Review of the studies on personality Traits

Abstract

This review paper on the current status of the studies on personality traits, aimed at summarizing the progress achieved in the study of personality traits and examining the evidences for the diverse study dimensions of the studies on Personality. As it seems that the study of personality traits is not a recent one (nearly a century old), the advances in the discipline can be identified as major ones as well as the recent ones. So, the present study engaged in summarizing (at least to a certain extent), both the major advances as well as the recent ones. Existing gaps in the study of the personality traits and the most outstanding debates at the time were also discussed briefly. Finally the paper will reviewed the future implications for the study of personality traits. As the methodology of the study, Online searches were carried out for the collection of data and the searches those which were published in English language mainly from 1930 to 2017. The sample included 64 review sources and the period of the searches was between January 2017 to September 2017. The theme study areas of personality traits those were discussed in this study are basic personality dimensions, broad and narrow personality traits, causal evidences for personality traits, cognitive affective personality systems, comparison of individuals on traits, overlapping of traits, functions of personality traits across lifespan, consistency of behavior, traits-situation interaction, different aspects of personality traits assessment and cross cultural studies on personality traits.

Full text

~ 38 ~
ISSN Print: 2394-7500
ISSN Online: 2394-5869
Impact Factor: 5.2
IJAR 2017; 3(11): 38-45
www.allresearchjournal.com
Received: 09-09-2017
Accepted: 10-10-2017
Kumaranayake AR
Counselor, Public Service,
Polgahawela, Sri Lanka
Correspondence
Kumaranayake AR
Counselor, Public Service,
Polgahawela, Sri Lanka
Review of the current status of the studies on
personality traits
Kumaranayake AR
Abstract
This review paper on the current status of the studies on personality traits, aimed at summarizing the
progress achieved in the study of personality traits and examining the evidences for the diverse study
dimensions of the studies on Personality. As it seems that the study of personality traits is not a recent
one (nearly a century old), the advances in the discipline can be identified as major ones as well as the
recent ones. So, the present study engaged in summarizing (at least to a certain extent), both the major
advances as well as the recent ones. Existing gaps in the study of the personality traits and the most
outstanding debates at the time were also discussed briefly. Finally the paper will reviewed the future
implications for the study of personality traits.
As the methodology of the study, Online searches were carried out for the collection of data and the
searches those which were published in English language mainly from 1930 to 2017. The sample
included 64 review sources and the period of the searches was between January 2017 to September
2017. The theme study areas of personality traits those were discussed in this study are basic
personality dimensions, broad and narrow personality traits, causal evidences for personality traits,
cognitive affective personality systems, comparison of individuals on traits, overlapping of traits,
functions of personality traits across lifespan, consistency of behavior, traits-situation interaction,
different aspects of personality traits assessment and cross cultural studies on personality traits.
Keywords: Personality traits, current status, personality research, trait research
1. Introduction
The discussions on personality traits are multifaceted. Some of the available findings and the
review papers of personality traits simply refer to the concept of global personality traits,
Historical importance of personality traits, broad and narrow personality traits, biological
aspects of personality traits while some others focus on some of the recent trends such as
overlapping traits, cross cultural notions on traits, traits situation interaction, temperament
and traits as well as advanced measures of personality traits.
A Personality trait is not a single or specific behavior (a way of describing a person’s single
behavior) but just a pattern of behaviors which are related and carried by the person who is
showing the consistency of such pattern from situations to situation (Funder, 1991) [16]. These
patterns can be one or few behaviors, affects, cognitions, desires or all of them. Individual
differences that are visible due to personality can be understood by referring to “why mostly
one behaves in this way but not the other?. Personality traits are also associated with this and
related but can further be explained in more advance terms. A more comprehensive or a
simplified term for the definition of the personality traits are “Non contextual factors that
shape the person and their activities” (Boag, 2011 quoted from Johnson, 1997) [4]. The early
research on Personality which mainly aimed at description and explanation began with
identification of the personality terminology in the lexical language. The later interest was
shifted to more applied areas like Measurement of personality traits and prediction of future
behavior. Personality traits are expressed through the person’s behavior. The situations are
barriers for personality traits (Boag, 2011 quoting McCrae and Costa (1995) [4] yet they traits
are powerful to overcome them.
2. Objective of the Study
The present paper is a review paper on the current status of the studies on personality traits.
As one of the objectives, this paper aims at summarizing the progress achieved in the study
In terna tional Journ al of Applied Researc h 2017; 3 (11): 38-45

