TRAIT THEORY V. PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY.

Personality theories aiming to explain individual differences in behaviour have developed in clinical, psychometric and experimental traditions over the last hundred years. Exploring ‘why’ people act so differently in what appear to be similar situations. A trait may be defined as an enduring way in which one individual differs from another and are understood to be relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. outgoing or shy) and influence behaviour. A personal construct however, may be defined as an individual’s understandings of the world, based on individual experience, changing over time and particular to the individual.

Hans Eysenck’s ‘trait theory’ asserts that personality is fixed and genetically derived. That individuals possess certain personality traits which determine their behaviour. Eysenck and Rachman later added that personality is not a matter of absolute categories (e.g. introvert) but of dimensions (‘more/less strongly introverted).

In contrast, George Kelly’s ‘personal construct theory’ asserts personality is not fixed, that a change in personality is possible though not easily achieved…