Theories that attempt to identify and describe the basic traits that are the building blocks of personality.
Traits: Fundamental units of personality that are enduring patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
Trait models: Theoretical frameworks for organizing and understanding traits, such as the Five Factor Model or the HEXACO Model.
Trait assessment: Methods for measuring and studying traits, including self-report measures, informant ratings, and behavioral observations.
Trait development: The origins and evolution of traits over the lifespan, including genetic and environmental influences.
Trait stability and change: The degree to which traits remain consistent or shift over time and under different circumstances.
Trait consistency across situations: The extent to which people show consistent trait expressions across different contexts and social roles.
Trait hierarchies: The way in which traits are organized in relation to one another, such as broad traits (e.g., extraversion) and specific facets (e.g., sociability).
Trait interactions: The ways in which different traits interact with one another to shape behavior and personality.
Cross-cultural variability in trait expression: How trait expression varies across different cultures and societies.
Applications of trait theory: How trait theory is used in research on topics such as personality disorders, job performance, and interpersonal relationships.
The Big Five Theory: This theory suggests that there are five basic personality traits: Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: This theory uses four dichotomies to describe personality types: Extraversion vs. introversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feeling, and judging vs. perceiving.
The HEXACO Personality Inventory: This theory expands on the Big Five theory by adding a sixth trait: Honesty-humility.
The Eysenck Personality Inventory: This theory includes three dimensions of personality: Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism.
The Cattell Personality Inventory: This theory includes 16 personality factors, including warmth, reasoning, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, rule-consciousness, social boldness, sensitivity, vigilance, abstractedness, privateness, apprehension, openness to change, self-reliance, perfectionism, and tension.
The Allport and Odbert Trait Theory: This theory suggests that there are almost 18,000 personality traits, although many of them overlap or are very similar to each other.
The Social Cognitive Theory: This theory proposes that personality is shaped by a person's thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and environmental factors, and that different personal characteristics interact with each other in complex ways.
The Four Temperaments: This theory suggests that there are four basic personality types: Choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic.
The Barnum Effect: This theory suggests that people tend to believe that vague or general descriptions of personality characteristics are specific to them, even though they could apply to almost anyone.
The Trait Theory of Leadership: This theory suggests that there are certain traits or characteristics that make someone an effective leader, such as intelligence, dominance, extraversion, and emotional stability.