Type and trait approach to personality

Trait approach is very similar to our common experience in everyday life. These theories are mainly concerned with the description or characterization of basic components of personality. It tries to discover the ‘building blocks’ of personality. Human beings display a wide range of variations in psychological attributes, yet it is possible to club them into the smaller number of personality traits. For example, when we come to know that a person is sociable, we assume that he will not only be cooperative, friendly and helping but also engage in behaviors that involve other social components. Thus, the trait approach attempts to identify the primary characteristics of people. A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual differs from another. They include a range of possible behaviors that are activated according to the demands of the situation.

1. The type approaches attempts to comprehend human personality by examining certain broad patterns in the observed behavioral characteristics of individuals while the trait approach focuses on the specific psychological attributes along which individuals tend to differ inconsistent and stable ways.

2. Each behavioral pattern of type approach refers to one type in which individuals are placed in terms of the similarity of their behavioral characteristics with that pattern while in trait approach refers to the degree of presence or absence of the concerned behavioral quality on which individuals can be rated.