ABSTRACT
Trait theory. The difficult problem of defining personality was bypassed in Chapter 1, by phrasing it: ‘What sort of a person is so-and-so; what is he like?’ However, we cannot shirk the issue any longer. Not only the naïve and the depth-psychological, but also the psychometric, approaches to personality rest on the assumption that it consists fundamentally of internal dispositions, functional unities or causal factors within the individual which account for his behaviour. It makes little difference whether we call these traits, interests and attitudes, or talk of factors or dimensions, or employ more theoretical constructs such as a strong Super-ego, defence mechanisms, need for achievement, level of aspiration and the like. All these qualities are thought of as fairly stable and generalized dispositions which are properties or possessions of the person in much the same sense as his skin colour, or his weak heart, or his musical talent.
