Founder of trait theory. Basic principles of trait theory. Personality Trait Theory: Basic Concepts and Principles

The authors of typological classifications considered personality as a complex of characteristics characteristic of certain categories of people. Other researchers have tried rather to identify those personality traits that make some people behave in more or less similar ways in different situations and thus distinguish them from other people.

According to Allport (1956), a person can have from two to ten main traits (hard work or a tendency to idleness, honesty, business qualities, love of music, etc.) that characterize his lifestyle; he may have numerous minor traits that are more likely to correspond to his attitudes in various specific situations.

Cattell (1956) identified 16 dimensions by which personality can be assessed (closedness - openness, seriousness - frivolity, shyness - impudence, intelligence - stupidity, etc.). According to Cattell, a person’s answers to questionnaire questions allow one to construct a profile of his personality in accordance with the properties that he showed along each of the dimensions (Fig. 10.126).

Rice. 10.12b. Personality profiles determined in groups of people of different professions (according to the results of Cattell's 16RG test). You can see how very different the profile of pilots is from the profiles of representatives of two other professions that have much in common.

Eysenck (1963) tried to define a person’s personality traits along two main axes: introversion-extroversion (closedness or openness) and stability-instability (level of anxiety) (Figure 10.13).

Rice. 10.13. Distribution of personality traits in the coordinates of the “introversion-extraversion” and “stability-instability” axes (according to Eysenck).

It is clear, however, that the traits identified in a person in this way are simply the results of individual observations of his behavior, so it is difficult to predict further behavior from them, since in real life people’s reactions are far from constant; most often they depend on the circumstances faced by a person at a given moment in time (see document 10.4).

Behaviorist approach

Personality trait theories provide information about the typical behavior of a given person. They, however, say nothing about how these traits are formed. Part of the answer to this question is given by behaviorists, who defend the idea of ​​​​the continuous influence of his social environment on a person.

According to social learning theorists, social, and especially sexual, roles of people, as well as most forms of social behavior that form the basis of adaptation to the environment, develop as a result of observations of such social models, as parents, teachers, playmates or characters in novels and television films.

Thus, personality is the result of the interaction between an individual with his abilities, past experiences, expectations, etc. and the environment, which he seeks to learn in order to understand in which situations his behavior will be adequate and in which unacceptable - depending on the rewards or punishments associated with it.

Thus, this theory explains how human behavior can be modified depending on the consequences that it causes in certain situations. It, however, does not allow us to understand the personality as a whole and those constants that characterize the personality of a given individual. It is especially ill-suited to explain the control to which so many people try to subject their existence in order to give it some meaning; The cognitive approach makes such an attempt.

Cognitive approach

Man is not a passive creature, solely under the control of the external environment. The nature of his reactions to emerging situations and events is most often determined by the cognitive interpretation, which he himself gives them. Chapter 12 will show that when this cognitive interpretation is based on beliefs or irrational ideas, it very often leads to emotional disturbances and maladaptive behaviors (Ellis, 1977).

According to Rotter (1966), how a person perceives his own behavior and its consequences depends to a large extent on his personality. For example, some are likely to attribute their behavior to internal causes, while others will systematically attribute it to external circumstances. These two categories of people thus differ in their ideas about where control over their actions comes from. Rotter distinguishes between people who are “internally oriented” and people who are “externally oriented.”

The first are convinced that at any moment they are able to influence their environment, and in the end they always take responsibility for what happens to them. In this case, we are usually talking about active and dynamic people who are inclined to analyze the tasks facing them and monitor their actions in order to identify the weak and strong sides of the current situation and their actions. If they fail, they do not hesitate to blame themselves for not trying hard enough or being persistent enough.

In contrast, people who believe in the existence of external control are convinced that the various circumstances in their lives and the way they reacted to them are entirely the fault of other people, luck, or chance. We are thus talking about more passive and less capable individuals, who easily explain their failures by their lack of abilities (see document 6.2 and Chapter 11).

The described approach allows us to take into account the complexity of interactions between a person and emerging situations. He, however, says nothing about why one person tends to see the reasons for his behavior in himself, and another - in others. It is this issue that psychodynamic, humanistic and psychosocial theories focus on.