~ 39 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
of personality traits. In addition to the above, this also aims
at examining the evidences for the diverse study dimensions
of the studies on Personality traits. As it seems that the study
of personality traits is not a recent one (nearly a century
old), the advances in the discipline can be identified as
major ones as well as the recent ones. So the present study
aims at summarizing (at least to a certain extent), both the
major advances as well as the recent ones. Further this study
will pay the attention to the existing gaps in the study of the
personality traits and the most outstanding debates at the
time will also be discussed briefly. Finally the paper will
review the future implications for the study of personality
traits.
3. Methods
Online searches were carried out for the collection of data
for this review paper. The searches were limited to online
the journal articles, soft copies of books which are available
for free downloading, online versions of the classical papers
in the area of the study of Personality traits. These online
searches were those which were published in English
language mainly from 1930 to 2017. The sample included
64 review sources and the period of the searches was
between January 2017 to September 2017. The studies
which were reviewed included those which were conducted
at both study and outcome level. A summary of reviewed
studies is given in the following table.
Serial
Number
Topic area of
the study
Year of
Online
publication
Authors
Method/s
followed
1
Behavioral Consistency
1991
Funder & Colvin
Experimental
2
Consistent individual behavior
variation
2015
Mackay & Haskell,
review
3
Personality consistency
2015
Vainik et al.
Survey
4
Behavior Consistency
2012
Leikas, Verkasalo & Lonnqvist
Experimental
5
Behavior Consistency
2008
Church et al.
Survey
6
Personality and behavior
2015
University of Minnesota libraries of
publishing
Introductory text book
7
Five personality Dimensions
2003
Heinstrom
Survey
8
Personality Test
2003
Goslin, Rentfrow &Swann
Test Construction
9
Basic Personality Dimensions
2013
Revelle
Personality Project-Northwestern university
10
Test of Basic Personality
Dimensions
2009
Ashton & Lee
Test Construction
11
Test Comparison
1994
Ostendorf & Angleitner
Experimental
12
Behavioral measures of traits
2014
Dixon
Experiment and Survey
13
Behavioral measures of traits
2005
Daugherty et al.
Experimental
14
Behavioral measures of traits
2009
Meda et al.
correlational
15
Behavioral measures of traits
2015
Speer, Christiansen & Honts
Test Development
16
Behavioral measures of traits
2002
Mathias et al.
Experimental
17
Behavioral measures of traits
2002
Stabile
Review
18
Comparison of Assessment modes
2008
McDonald
Review
19
Behavioral Measures of personality
2016
Yuen et al.
Experimental
20
Narrow Personality traits
2016
Mrcus et al.
Survey
21
Broad and narrow personality traits
2010
Jelena et al.
Longitudinal
22
Narrow personality traits
2011
Slaughter
Survey
Serial
Number
Topic area of
the study
Year of Online
publication
Authors
Method/s
followed
23
Narrow personality traits
2015
Iversen & Rimol
Survey
24
Narrow personality traits
2008
Wright
Field Study
25
Traits causality
2010
Kressel & Uleman
Experomental
26
Cognitive- affective personality systems
N/A
“Boundless”
Review
27
Cognitive- affective personality systems
2012
Shoda et al.
Review
28
Cognitive- affective personality systems
1995
Mischel & Shoda
Review
29
Traits and Chronic illness
2009
Erlen et al.
Review
30
Comparison of individuals on traits
2017
Elsevier
Survey
31
Comparison of individuals on traits
2017
Smith
Review
32
Comparison of individuals on traits
2010
Nia & Besharat
Survey
33
Comparison of individuals on traits
2016
Colakoglu & Gozukara
Survey
34
Traits-Introduction
1991
Funder
Review
35
Traits-Introduction
2011
Boag
Riview
36
Cross-cultural study of traits
2009
Terracciano & McCrae
Review
37
Cross-cultural study of traits
2010
McCrae et al.
Survey
38
Cross-cultural study of traits
2010
Church
Review
39
Feature centrality of traits
2014
Geraudel & Salvetat
Survey

