Trait theoty of personality

1. Trait Theory

2. Trait
• The adjectives and characteristics of one behavior is
known as TRAIT, these traits are helpful in
describing one’ s personality and also distinguish a
man’s personality from other’s personality.
• Trait represent attributes and properties of human
personality like: colour, height, health etc.
• Traits of one’s personality can be know by
observation method. We must be able to understand
the trait demonstrated by individual and situations
in which it is being demonstrated.

3. Theorists generally assume
1. Traits are relatively stable over time.
2. Traits differ among individuals.
3. Traits are also bipolar and
4. Traits influence behavior.

4. Gordon W. Allport
( November 11, 1897- October 9, 1967)

5. • Gordon.W. Allport was a long time and
influential member of the faculty at harward
University from 1930 to 1967. In 1931, he
served on the faculty committee that
established Harward’ s sociology Department.
• He received APA’ s distinguished scientific
contribution award, Gordon allport died on
October 9, 1967 in Cambridge. He was 70
years old.

6. Allport’s Theory
• American psychologist Gordon Allport, was one of the
first Psychologist, focus on the study of personality
traits.
• He focused on the uniqueness of each individual and
important of the present context and opposed to past
history.
• He developed a list of 4500 trait like words.

7. Common and individual Traits
• Common Traits: Characteristics which are
more general than habits and attitudes in respect
to which people in a population can be
profitably compared.
• Individual Traits: These are behavioural
characteristics that are not found in all persons
and may not even exist in more than specific
individual.

8. Allport’s Trait Levels
• In 1936, psychologist Gordon Allport found that one
English Language Dictionary alone contained more than
4000 words describing different personality traits.
• He categorized these traits into 3 levels.
1. Cardinal Trait
2. Central Trait
3. Secondary Trait
1.Cardinal trait
The trait that dominates and shapes a person’s behaviour
that they coloue every aspects of one’s behaviour. These
are also called primary traits.

9. • These are limited in number to just one or two.
• For e.g. If a person is humorous in nature .
• Abraham Lincoln(Honest), Mother Teresa( Religious
service).
2. Central trait
• This is a general characteristics found in some degree in
every person. These are the basic building blocks that
shapes most of our behavior.
• Terms such as intelligent, honest, shy and anxious are
considered central traits.
• For e.g. Honesty, kindness etc.

10. 3. Secondary trait
• These are traits that are sometimes related to attitudes
or preferences and often appear only in certain
situations or under specific circumstances.
• These are not considered enough and not dominate
characteristics.
• Preferences, attitudes, situational traits are all
secondary traits.
• e.g. stage fear before speaking at public.

11. Trait theory uses two different methods of research
Idiographic approach: defines traits by studying
individuals in depth and focuses on the distinctive
qualities of their personalities( Gordon Allport)
Nomothetic approach: Studies groups of people in the
attempt to identify personality traits that tend to appear in
clusters. This approach uses the statistical technique called
factor analysis( Raymond Cattell).

12. Criticisms of Trait theories
1. Being purely descriptive and offering little explanation
of the underlying causes of personality.
2. Lead some people to accept over simplified
classifications.
3. Under estimate the effect of specific situations.
4. Poor predictors of behaviour.

13. Thank you…