Determination of personality traits. American psychologist is considered the founder of trait theory Gordon W. Allport (Allport, 1897-1967), who proposed using a trait as the “unit of analysis” of personality. According to G. Allport, under personality trait is understood a predisposition to behave in a similar way in a wide range of equivalent situations.

For example, if a person is inherently timid, he is likely to remain calm and composed in many situations - sitting in class, eating in a cafe, doing homework in the dorm, shopping with friends. If, on the other hand, a person is generally friendly, he will be more active, talkative and sociable in the same situations.

General and individual features. In his early works, G. Allport distinguished between general and individual traits (1937).

Common features(also called measurables) include any characteristic that is common to a large number of people within a given culture. Examples include the ability to use language, social attitudes, value orientations, level of anxiety, and a tendency to conform to behavior. Most people in each culture can be compared with each other on these general parameters, because... they experience similar evolutionary and social influences.

According to G. Allport, as a result of comparing people according to the degree of expression of any common trait, a normal distribution curve is obtained. That is, when indicators of the severity of a personality trait are depicted graphically, a bell-shaped curve is obtained, in the center of which there is a number of subjects with average indicators, and at the edges there is a decreasing number of subjects whose indicators are approaching extremely pronounced ones.

Thus, the measurability of common traits makes it possible to compare one person with another on significant psychological parameters (just as it is done on general physical characteristics such as height and weight).

Personality Traits(also called morphological) denote those characteristics of a person that do not allow comparisons with other people. According to Allport, these are those “authentic neuropsychic elements which control, direct, and motivate certain types of adaptive behavior” (1968). This category of traits manifests itself uniquely in each individual and most accurately reflects his personal structure. Personality traits can be identified using sources of information such as clinical case reports, diaries, letters and other personal documents. Allport believed that focusing on individual traits was the only way to understand the uniqueness of each individual person.

Specific characteristics (criteria) traits. According to the concept of G. Allport, there are 8 criteria for determining traits, which the author described in an article entitled “Once again about personality traits” (1966):

1. Personality traits are real characteristics, which really exist in people, and are not just theoretical fabrications. Every person has within himself these “generalized aspirations for action.” For example, we can name such clearly recognizable traits as aggressiveness, meekness, sincerity, decency, introversion and extroversion.

2. Personality traits are more generalized qualities than habits. Habits, being stable, relate to more specific tendencies, and therefore are less generalized, both in relation to the situations that “trigger” them into action, and in relation to the behavioral reactions caused by them. For example, a child may brush his teeth twice a day and continue to do so because his parents encourage him to do so. It is a habit. However, over time, the child can learn to comb his hair, wash and iron clothes, and tidy his room. All these habits, merging together, can form such a trait as neatness.

3. Personality traits are the driving or at least determining elements of behavior. Traits do not lie dormant in anticipation of external stimuli that can awaken them, but encourage people to behave in one way or another. For example, a college student with a high degree of sociability doesn't just sit around waiting for parties to socialize. She actively seeks them out and thus expresses her sociability.

4. The existence of personality traits can be established empirically. Although personality traits cannot be observed directly, Allport pointed out that their existence can be confirmed. Evidence can be obtained by observing human behavior over time, studying medical histories or biographies, and using statistical methods that determine the degree to which individual responses to the same or similar stimuli coincide.

5. Traits are only relative formations: there is no sharp boundary separating one trait from another. Personality is a set of overlapping traits that are only relatively independent of each other. To illustrate this, Allport cited a study in which traits such as insight and a sense of humor in highest degree correlated with each other (1960). Obviously, these are different traits, but they are nevertheless somehow connected. Since the results of correlation analysis do not allow us to draw conclusions about causal relationships, we can assume the following: if a person has a highly developed insight, then it is very likely that he can notice the absurd aspects of human life, which leads to the development of his sense of humor. According to G. Allport, it is more likely that the traits overlap initially, since a person tends to react to events and phenomena in a generalized way.

