PSYC 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Conscientiousness, Hexaco Model Of Personality Structure, Normal Distribution
20 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
The word trait comes from the french origin meaning stroke, line in drawing. A sketch of a person contains many lines and stroke. When we describe a person in terms of traits, we are giving a sketch of that person! However, a sketch does not capture absolutely everything, but it covers essentials! That being said, personality is much broader than traits! Traits give a sense of what a person is like. They are important to describing a person, but do not explain that person in total: traits are like other aspects of personality; they are internal (not observable), relatively stable (enduring features) and patterned. When we say that traits are relatively stable that means that although traits can change, it is never really a complete change. There are features that we have that stay relatively stable. (no one goes from being, for example, narcissistic to emotionally stable! Patterned: traits are not simply a behaviour, but a collection of behaviors.
