Personality entails the permanent features and behaviors that make up a person’s particular way of dealing with life, such as significant characteristics, interests, motivations, self-concept, abilities, values, and behavioral patterns. Moreover, characteristics are recurring behavioral patterns, emotions, and thoughts that individuals manifest in different situations (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). According to trait theorists, human beings have unique traits and characteristics that determine their conduct. As such, trait theories expound on various individual personalities, measuring and evaluating their characteristics. Each person has a unique personality that determines their traits and personal characteristics. Therefore, trait theory emphasizes that personal characteristics remain the same despite different life adversities. Since the period of Hippocrates, when defining people by their characteristics began, several ideas have been brought forward by various scholars and psychologists. This paper shall expound on the types of traits and different trait theories from multiple scholars and finally delve into their relevance to a person’s growth.
In 1992, McCrae and Costa developed the Big 5 personality traits. These traits included: conscientiousness, openness to practice, agreeableness, and extraversion. These traits signified the interrelatedness of the human personality and how each functions. The quality of being open to practice includes a love of exploration, curiosity, feeling, art, novel experiences, and uncommon ideas. It reveals a person’s level of originality, taste in novelty and variety, and level of cognitive pique (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). Additionally, it indicates how autonomous or creative someone becomes; as such, people with high scores on this quality are favored by uniqueness. On the other hand, people who perform poorly tend to be routine.
The conscientiousness attribute describes a person’s propensity for competence, aiming for excellence, self-control, thoughtfulness, and duty. Highly conscientious people are organized and pay attention to details. In this aspect, these people are excellent planners and considerate of how their actions may affect others. Additionally, highly conscientious people are wary of their targets and personal characteristics. Poorly moral people, on the other hand, are impulsive and casually approach things. The same people can also be organized (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). However, the extraversion dimension is associated with excitability, talkativeness, high affective expressiveness, and excitation. Very extroverted people are outgoing and get energy from being around other people. Being with people energizes them, while introverted people are more restrained.
The ability to cooperate and show compassion towards people is better than acting hostile towards them and is measured by a person’s agreeableness dimension. It also gauges how helpful, trustworthy, and temperamental a person is. Affection, compassion, kindness, and a variety of prosocial behaviors are all included in this dimension. People with high levels of agreement are notably cooperative, whereas those with low grades may become deceptive and competitive (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). Lastly, psychological instability, melancholy, and moodiness define neuroticism traits. McCrae and Costa emphasized that the ability to regulate one’s impulses and emotional instability are other factors in neuroticism. Sadness, mood fluctuations, impatience, and anxiety are familiar in those who score highly on this attribute. Conversely, those who score poorly on this attribute are more emotionally strong and resilient.
Gestalt psychology, another aspect of personality that fosters creativity and pattern recognition, was developed by Kurt Lewin. For instance, he developed the trait theory, which clarifies how a person develops self-awareness and an understanding of their surroundings when the two parties involved have distinct characteristics. In this sense, linking information and response for a biological species constitutes learning as an automated process. People’s impressions of the interpersonal and physical world are shaped by cognitive factors (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). An environment like this includes concepts, facts, expectations, and beliefs. As a result, according to trait theory, physiological, conative, cognitive, and affective components of personality are arranged in a hierarchy.
Among the first proponents of trait theory was Gordon Allport. He promoted three kinds of qualities, cardinal, central, and supplementary features, and saw traits as the foundation of personality. Cardinal attributes are traits that permeate a person’s entire existence. At later stages, these characteristics stand out and become synonymous with people’s names. These characteristics, such as goodness, greed, narcissism, and lust, are the dominant human passions in this regard (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). Second, defining characteristics, such as irritability, sneakiness, agreeableness, and loyalty, are essential attributes. The final category is secondary characteristics, which refer to generic behavioral patterns that emerge under particular conditions. For instance, when asked to address a sizable audience, a person could experience anxiety.
To create a model of personality, British psychologist Hans Eysenck studied temperament. This paradigm adheres to three universal principles. The first characteristic is extraversion, which includes sociability and anxiousness. The promotion of inner practices is a component of introversion. On the contrary, extroverts focus their energy on others and their surroundings. A very extroverted person is talkative and gregarious, whereas an intensely introverted person is reserved and silent. The second characteristic is neuroticism or emotional steadiness. The moodiness versus temperance dichotomy is central to this perspective on trait theory. While balance refers to one’s tendency to remain emotionally stable, neuroticism refers to a person’s inclination to get emotional or agitated (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). Finally, Eysenck developed the psychoticism factor by researching people with mental illness. It mentions that those with more pronounced psychoticism-related features struggle to accept life’s facts. In this sense, such people may develop aggressive, scheming, antisocial, and sympathetic traits.
To create a trait theory, Raymond Cattell used factor analysis. This tactic entails assessing and categorizing many features to identify the most crucial and beneficial traits. Cattell demonstrated that qualities could be divided into superficial characteristics and underlying traits. The former feature includes a collection of related actions that stand out in particular situations (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). The latter dimension represents the underpinnings of the features that are expressed on the surface. The sixteen primary traits are not confined to domineering, reserved, controlled, and shrewd.
Despite various scholars’ input on the trait theory’s relevance, the approach still has some limitations based on its credibility. For instance, the trait does not display the value of prediction as it does not preempt an individual’s behaviors in all situations. To provide a trustworthy study of someone else’s behavior, the measurements for personal observation necessitate extensive research into how that individual behaves in various settings. Such a measure is subjective (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). An observer may also become biased due to personal factors or shorten the study’s duration. As a result, this idea is susceptible to numerous unreliable methods.
In conclusion, human personality is primarily determined by trait theory, a key area of psychology. According to trait theorists, humans have distinctive features and qualities that influence their behavior. As a result, the theories of traits elaborate on different types of personalities by assessing and measuring their characteristics. This study has concentrated on many aspects of this theory by considering numerous psychological scholars’ points of view. The research has also demonstrated certain flaws in the characteristic theory, such as its inability to explain the causes of personality differences and predict one’s conduct.
Reference
Jayawickreme, E., Zachry, C. E., & Fleeson, W. (2019). Whole trait theory: An integrative approach to examining personality structure and process. Personality and Individual Differences, 136, 2-11. Web.