6. A personality trait is not synonymous with moral or social evaluation. Although many traits (eg, sincerity, loyalty, greed) are socially evaluated, they still represent the true characteristics of a person. Ideally, the researcher should first detect the presence of certain traits in the subject, and then find neutral, rather than evaluative, words to describe them.

7. A trait can be viewed either in the context of the individual in whom it is found or by its prevalence in society. Let's take shyness as an illustration. Like any other personality trait, it can be viewed in terms of both uniqueness and universality. In the first case, we will study the impact of shyness on the life of this particular person. In the second, to study this trait “universally”, by constructing a reliable and valid “shyness scale” and determining individual differences in the “shyness” parameter.

8. Just because actions or even habits are inconsistent with a personality trait is not evidence that the trait is absent. First, each individual may exhibit certain traits within a limited range. For example, he may be neat in everything related to his appearance, and at the same time not at all concerned about the order of his desk and apartment. Secondly, there are cases when situational conditions, more than personality traits, are the primary “drivers” for certain behavior. For example, if a neat girl is late for a plane, she may not even notice that her hair is disheveled or her suit has lost its neat appearance along the way.

The last feature of traits is associated with varying degrees of their integration and, accordingly, with varying degrees of personality integrity. The integrity of the individual, in turn, depends on the level of development of the “proprium” - a kind of “core of personality” that provides connections between traits and gives the uniqueness of its individuality.

To the list of the main characteristics of traits, we can also add a feature highlighted by the English psychologist G. Eysenck - hierarchy. This author's model contains three supertraits that have a powerful influence on behavior. In turn, each of these supertraits is built from several component traits. Composite traits consist of numerous habitual responses that are formed from many specific responses. In the very general view G. Eysenck's scheme looks like this.

a branch of psychology based on the idea that people are predisposed to behave in certain ways in different situations. This kind of predisposition, formed in the process of development of a particular personality, is usually called traits within this direction.

The first detailed concept of personality traits was developed at the turn of the 30s - 40s. XX century already mentioned in an article about the humanistic direction in psychology by the American psychologist G. Allport. According to his ideas, a personality trait not only determines a certain behavioral response to a wide range of external stimuli, subjectively perceived as similar, but is also a motivator that encourages a person to seek and create phenomena of the external world (for example, social situations) that are adequate to the trait.

G. Allport divided traits into general, or measurable ones, which many people possess to a greater or lesser extent, and individual, or morphological, unique for each individual and most fully, from G. Allport’s point of view, reflecting the characteristics of his personality. Later, developing his theory, G. Allport began to use the term “personality traits” only to designate general traits, and for individual traits he introduced new term- individual dispositions (for this reason, trait theories often began to be designated as a dispositional direction in psychology, which should not be confused with the dispositional concept of V. A. Yadov, which has become widespread in Russian psychology). G. Allport distinguished three types of individual dispositions: cardinal, central and secondary.

Cardinal dispositions are the most generalized, pervasive (all-pervasive) personality trait that determines a person’s entire life. Very few people are endowed with it, who, as a rule, become widely known precisely because of the presence of a cardinal disposition. Moreover, the names of these people become common nouns for a certain lifestyle or behavioral strategies, for example, Don Juan, Doubting Thomas, Marquis de Sade, etc.

Central dispositions are stable characteristics well recognized by other people, allowing a fairly complete and accurate description of the personality. Based on the results of his research, G. Allport came to the conclusion that the number of central dispositions for each individual varies from five to ten. Central dispositions are the most universal and in terms of content are close to personality traits.

Secondary dispositions are less stable and less recognizable compared to central ones. These usually include taste preferences, situationally determined short-term attitudes, etc.

According to his convictions, G. Allport was close to representatives of the humanistic movement. Because of this, in his works he anticipated many principles of humanistic psychology. In particular, G. Allport insisted on the need to study mentally healthy people, introducing the concept of a mature personality. From his point of view, the behavior of a mature subject is autonomous and conscious, while a personally immature, neurotic individual is guided by unconscious motives associated with childhood experiences. According to G. Allport, a mature personality develops in a process of formation that continues throughout human life. He was also committed to the principle of holism, viewing a healthy personality as an integrated whole of heterogeneous parts. The organizing and unifying principle in human nature, which is at the same time the main driving force of personality development, was designated by G. Allport as proprium.

