Trait Theory

The Biological and Psychological Trait Theories are theories that are used to try and explain deviance. Biological Trait Theory stems from the Italian School of Criminology (mid-nineteenth century), head by criminologist Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso argued that criminality was a biological trait found in humans. Lombroso’s idea of atavism connected an individual’s appearance and their biological inclination to criminal activity. The Psychological Trait Theory focused on the mental aspects of explaining criminal activity by evaluating their intelligence, personality, and learning behavior. There are three subunits of the Psychological Trait Theory, which are the psychodynamic theory, behavioral theory, and cognitive theory. Sigmund Freud developed the psychodynamic theory with his research of the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious functions of the mind. The behavioral theory is about developing human actions through learning experiences. It explains that crime is learned from life situations. People aren’t born with violent tendencies, rather it’s learned from life experiences. Three sources of this behavior are family, the media, and the environment. Cognitive theory focuses on how people perceive and mentally represent the world around them and solve problems. In the case of Jared Loughner, the psychological trait theory is the most applicable. With his diagnosis of being a paranoid schizophrenic, that connects him to both the psychodynamic perspective and

Extraversion is in essence the trait, which comprises all the optimistic social personality traits (Johnson, 2011). Conscientious individuals are highly organized. They are looked upon as highly dedicated workers, which most of the time leads to complete avoidance of pleasure activities (Johnson, 2011).

A trait is a stable characteristic that causes an individual to behave a certain way. A person’s personality is made up of a special combination of various traits that are unique to each individual (Cherry). In 1936, psychologist Gordon Allport categorized all of the traits into three levers:

Personality is defined as the characteristic ways in which a person thinks, feels and behaves. Personality makes a person who they are but it is not a distinct thing. Many theorists disagree about personality and the theories that lie within in it. The three main theories of personality are; the Trait Approach, the Humanistic Approach and the Social Cognitive Theory. The trait approach focuses on the differences and the interaction of different personality traits that create an individuals personality; the main theorists for the Trait Approach are Costa and Mccrae. The Humanistic Approach focuses on the way an individual behaves and why they behave in that way; the main theorists for the humanistic approach are Maslow and Rogers. The

Traits are parts of us as individuals through interaction and repetition make us who we are. Gordon Allport in 1936 believed the human personality centered on just three types of traits: Central traits, Secondary traits and Cardinal traits. Central traits are formed during childhood. One or two of these traits dominate the other traits and form the Cardinal traits. These traits are environmentally influenced. Secondary traits are not considered important and are limited in nature suck as a phobia. (Heffner, 2015).

Raymond Cattell was one of the pioneer trait theorists. He was a strong advocate of the trait approach to human personality. As trait theorists, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck, their primary interest is in the measurement of traits or the patterns/habits of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. He followed the footsteps of psychologist Gordon Allport but differed from Allport’s belief that the human personality is composed of several hundred personality traits. Cattell believed in a defined range traits and that each person has a bit of each of these defined traits in their personality. When one understands those “ranges” of traits, we can understand someone fully and then predict how they will respond/behave in any situation. Hans

Traits are stable characteristic behaviors and feelings also known as personality, it is a consistent way how individuals respond to stress. It is genetic-based (Kottler, 2011, pg. 116).

(Allport, 1937) cardinal traits were constant and consistent through life; they had overwhelming influence on a person’s total being. Central traits guided aspects of behavior, reactions and social interaction, and finally, secondary traits were more unsettled aspects of the personality and affected casual opinions and habitual behaviors. (Wade & Tavris, 2000) Finalizing his theory, Allport stated that while we all share common traits, and we all live in this “world” together, (Allport, 1961) people still differ, as for “some the world is a hostile place… for others it is a sage for fun and frolic”. (Wade et al., 2000)

Personality traits may contribute significantly in influencing SWB. The most repeated finding in this field is the relationship between Extraversion and positive affect on the impact of SWB (Eid, Riemann, Angleitner & Borkenau, 2003). This connection can work in two ways. To begin with, people have a tendency to be happier in social circumstances (Pavot, Diener & Fujita, 1990), and they should be happier in light of the fact that extraverts invest more energy socially (Watson, Clark, McIntyre & Hamaker, 1992). Second, Extraversion by and large has a positive effect on friends, family, and other relationships, while Neuroticism is regularly a negative indicator (Anderson, John, Keltner & Kring, 2001; Belsky, Jaffee, Caspi, Moffit & Silva, 2003;

In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) 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. Traits are in contrast to states which are more transitory dispositions.

Trait theory (developed by Eysenck and Rachman (1965,cited in Butt,2007) can be described as an experimental approach to individual differences (Butt, 2007). It is a way in which we differ from one another and how we would sum another person up in terms of their traits. We may describe someone as independent, happy, or sensitive. That is our view of that person and we would expect the person we described that person to think the same. **Theories come from ‘3 separate but related strands’ (Butt 2007) which are clinical, psychometric and experimental. Traits therefore can be measured via psychometrics,( Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of psychological measurement. One part of the field is concerned with the objective measurement of skills and knowledge, abilities, attitudes, personality traits, and educational achievement. ) as people are pretty much the same across different situations

As mentioned above, both theories explain personality in two different ways. However, both theories resent strengths and weaknesses in their approaches.

The five factor model personality theory states that an individual's personality consists of five general traits. These traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness (King, 2016, pg. 475). Each of the traits are put in a certain order according to how they appear from the factor analysis (King, 2016, pg. 475). Factor analysis is a method that researchers used to group together similar traits which are used to describe personality (King, 2016, pg. 475). In the trait sequence, neuroticism is the first trait and it is the trait that describes a pessimistic personality or someone who lacks confidence and a positive mindset (King, 2016, pg. 476). Extraversion is the opposite trait of neuroticism and is the trait that individuals who are social and able to interact well with others portray (King, 2016, pg. 476). Openness is being receptive to various creative views and the ability to express oneself in a unique, individualistic manner (King, 2016, pg. 476). The agreeableness trait describes a personality aspect where the individual is dedicated to good deeds and believes in the potential that people have to be good (King, 2016, pg. 476). The last trait of the five factor model theory is conscientiousness which is the trait is used to describe an individual who is dependable and attentive to their actions (King, 2016, pg. 477).

As part of the study of mind and behavior in humans, psychology has expanded the comprehension of personality traits by dividing the most important into five characteristics known as the “big five.” The big five personality traits consist of extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Throughout the investigation of personality traits in young men and women, researchers found the persistent changes to be a product of psychiatric and anxiety disorders developed in college students. The study mainly focuses on extroversion or sociability skills and neuroticism, the tendency to negativity and being in a long-term anxious state. The results of multiple studies on neuroticism “[confirmed] the strong association between

Trait-oriented personality theorists suggest that personality is an internal trait is born and breed within the individual. Gordon Allport a psychologist categorized the excess of 40,000 words in the dictionary that describe personality traits in 1936. Allport separated these personality traits into cardinal traits, central traits and secondary traits. These traits each affect the individual in different ways throughout their life. Cardinal traits dominate throughout a lifetime such as an individual is boisterous. Central traits Allport theorizes these traits develop overtime as each individual develops their own moral compass, intelligent, honest and shy all would be considered central traits according to Allport’s theory. Allport’s final category is called secondary traits these traits pertain to limited situations and are predictable to similar situations however can be out of character for an individual’s day to day life, for instance, getting stuck in unpredicted traffic that causes one to be very late and take an unexplained amount of time to dissipate. This traffic situation may cause a usually calm individual to act irrational, this behavior is likely to occur in other unpredictable situation such as long lines and large crowds.