is quite intuitive and implemented easily&comma; like it has been implemented on patients successfully for many years&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">On the other side&comma; the fact that it does not address or clarify how or why the traits develop&comma; is the biggest shortcoming of a trait theory&period; And because it’s objective&comma; it’s very light on interpretation or analysis&period; Its nature of being more of an observational system makes it easy to access to the roots of personality&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In the same way&comma; the group or category of traits is not quite effective or accurate in predicting a specific behavior&period; A behavior that might be analyzed to be an expected trait on the basis of key indicators&comma; might be quite different in practice<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">For example&comma; a subject might rate heavily towards introversion which is a tendency in which a person avoids socializing&comma; but next week might be enjoying a gathering in a crowded event&period; A conclusion that a person does not necessarily behave according to their tendencies but situations and moods matter&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 align&equals;"justify">Application<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Highly considered a solid&comma; objective tool for evaluating a personality&comma; 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&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Guidance counsellors are responsible for carrying out personality trait assessments&comma; one of the most common uses of trait theory&comma; or students who seek their future career&period; 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&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Self-reporting&comma; is yet another important tool for assessing the strength of a person’s character&comma; this can be extremely murky&comma; because people are never the best interpreters of their own behavior&period; But to dig out the most accurate results researches&comma; over the years of effort&comma; have designed tests with thousands of questions&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">For instance&comma; the MMPI test &lpar;Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory&rpar;&comma; 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&period; That means&comma; it does not only rates the subjects on the basis of behavior but also evaluates them on the basis of faking&comma; being defensive or their habit of lying&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">These Tests like the MMPI are used by clinicians to evaluate mental illness&comma; but they are also used in a number of other applications&period; Personality tests have been successfully and effectively used in anything from criminal trials to custody disputes&comma; and are often used to screen applicants for high pressure or dangerous jobs&period; &NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad3" id&equals;"quads-ad3" style&equals;"float&colon;none&semi;margin&colon;0px&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&NewLine;

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