Personality traits Types (describes discrete categories to which individuals can be placed) · Distinct and discontinuous categories · Individual differences - qualitative . E.g. Jung's Typology of 8 types: Based on permutations of Extroversion-Introversion with energy directed toward outer objective or inner subjective world. 4 functions: - Thinking-Feeling: Information dealt with in an objective way vs. an emotionally- oriented way - Sensing-Intuiting: Preference for sensual perception vs. unconscious perception Traits · Continuous dimensions - people can be positioned along the dimension depending on how much of the trait they possess *People are not usually on either extreme, usually in the middle · Individual differences - quantitative · People differ in degree they possess a trait, not whether they posses Relatively stable psychological dispositions related to behaviour, thoughts and feelings · Burger (1997) used to categorise people according to the degree they exhibit a certain characteristic · Represent dispositions to respond in certain ways . Mischel (1999) suggests that a trait is probability of an event of a variety of behaviours in different contexts e.g. an extraverted individual will have observable degrees of extraversion in a variety of situations. Traits, States, and Evaluations · Trait = General Tendencies, Dispositions e.g. cheerful, neuroticism, hostility *Constant, general disposition e.g. cheerful person · State = Transient Psychological Condition usually related to specific environmental event e.g. happy, nervousness, anger *Not a general tendency Evaluation = Judgement about a person's character which is likely linked to societal and cultural norms e.g. good, bad, evil Trait models Describing and classifying the more permanent personality characteristics that differentiate individuals - ‘how' vs ‘why' · Describing, classifying, and differentiating traits involves comparison - the favoured method is Nomothetic . Two assumptions of trait theory - personality characteristics are relatively stable over time and traits show stability across situations.
· Generally assume traits influence behaviour Trait theorists are more interested in general behaviour descriptions rather than the individual and making predictions about individual behaviour by providing descriptions of how groups of people at different points in the trait continuum are expected to behave. Allport (1891 - 1967) · Identified fi8,000 words of which 4,500 described personality traits · Traits as the basic structural elements of personality - 'a predisposition to respond in a particular way” . Any one trait would lead to consistency in responses because it rendered many stimuli 'functionally equivalent' E.g. being highly sociable means that you view many different situations as an opportunity to be sociable and take these opportunities whereas if you were low on sociability you would not view these situations as such an opportunity · limitation of the trait approach - impossible to predict how someone will behave in a particular situation using their personality traits . adopted a unified approach to personality - what is important is the way component traits come together and change is a component part allowing us to adapt to new situations and grow O made the distinction between nomothetic (norms/similarities between individuals) and idiographic (unique/focus on individual) approaches