By developing the theory of traits, G. Allport made a significant contribution to the development of social psychology, in particular, to the study of the problem of adaptation and social influence. His works “The Nature of Bias” and “The Psychology of Rumors” (co-authored with L. Postman) have become classic works on this issue. Having become interested in the problem of values ​​in the context of studying a mature personality, he, on the basis of E. Spranger’s typology of values, back in 1931 developed the “Values ​​Study Test,” modifications of which are still used in organizational psychology.

The further development of trait theories is associated with the work of G. Eysenck and R. Cattell. If G. Allport, putting individual dispositions at the forefront, used mainly the idiographic research method aimed at an in-depth study of a specific person, then G. Eysenck and R. Cattell relied primarily on allowing one to identify patterns characteristic of significant according to the composition of communities. To this end, they examined large samples of subjects and used complex mathematical procedures, in particular factor analysis, to identify patterns. At the same time, both G. Eysenck and R. Cattell proceeded from the belief that the main function of psychology is prognostic, that is, the main task is the need to predict human behavior in a given situation.

G. Eysenck believed that all elements or personality traits are combined into a hierarchical structure and can be reduced to universal supertraits. Since such traits are inherent to all people to a greater or lesser extent, he designated them as types. Initially, G. Eysenck identified two types: extraversion - introversion and neuroticism - stability.

The first type is directly related to the processes of excitation and inhibition, or, in the terms of G. Eysenck, “cortical activation.” From his point of view, introverts are more excitable than extroverts, which is why they tend to avoid strong external stimulation, particularly associated with social situations. Extroverts, experiencing a lack of arousal, on the contrary, constantly seek additional stimuli in the external environment.

The second type reflects the characteristics of the nervous system’s reaction to a particular stimulus. People prone to neuroticism react more acutely than stable individuals to stress and other anxiety-provoking situations, and their reaction is more stable and long-lasting. Despite a certain external similarity in the psychological “filling” of these two types, G. Eysenck characterizes them as orthogonal dimensions of personality, that is, he believes that there is no correlation between them.

Subsequently, G. Eysenck added a third to the two original types - psychoticism, associated with the intensity of androgen production. However, to date, this assumption remains largely hypothetical, without sufficient empirical confirmation. It is assumed that a high level of psychoticism mediates a tendency to nonconformity, and in extreme cases, to deviant behavior.

G. Eysenck developed a number of psychodiagnostic techniques to identify individual characteristics of three personality types. The most famous of these is the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), its use has significantly advanced research into psychopathology and criminal behavior.

R. Cattell, in contrast to G. Eysenck, who developed his scheme on the basis of pre-formulated assumptions, believed that universal personality traits can be identified exclusively empirically, by reducing, through factor analysis, the array of data obtained as a result of examining a large number of subjects using various methods to a minimum possible number of variables. Thus, according to R. Cattell, it is possible to reduce diverse and changeable surface traits, observed and recorded from the outside, to a limited number of universal and stable initial traits, the configuration and expression of which determines the essence of personality.

As a result of long-term multifaceted research, R. Cattell identified 16 initial traits or personality factors that formed the basis of the psychodiagnostic technique “Sixteen Personality Factors” (16 PF) that he developed and became widespread.

Further research in this direction, in particular the work of American psychologists P. Costa and R. McCrae, led to the identification of five initial factors, called the “Big Five”. It included neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), openness (O), agreement (A), conscientiousness (C). To measure the severity of each factor, the NEO - PI questionnaire was developed. The Big Five model has become widespread in organizational psychology and management psychology not only due to its simplicity, but also to its fairly high validity and predictive reliability.

Despite this, almost all theories of personality traits have been repeatedly subjected to severe criticism. In particular, G. Allport was accused of eclecticism and excessive adherence to the ideographic method of research. Moreover, the very idea of ​​traits has been questioned. In particular, the works of W. Michel provided significant evidence that behavior is mediated by situational factors to a much greater extent than by personality traits.

