01:830:338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Trait Theory, Neuroticism, Heritability

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:338
• Professor: Professor Lyra Stein

Document Summary

Trait-descriptive adjectives: words that describe traits, attributes of a person that are characteristic of a person and perhaps enduring over time. Traits are presumed to be internal in that individuals carry their desires, needs, and wants from one situation to next. Desires and needs are presumed to be causal in that they explain behavior of individuals who possess them. Traits can lie dormant in that capacities are present even when behaviors are not expressed. Scientific usefulness of viewing traits as causes of behavior lies in ruling out other causes. Traits as descriptive summaries of attributes of a person; no assumption about internality, nor is causality assumed. Argue that we must first identify and describe important individual differences and subsequently develop casual theories to explain them. The act frequency formulation of traits an illustration of the descriptive summary. Starts with the notion that traits are categories of acts. Act nominations: designed to identify which acts belong in which trait categories.