Trait theory in psychology is a current that emphasizes the centrality of stable traits in personality structure. The Carl Jung emphasized the importance of introversion and extroversion , you can see one of the first in this approach, though most of his contributions to the theory of psychology are unrelated features.
Gordon Allport , Hans Eisenk and Raymond Cuttel have made further contributions in this area. Allport talked about a very wide range of features, some unique to man. This approach made it very difficult to conduct scientific and systematic research in the field. Eisenk, on the other hand, reduced the main character traits to three - internalized or extroverted, high mental or neurotic stability, and the degree of psychoticism . Eisenk stressed the importance of biological components and attributed to them two-thirds of the variance. Today it is believed that the rate is lower, perhaps less than 50%. Raymond Cuttel spoke of sixteen key features.
Today the theory of the five great traits is prevalent , according to which the degree of extroversion, the degree of mental stability, the orientation (sense of responsibility), the openness of thought and the pleasant demeanor are the five main traits that can be explained by a very wide range of traits in different cultures.
The trait method has low therapeutic applicability and it ignores inconsistencies in the way a person behaves in different situations.
The scientific method on which trait psychology is based is to analyze the factors of answers to questionnaires, to find key factors that explain patterns in the answers of subjects to personality questionnaires.