The concepts of G. Eysenck and R. Cattell seem to many specialists to be too complex, overloaded with statistical procedures and at the same time too “in-depth” in neurophysiology, due to which they are difficult to adapt to practical application. Moreover, doubts have been repeatedly expressed about the reliability and validity of the 16 PF test, despite the huge sample size of subjects and the powerful statistical apparatus on which its development was based.

Nevertheless, the works of apologists for trait theories have, in fact, become classics of modern psychology, and the psychodiagnostic methods they developed are still used in social and psychological research with a wide range of applications.

There are no two completely identical people. Any person behaves with a certain consistency and differently from others. Allport explains this in his concept of “trait,” which he considered the most valid “unit of analysis” for studying what people are like and how they differ from each other in their behavior.

Allport defined a trait as “a neuropsychological structure capable of transforming a variety of functionally equivalent stimuli and of stimulating and directing equivalent (largely enduring) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.” Simply put, a trait is a predisposition to behave in a similar way across a wide range of situations. For example, if someone is inherently timid, they will tend to remain calm and composed in many different situations - sitting in class, eating at a cafe, doing homework in the dorm, shopping with friends. If, on the other hand, a person is generally friendly, he will be more likely to be talkative and sociable in the same situations. Allport's theory states that human behavior is relatively stable over time and across a variety of situations. Maklakov A.G. General psychology. SPB., 2015. P.324.

Traits are psychological characteristics, transforming a set of stimuli and causing a set of equivalent responses. This understanding of trait means that a variety of stimuli can evoke the same responses, just as a variety of responses (feelings, sensations, interpretations, actions) can have the same functional meaning.

According to Allport, personality traits are not associated with a small number of specific stimuli or responses; they are generalized and persistent. By providing similarity in responses to multiple stimuli, personality traits impart considerable consistency to behavior. A personality trait is something that determines constant, stable, typical features of our behavior for a variety of equivalent situations. It is a vital component of our “personality structure.” At the same time, personality traits can also be decisive in a person’s behavior. For example, dominance as a personality trait can only manifest itself when a person is in the presence of significant others: with his children, with his spouse, or with a close acquaintance. In each case he immediately becomes the leader. However, the dominance trait is not activated in a situation where this person finds a ten dollar bill on the doorstep of a friend's house. Such a stimulus will most likely cause a manifestation of honesty (or, conversely, dishonesty), but not dominance.

Thus, Allport recognizes that individual characteristics are reinforced in social situations, and adds: “Any theory that views personality as something stable, fixed, unchangeable is incorrect.” Likewise, water can have the shape and structure of a liquid, solid(ice) or substances such as snow, hail, slush - its physical form is determined by the temperature of the environment.

It should be emphasized, however, that personality traits do not lie dormant, awaiting external stimuli. In fact, people actively seek out social situations that facilitate the expression of their characteristics. A person with a strong predisposition to communicate is not only an excellent conversationalist when he is in company, but also takes the initiative to seek contacts when he is alone. In other words, a person is not a passive “respondent” to a situation, as B. F. Skinner might have believed; rather, on the contrary, the situations in which a person finds himself most often are, as a rule, the very situations in which he actively strives get in. These two components are functionally interrelated.

In Allport's system, personality traits can be said to be characterized by “traits,” or defining characteristics. A personality trait is not just a nominal designation. Personality traits are not fiction; they are a very real and vital part of any person's existence. Every person has within himself these “generalized aspirations for action.” Allport's main emphasis here is that these personal characteristics are real: they really exist in people, and are not just theoretical fabrications. Reinwald N.I. Psychology of Personality. M., 2015. P.312.

A personality trait is a more generalized quality than a habit. Personality traits determine relatively unchanged and general characteristics of our behavior. Habits, while stable, are more specific tendencies, and therefore they are less generalized both in relation to the situations that “trigger” them and in relation to the behavioral reactions caused by them. For example, a child may brush his teeth twice a day and continue to do so because his parents encourage him to do so. It is a habit. However, over time, the child can also learn to comb his hair, wash and iron clothes, and tidy his room. All these habits, merging together, can form such a trait as neatness.

