writing this book. The developments of the last 30 years have been little
short of spectacular: Personality psychology has had a renaissance, withmajor advances in conceptualization, description, and measurement,and the Five-Factor Model (FFM) has brought order and understandingto the endless list of specific traits. Lifespan developmental psychologyand longitudinal studies have made a major contribution to this rebirthby demonstrating the reality and significance of enduring dispositions.
The renaissance has been made possible only by a reformation in
theory and research (Costa & McCrae, 1980c). Standards of researchhave become more rigorous, measures more critically scrutinized, repli -
cations demanded and provided. Correspondingly , theorists have be -
come more willing to qualify and modify their positions on the basis of
empirical findings. Perhaps for the first time, personality psychologyhas begun to be a real science (McCrae, 2002).
Clearly , an entire volume could be devoted to the state of personal-
ity psychology today . At best, this chapter can only give some sense ofthe issues and an outline of the arguments—and the data—we thinkmake a case for a particular model of personality . The model we developbelow is central to the remainder of this book, for when we say that per-sonality is stable, we mean personality as defined by that trait model.We also discuss personality measurement later in this chapter, sincemeasures and their interpretation allow us to check theories against thefacts. We offer our preferred theories, models, and methods in this andthe following chapter, but even in the current climate of emerging con-sensus the reader should realize that our preferences are not universallyshared (J. Block, 2001). The issues we raise here are not put to rest—in -
deed, they recur throughout the remainder of the book. In Chapter 8, in
particular, we contrast trait psychology with ego psychologies.
Perspectives on Human Nature
As every student of personality theory knows, three major schools ofpsychology have been reflected in theories of personality: psychoana -
lytic, behaviorist, and humanistic. Psychoanalytic theories of personal -
ity (Freud, 1933, 1900/1938) stress the individual’s unconscious moti -
vations, which must be inferred from such indirect sources as dreams,
slips of the tongue, and fantasies. Behaviorist versions of personalitytheory (Dollard & Miller, 1950) limit themselves to observable behaviorand invoke situational determinants, expectancies, and histories of rein -A Trait Approach to Personality 21