CHAPTER 2
A Trait Approach
to Personality
Conflicts among theories of adult development pale in comparison with
conflicts among theories of personality . At least gerontologists can allagree that they are interested in what happens to people as the yearspass. The only common denominator of personality psychology is theattempt to provide a psychological account of the person as a whole.But schools of psychology are so different in the phenomena theyemphasize—from stimulus–response bonds to unconscious archetypesto cognitive maps—that the resulting theories of personality are oftenincommensurable. We cannot cover all these approaches fully , nor dowe think they all deserve attention. Instead, we will concentrate on traitmodels of personality , both because they are compatible with a widevariety of theoretical approaches and because they have formed thebasis for most research on personality . Personality measures, whatevertheir theoretical origins, are usually measures of traits.
Within the more limited scope of trait psychology there are still
many controversies, but there is also evidence of real progress towardconsensus in recent years, after a period of demoralization. Questionsabout the cross-situational consistency of behavior (Mischel, 1968), thevalidity of trait measures (Fiske, 1974), and even the objective reality oftraits themselves (Shweder, 1975) had thrown the field into crisis in the1970s; there was a widespread belief that personality psychology was onits last legs.
If we held the same skeptical view today , we would certainly not be
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