Another strength of the trait approach is its many practical applications.
Mental health workers routinely use trait measures when evaluating clients.
Similarly, many educational psychologists have embraced trait measures in
their work. Psychologists working in industrial and organizational settings of-
ten use personality trait measures in hiring and promotion decisions. Job
counselors frequently rely on trait scores to match clients with careers.
Although this widespread use of trait measures invites abuse if scores are
used incorrectly, the popularity of these measures attests to the value manypsychologists place on them.
Like any important theoretical perspective, the trait approach has generated
a large amount of research. Personality journals are filled with investigationsabout a variety of personality traits. Predicting behavior from personality trait
measures has become a standard feature in research by clinical, social,
industrial-organizational, educational, and developmental psychologists.
Criticisms
Criticisms of the trait approach are often based not so much on what the ap-proach says but on what it leaves out. Trait psychologists describe people in
terms of traits, but they often do not explain how these traits develop or
what can be done to help people who suffer from extreme scores. Knowing
about these scores can help teachers and employers match people with the
tasks and jobs best suited to them, but no schools of psychotherapy have
originated from the trait approach.
Another criticism concerns the lack of an agreed-upon framework.
Although all trait theorists use empirical methods and are concerned with theidentification of traits, no single theory or underlying structure ties all of thetheories together. We can see the confusion this creates by asking how many
basic traits there are. Murray reduced personality to 27 psychogenic needs.
Cattell found 16 basic elements of personality. More recent investigationssuggest the number is really 5, and a few studies even challenge this figure.
Although research continues to determine which of these models is correct,
without an agreed-upon framework, it is difficult to gain a cohesive overview
of the approach or to see how research on one aspect of personality traits fits
with research in other areas.
SUMMARY
1. The trait approach assumes we can identify individual differences in be-
haviors that are relatively stable across situations and over time. Trait
theorists are usually not concerned with any one person’ s behavior but
rather with describing behavior typical of people at certain points along a
trait continuum.
2. Gordon Allport was the first acknowledged trait theorist. Among his con-
tributions were the notions of central and secondary traits, nomothetic
versus idiographic research, and descriptions of the self. Henry Murray
identified psychogenic needs as the basic elements of personality.180 CHAPTER 7 The Trait Approach