A personality trait is the driving, or at least determining, element of behavior. As already noted, traits do not lie dormant, waiting for external stimuli that can awaken them. Rather, they encourage people to engage in behavior in which these personality traits are most fully manifested. For example, a college student who is highly social will not just sit around waiting for parties to socialize. She actively seeks them out and thus expresses her sociability. So, personality traits “build” an individual’s action.

The existence of personality traits can be established empirically. Although personality traits cannot be observed directly, Allport pointed out that their existence can be confirmed. Evidence can be obtained by observing human behavior over time, studying medical histories or biographies, and using statistical methods that determine the degree to which individual responses to the same or similar stimuli coincide.

A personality trait is only relatively independent of other traits. To paraphrase a famous expression, we can say: “No feature is an island.” There is no sharp boundary separating one feature from another. Rather, personality is a set of overlapping traits that are only relatively independent of each other. Reinwald N.I. Psychology of Personality. M., 2015. P.316.

A personality trait is not synonymous with moral or social evaluation. Despite the fact that many traits (eg, sincerity, loyalty, greed) are subject to conventional social evaluation, they still represent the true characteristics of an individual. Ideally, the researcher should first detect the presence of certain traits in the subject, and then find neutral, rather than evaluative, words to describe them.

A trait can be viewed either in the context of the individual in whom it is found or by its prevalence in society. Just because actions or even habits are inconsistent with a personality trait is not evidence that the trait is absent. Not every person's traits have the same degree of integration. A trait that is the main one for one may be secondary or completely absent for another. The same individual may have contradictory traits. There are cases when social conditions, much more than personal traits, are the primary “drivers” for certain behavior. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Life Strategy M., 2011. P.125.

In his early work, Allport distinguished between general traits and individual ones. The former (also called measurable or legitimized) include any characteristics shared by a number of people within a given culture. We might say, for example, that some people are more persistent and persistent than others, or that some people are more polite than others. The logic of reasoning about the existence of common traits is as follows: members of a certain culture experience similar evolutionary and social influences, and therefore they develop, by definition, comparable patterns of adaptation. Examples include language skills, political and/or social attitudes, value orientations, anxiety and conformity. Most people in our culture are comparable to each other on these general dimensions.

According to Allport, as a result of such a comparison of individuals according to the degree of expression of any common trait, a normal distribution curve is obtained. That is, when indicators of the severity of personality traits are depicted graphically, we get a bell-shaped curve, in the center of which there is a number of subjects with average, typical indicators, and at the edges there is a decreasing number of subjects whose indicators are closer to extremely pronounced. The figure (see Appendix 1) shows the distribution of indicators of the severity of such a general personality trait as “dominance-subordination”. Thus, the measurability of common traits allows the personologist to compare one person with another on significant psychological parameters (as is done with general physical characteristics such as height and weight). Petrovsky A.V., Yaroshevsky M.G. History and theory of psychology. Rostov n./D., 2013. P.504.

While Allport considered this comparison procedure valid and useful, he also believed that personality traits are never expressed in exactly the same way in any two people.

IN last years Throughout his career, Allport came to realize that using the term "personality trait" to describe both general and individual characteristics was problematic. Therefore, he revised his terminology and called individual traits individual dispositions. General traits changed their name, becoming simply personality traits. The definition of personality disposition now includes the phrase “characteristic of the individual,” but otherwise the definition remains the same as the earlier definition of trait.

Allport was deeply interested in the study of individual dispositions. Over time, it became obvious to him that not all individual dispositions are equally inherent in a person and not all of them are dominant. Therefore, Allport proposed to distinguish three types of dispositions: cardinal, central and secondary.

Cardinal dispositions. The cardinal disposition permeates a person so much that almost all his actions can be reduced to its influence. This highly generalized disposition cannot remain hidden, unless, of course, it is such a trait as secrecy - the owner of it can become a hermit, and then no one will recognize his inclinations. Central dispositions. Less comprehensive, but still quite striking characteristics of a person, called central dispositions, are, so to speak, the building blocks of individuality. Secondary dispositions. Traits that are less noticeable, less generalized, less stable, and thus less useful in characterizing personality are called secondary dispositions. Petrovsky A.V., Yaroshevsky M.G. History and theory of psychology. Rostov n./D., 2013. P.507.