Knowra Trait Theory Trait Theory Trait theory explains differences in behavior through relatively stable characteristics of individuals. In psychology, it describes personality by identifying and measuring such traits.
Personality : An individual's characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. Trait theory treats enduring personality differences as combinations of measurable characteristics.
Lexical Hypothesis : The idea that socially important personality differences become encoded in a language's vocabulary. It motivated researchers to derive trait descriptions from terms people use for personality.
Five-Factor Model : A personality model that organizes traits into openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. It is the most widely used broad taxonomy of adult personality traits.
Social Cognitive Theory : A theory explaining behavior through interactions among personal factors, actions, and environmental conditions. It gives reciprocal person-environment processes a larger role than stable dispositions alone.
Personality Trait : A relatively stable disposition to think, feel, or behave in particular ways across situations. This is the basic unit trait theories use to describe individual differences.
Personality Questionnaire : A self-report instrument that measures personality through responses to standardized questions. Questionnaires provide common data for estimating an individual's trait profile.
HEXACO Model : A six-factor personality model comprising honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. It extends broad trait classification with a distinct honesty-humility dimension.
Behaviorism : An approach to psychology that explains behavior through observable actions and learning from environmental conditions. It focuses on learned behavior rather than inferred enduring personality characteristics.
Individual Differences : Systematic ways in which people vary in abilities, dispositions, and behavior. Trait theory seeks to describe and explain stable variation between people.
Self-Report Bias : Distortion in self-reported information caused by memory, self-presentation, or limited self-knowledge. Trait scores can reflect response tendencies as well as the characteristics they aim to measure.
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