~ 40 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
40
Traits-introductory notes
2000/2001
Baker
Review
41
centrality of traits
2012
Staiano et al.
Review
42
Feature centrality of traits
2000
Lassaline & Deniss
Experiment
43
Personality and Social Media
2013
Celi & Polonio
Survey
44
Genotypes and Phenotypes(personality)
2002
Fitzgerals & Issacs
Experimental
45
Genotypes and Phenotypes(personality
2008
Gonzalez et al.
Experimental
46
Overlapping traits
2012
Linden et al.
Survey
47
Overlapping traits
2005
Blonigen et al.
Survey
48
Traits and Disorders
2005
Furnham & Crump
Survey
49
Traits Overlapping
1997
Ackerman & Heggestad
Review
50
Personality Across lifespan
2015
Nelson-Guffey
Review
51
Personality Across lifespan
2010
Bates et al.
Survey
52
Personality Across lifespan
2003
Kersting
Review
53
Personality Across lifespan
2008
Donnelan & Lucas
Survey
54
Personality and Situations
2003
N/A
Review
55
Personality and Situations
2007
PsyBlog
Review
56
Personality and Situations
2001
Berge & Raad
Test Construction
57
Temperament
1999
Weijers et al.
Survey
58
Temperament
2011
Prabhat
Blog Article
59
Traits Situations Interaction
2011
N/A
Chapter Review
60
Traits Situations Interaction
2017
Abel
Introductory article
61
Traits Situations Interaction
N/A
Furr & Funder
Review
62
Personality Measurement
1973
Edwards & Abbott
Review
63
Personality Measurement
2016
Sharma
Blog Article
64
Personality Measurement
2014
Coaley & Aipas
Review
So, the content of this review paper will be a discussion on
the current status of each theme area in the study of
Personality traits which will be discussed under the Results
and Discussion section as follows.
4. Results and Discussion
Basic Dimensions of Personality Traits
Though, very earliest research aimed at explanations of the
nature of the personality traits, it has been decades passed
that the interest has been shifted for the measurement of
personality traits. Personality psychologists believe that
individual differences in behavior, or unique patterns of
feelings or thoughts (which are indicators of Traits) should
be able to be measured. The most popular way of
identifying the personality traits through measuring those on
which people self-report about their characteristics and as a
result the researchers have identified hundreds of traits
(University of Minnesota, 2015) [47]. Among many of such
traits; Extraversion, Introversion, Psychoticism, The big
Five traits (openness to experience, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism) have been
generally identified as trait models after the classifications
by Allport, Eyesenck, Cattell and McCrae etc. apart from
those main categorization, some other researchers have
identified hundred other traits. A few of them are
Authoritarianism, individualism, internal vs. external locus
of control, need for achievement, and need for cognition,
regulatory focus, self-consciousness, sensation seeking and
self-esteem (University of Minnesota, 2015) [47]. Base on the
identification of diverse individual traits, the research field
of personality has developed different taxonomies like those
given above and the researches are still being continued.
To the present day, the most widely discussed and the most
popular taxonomy is Big Five Personality approach or Five
Factor model. This is considered as a summary of the
personality concepts in a lexical language (Ostendorf &
Angleitner, 1994) [35]. The broad traits discussed in this
Model have been assessed through different Tools (Gosling,
Rentfrow, & Swann 2003) [45].
It may obviously be a difficult for a trait researcher to
manage the time available for measuring large amount of
trait descriptions in a given language or in a given
individual. Though the number of items increases the
accuracy of psychometric properties, it may cause a
considerable behavioral discomfort for the respondent which
may affect the responses. Due to this reason, most of the
trait theorists seek to develop short measures of Traits. Big
Five is also a kind of this category. Following the big Five
approach, several current Shorts tests of personality traits
have been developed and being researched (Ashton & Lee,
2009) [2]. The most important usefulness of the study of
personality traits is their Predictive ability of individual’s
future behavior. These abilities reflect their relative
individual differences from situation to situation
(Heinstrom, 2003) [20].
Study on Broad and Narrow traits
Examination of different aspects of Broad and narrow
personality traits has become one of the key areas in
Personality research. Personality traits which we already
identified in the description above as Big Five Model,
belongs to Broad personality traits. Each broad personality
trait is a main personality dimension. Eyesenck’s three
personality dimensions are also considered as broad traits
(Mathews, Deary & Whiteman, 2009) [29]. They have been
identified through a statistical technique called factor
analysis and then each trait dimension is called as a global
factor because it is estimated that in a normally distributed
population an individual will fall in to one of the categories
or more under the five proposed here. Then numbers of
specifically correlated primary factors are also believed to
gather around such global factor. In this sense these global
factors are called broad personality traits while the other
primary factors which are correlated or coexisting under one
such broad trait are called “narrow personality traits. So the
specific or narrow personality traits are often the
components of broad personality traits (Credé, 2016) [9].
Some research has proven that studying the narrow
personality traits than the broad ones, will help to or

