4.13 Trait Perspective

Traits as stable dispositions

The trait perspective views personality as a set of stable, enduring characteristics that produce consistent behavior across situations. Traits differ in degree, not kind — everyone has them, just in different amounts. This approach focuses on describing and measuring personality rather than explaining its unconscious causes like psychoanalytic theory does.

The Big Five (OCEAN)

Modern trait theory centers on the Big Five: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN). These five broad dimensions are considered comprehensive, stable across the lifespan, and found across cultures, making them the dominant model for describing personality structure today.

Early trait theorists

Gordon Allport cataloged thousands of traits, distinguishing central, secondary, and cardinal traits. Raymond Cattell used factor analysis to reduce traits to 16 key factors. Hans Eysenck proposed personality could be reduced to just two or three dimensions, including introversion-extraversion and stability-instability (neuroticism).

Key terms

Trait perspective

Views personality as composed of stable, enduring characteristics that vary in degree between individuals.

Big Five (OCEAN)

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism — the five major dimensions of personality.

Gordon Allport

Trait theorist who cataloged thousands of traits and categorized them as cardinal, central, or secondary.

Raymond Cattell

Used factor analysis to reduce personality traits down to 16 key factors.

Hans Eysenck

Proposed personality could be reduced to a few key dimensions, especially introversion-extraversion and stability-instability (neuroticism).

Try an AP-style question

Which Big Five trait is highest?

1. Openness
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Extraversion