My Understanding Of Personality Theory

Trait theories assume people have many traits that are continuing qualities that individuals have in different amounts. Allport’s theory suggests that there are 3 main traits: central, secondary, and cardinal. A central trait is a characteristic that controls and organizes behavior in various situations. A secondary trait can be described as a preference and is specific to certain situations. A cardinal trait is very general and pervasive. It is so pervasive that an individual is governed by it and it dictates everything a person does.

In psychology, there are four major theories of personality: psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory primarily focuses on the role of the unconscious mind. The social cognitive theory focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and is based on theories of learning. Whereas, the humanistic theory emphasizes conscious life experiences and choices. The trait or five-factor model focuses on characteristics themselves and not the roots of personality.

Avoidant attachment of a male present in a romantic relationship (Male super ego and madonna-whore complex)

The Behavioral theory of personalities states that a personality is developed through our experiences, classical training methods, and observation learning. This holds more weight than the others, when we think of training methods we often think of another person with more experience training the trainee, while there are plenty of examples of this, I wondered how many people have thought that they may be training themselves subconsciously we all do it some extent. A personal example would be when I learned to text faster, my friends constantly commented on my slow texting being a millennial I felt inadequate, the only people who were considered slow at texting where “old” people I couldn’t have my peers thinking I belonged with that group, so I started texting constantly to speed up my fingers. Now it is something that is second nature, I think we do this like to ourselves those voices in our head train as much as another person.

Many psychologists throughout many years present theoretical approaches in an attempt to understand personality. Hans Eysenck’s approach of personality differed from that of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytical theory of personality. Eysenck’s theory of personality relies on the scientific basis of biology in explaining human personality. Although Freud’s theories are intriguing to an open mind, Eysenck’s approach made measurable scientific sense. He relied on the use of trait and factor analysis, which is a statistical method. Freud relied on faith and his personal opinions based on observational research to reach the assumptions that set forth his theories (Feist & Feist, 2009). Eysenck and Freud did not agree on anything about

This scale, like many others, described my personality on what traits I self-described myself as being. After the conclusion of the personality test, the test described myslef as being a people person, an open person, and a generally positive person. The test also depicted my weakness as being to talkitive and too permissive, and my limitation as being failing to follow through on past commitments and failure with self-disipline. I also scored almost equally on the lion personlity which means that while I am mostly an otter I also have very developed skills in leading. The trait theory, I believe, is the easist way of desribing a person's personality because you do not have to look into a person's past to determine why a person's personaity is the way it is but rather the trait view just observes a person's personality. The trait theory though falls though because it does not expain why people act the way they do or why they have prejudices.

393, 1961) found that an average of seven traits provides a good description of a person. My central traits include considerate, generous, sociable, kind, respectful, and punctual. These traits are the foundation of who I am as a person. Raymond B. Cattell (Coon & Mitterer, 2016, p. 393, 1973) measured visible features of personality and called them surface traits. One of my surface traits would be neat. I keep my house neat and tidy, and I also keep my appearance neat, clean, and put-together. Cattell realized that surface traits were often grouped together, called source traits. Some of my surface traits that could be grouped together are considerate, orderly, neat, and punctual. My source trait would be respectful. I am respectful of time (punctuality), people (considerate), and things (neat &

The trait perspective asserts that personalities are made up of various traits that vary in degrees of strength. These traits are exemplified on a

Allport defines personality as ‘the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment’ (Allport, 1937). An individual’s unique personality traits and attributes are a powerful indicator of how he/she will interact with the work environment. The difference between average and outstanding employees can often be solely personality related. As the employee is the most valuable asset to the company, ‘selecting the right employee during the process is critical’ (Carbery and Cross, 2013, pp. 41-53)

Classifying traits of a person include common traits, individual traits, cardinal traits, central traits, secondary traits, surface traits, and source traits. Each of these traits is a trait that adds up and defines a person and their personality. Common traits are characteristics that tell people from a certain culture and share what their similarities are. Individual traits are the classification of persons’ unique qualities. Cardinal traits are the basic trait that leads to the actual trait the person is classified as. These traits then lead into central and secondary traits and most people don’t quite understand how they differ from cardinal traits. Central traits are known as the building blocks of a

Leigh Anne Touhy is the fictional representation of the real life Leigh Anne, famed adoptive mother of Michael Oher from the 2009 film The Blind Side. Leigh Anne is a white interior designer, living in the south with her husband and two children. The family is considered to be part of the upper class, and made their money from owning a string of fast food chains. Leigh Anne and her family take in a black homeless boy, Michael, and throughout the film experience a growing love and bond. They eventually adopt Michael and the Leigh Anne becomes a fiercely protective mother. Very little is revealed about her upbringing

Trait theory in psychology, is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion.[1] According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing whereas others are shy), and influence behavior. Gordon Allport was an early pioneer in the study of traits, which he sometimes referred to as dispositions. In his approach, central traits are basic to an individual 's personality, whereas secondary traits are more

There are many different theories of personality which scientists have developed in order to help explain how people think, feel, and behave. The trait theory of personality is one that attempts to explain personality by identifying patterns of behavior that include relatively stable characteristics which in turn causes individuals to consistently behave in particular ways (Funder, 2015). While personality may change due to different situations or states, the trait theory proposes that overall personality characteristics are relatively constant and result in a person reliably acting a certain way. These characteristics, or traits, which remain relatively constant throughout one’s life are essential components of one’s personality (McLeod,

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

In the idiographic approach to studying personality, the goal is to understand all the specific details, factors and characteristics that make up the personality of a specific individual. There are three different kinds of traits in this approach, central traits, secondary traits, and cardinal traits. These three types allow psychologists to identify traits that are the most important to understanding an individual, traits that are vary in when/how they are revealed, and single traits that completely dominate a personality. To study personality using this approach, psychologists read case studies or have participants complete surveys.