Trait Approach To Personality

A trait is an emphatic quality that stimulates someone to act in a particular manner. It can be both good and bad and is used to describe your personality. Many theorists formulated their trait approach to personality after knowing about the different traits of an individual.

Gordon Allport was the first theorist who studied traits and stated almost 4,000 traits. Later on, Raymond Catell reduced them to just 16 terms. Some of these words are reasoning, warmth, liveliness, and sensitivity. 

The Big 5 Personality Theory of Paul Costa and Robert McCrae is the modern trait theory. It includes only five traits or features. This approach is also known as the five-factor model of personality.

Let us dig deeper to know what is the trait approach to personality as per different psychologists.

Trait Theory Of Personality By Different Psychologists

The following are the trait factors given by several theorists from time to time.

Gordon Allport Trait Approach 

Gordon Allport, a famous psychologist in 1936, found an English dictionary that included over 4,000 words defining several personality traits. Based on those traits, Allport classified three broad categories of features:

1. Cardinal Traits

Cardinal traits are excellent and powerful and develop later in an individual. They manage to appear to a person uniquely, and these names seem alike with their personality. Some of the illustrative words of this trait approach to personalities include Christ-like, Don Juan, Machiavellian, and Narcissistic.

2. Central Traits

Central traits include fundamental personality factors. These traits are not monopolising like cardinal traits. They define the main qualities of a person. Some of the descriptive words like honest, intelligent, shy, and anxious come under the central trait approach to personality.

3. Secondary Traits

Secondary traits relate to behaviours or intentions. These traits emerge only in particular situations or circumstances. A few examples involve anxiety, public speaking, and impatience. 

16 Personality Traits By Raymond Cattell

Raymond Cattell decreased Allport’s 4000 essential qualities of the personality to 171. He estimated a big group of people to create these 171 different traits. Then, he used factor analysis to identify the relevant terms and finally consolidated a list of only 16 key personality factors.

According to Raymond Cattell, his 16 trait approach to personality is the right pool of all human qualities. He also invented a personality assessment tool. That is well-known as the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire.

Hans Eysenck’s 3-Dimension Personality

Hans Eysenck, a famous British psychologist, created a personality-based model. It has only three broad personality traits.

1. Extroversion/Introversion

Extroversion is a condition in which a person focuses his attention on other people and the surroundings. The person is outgoing and pleasant by nature. While, in introversion, a person drives the spotlight to his internal experiences. He might have a quiet and reserved personality.

2. Emotional Stability/Neuroticism

The second dimension of this trait approach to personality relates to even-temperateness versus moodiness. Its factor, neuroticism, indicates someone’s propensity to become emotional or upset. But the factor of stability implies the disposition to stay steadily emotional.

3. Psychoticism

After researching people experiencing mental illness, Eysenck put in a dimension called psychoticism to his trait approach to personality. He stated that people having this trait face difficulty in dealing with reality. They are anti-social, manipulative, hostile, and non-empathetic.

5 Factor Personality Theory

Cattell and Eysenck’s trait theories remained research topics for a long time as some theorists believe that Cattell considered too many traits, while Eysenck assumed only a few. Due to this, a 5-factor trait theory, well-known as the Big Five Model, emerged. 

Under this personality traits model, five core qualities that form a compassionate personality come. However, researchers argue over the distinct names of each dimension. The most common factors include agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness.

Personality Trait Approach Of Leadership

The trait approach of leadership includes qualities of leaders, both prosperous and unstable. This approach is reasonable to indicate leadership power. Further, it also compares the potential of leaders to assess their chance of victory or defeat.

The following are the traits that come under it:

• Achievement drive that includes a high degree of effort, ambition, and initiative.
• Leadership motivation which is a strong desire to direct others to fulfil goals.
• Integrity which comprises trustworthiness, reliability, and openness.
• Self-confidence which implies belief in oneself and one’s own ideas.
• Cognitive ability which includes being capable of practising strong and analytical judgement upon things.
• Knowledge of business and other technological issues.
• Emotional maturity which involves being well-adjusted and not suffering from severe psychological illnesses.
• Others include creativity, charisma, and flexibility.

• Conclusion

  The modern trait theory is the Big 5 Personality Theory of Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. Besides that, there is the Gordon Allport Trait Approach, Raymond Cattell’s 16 Personality Traits Model, Hans Eysenck’s 3-Dimension Personality Model. The leadership trait lists various factors that make up a leadership personality type. 

  After going through the varying opinions of different theorists regarding the trait approach to personality, you can assert that the human personality is the structure of unique qualities and habits that occur and differ in different situations.

  Furthermore, over time, people can improve and alter their traits. One can be restless, bold, or vigilant at a certain age. While at another, they can be lazy, dominant, or poised.