ings. That is why most personality psychologists today prefer trait the -
ory to psychoanalysis.
Because theories give the “big picture” and guide thinking toward
important issues, books like this one often begin with a theoreticalstatement as a background to the data to be discussed. And in fact wedid introduce trait theory in Chapter 2; without knowing what traitsare, it would make little sense to read about their stability over time. Buttrait theory as we have described it is not sufficient as a theory of per -
sonality , for two reasons: It says too little about traits, and it says far too
little about nontrait aspects of personality .
Postulating that there are enduring and consistent individual differ -
ences does not go very far in accounting for traits. What are these traits?
Where do they come from? How do they influence behavior? How canthey be assessed? There are, of course, many answers to these questions,each corresponding to a particular version of trait theory . Indeed, onecould say that what we have called trait theory is in fact a whole class oftheories, some closer to the truth than others.
But even if we had answers to all those questions, we would not
have a complete theory of personality , because there is more to hu-man personality than traits. For example, in Chapter 8 we discussedfunctions usually attributed to the ego, which have to do with resolv-ing conflicts, creating schedules, and overseeing the integrated opera-tion of all the needs and tendencies of the individual within the con-straints of the social environment. Anyone who has read a survey ofpersonality theories can think of many other topics that are not traits:attitudes, roles, identities, the self-concept, moral development, andso on. A reasonably complete personality theory has to say somethingabout all these.
The Birth of a Theory
Many theories in personality resulted from an effort to explain clinicalphenomena, such as cases of hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955) orstudents’ difficulties in adjustment (Rogers, 1951). These are oftencalled armchair theories , because they were the product of informal ob -
servation and thought, rather than scientific measurement and experi -
mentation. There is nothing wrong with starting with informal observa -
tion; in fact, it is essential in the early stages of a science when it is not
yet clear what should be measured. But personality psychology has beenA Five-Factor Theory of Personality 185