~ 41 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
beneficial in understanding their underlying specific
behaviors (ex: Suicidal attempts) (Jelena et al., 2008) and
provides the interpreting convenience for the behavior. The
researchers are interested in studying the relationship
between one or more of the broad personality traits and
other biopsychosocial variable.
But currently the trend is emerging where many of the
researchers are attracted to study the contribution of specific
narrow personality traits to different variables. Such
variables can be job related ones (Bergner et al., 2010,
Slaughter, 2011) [22] or many other aspects of the life like
academic achievement (Writght, 2008). but as a more
interesting fact, studies have supported the idea that narrow
personality traits are more notable in making predictions for
the job related variables(Iversen & Rimol, 2015) [21]. It can
be assumed that broad traits are more associated with
making predictions about general or overall aspects of the
behavior while the narrow personality traits are more
accurate in predicting the specific behaviors caused by
personality traits. But there is no doubt that it is the broad
personality traits(mainly those in Big Five) are the ones
which are widely researched, validated and correlations are
established in variety of settings while making
generalizations in a wide spectrum of demographic areas as
well as cultural groups.
What causes personality traits?
This is relatively an old, but dominant question in the study
of personality traits and still valid due to the new research
questions addressed by interested group of personality
researchers. It has been discussed in the research that
personality traits can be studied as either explaining the
individual behavior (causal) or summarizing the behavior
(descriptive) (Kressell & Uleman, 2009) [26]. The descriptive
function involves summarizing an individual’s behavior in a
given time (My Uncle is aggressive), or the behavior across
situations (My uncle is usually an aggressive one). The
causal function is more important while predicting the
individual’s behavior. The researcher describes the person
“X” as impulsive which causes him to have angry outburst
with others. Both descriptive and the causal functions of the
traits are applied. Summarizing the behavior allows he
researcher to create a profile for the present. Explaining
allows making future predictions. Explaining can be applied
in number of diverse situations where the individual
encounters. And the traits can also be diverse. But the most
important question in the study of causation of personality
trait is “what exactly causes personality traits?’(Mathews,
Deary & Whiteman, 2009) [29]. It is very difficult to establish
the exact causality for a personality trait. We are not certain
about whether the Person’s disorder is caused by personality
traits or personality traits cause the disorder. The genotypic
influences on traits have widely been studied but counter
arguments are also available in the wide variety of contexts.
This argument stands for the idea that genotypes shape the
way that an individual responds to various social encounters
((Mathews, Deary & Whiteman, 2009) [29]. A common
question that a trait psychologist asks about the causation of
traits on a given behavior is “are there certain people who
perform certain behaviors consistently (Eyesenck, 1978).
The same question is asked in relation to diverse trait areas
even in the today’s research. Both supportive inconsistent
results have been generated by the current research. This
causality have been established by those researchers in the
areas of job performance (Paternit et al., 2002) [36],
Psychopathology (Widiger, 2011) [51], Criminality
(Eyesenck, 1978) and many aspects. One of the strongest
arguments is that these two variables (Personality vs. trait
indicative behavior) can influence one another either to
appear or disappear by sharing a common etiology. This has
been proven in the research that for example; the people
with internalizing (mood and Anxiety) and externalizing
(Antisocial behaviors) share a common etiology (Blonigen
et al., 2005). But, counter arguments have also been
produced (Verhulst, Eaves & Hatemi, 2011) [49] for example,
the researcher argue that having been correlated does not
mean that there is causation. A more acceptable argument is
that there is a genetic more agreeably a biological basis that
mediates with how an individual select, and process the
interactions with the society.
In one hand, the question that “how much of your
personality is genetic” is a very difficult one to answer the
nature or nurture debate is not limited to the study of
personality traits on the other. Though the exact amount of
influence of heritability cannot be traced, it is now a widely
accepted idea that traits are influenced or caused by certain
genetic make up to genotype. Then the way that the traits
are being expressed is the phenotype. Early years’ studies on
genes and Personality were characterized by comparing
identical (those who share roughly 50% of their genes) and
fraternal (those who share 100% of their genes) twins
(Kraus, 2013) [25]. The conclusions are, though the genes are
not 100% contributing for variation of personality, genes
matter. The current interest in the similar research area is
occupied by the question “which genes play a leading role in
determining certain personalities or traits?”. Also the
researchers are interested in asking which genes cause
which personality traits specifically. Interesting findings
related to cognitive social anxiety, psychic anxiety,
socialization, inhibition of aggression and impulsivity
(Gonzales et al.., 2008), information processing (Heinstrom,
2003) [20] and the correlations between personality traits like
Belligerence, charisma, Cynicism, obsessive-compulsive
behavior and gullibility with genotype and the phenotypes
have been found (Fitzgerald & Issacs, 2002). So the study of
the causation of personality traits along with more attention
to the genetic contributions still remains dominant.
Cognitive- Affective System Theory of Personality
Research on this theory stand for the idea that there is an
underlying system of individual differences of cognitive
affective units which mediate with how the individuals
behave across situations. But this unit is not a part of overt
behavior rather a mediating internal personality
organization. Due to this cognitive affective system(which
mediate with how individual receive and respond to the
information, how he or she become selective to the stimuli),
the system is called in personality psychology as behavioral
dispositions or trait that will cause the person to differ
individual in the way that he or she exhibit his behaviors
(Mischel & Shoda, 1995) [33]. This is one of the fascinating
research areas in the field of trait psychology. Further, these
researches focus more on the cross situational consistently
of such cognitive affective system in terms of the individual
differences and discuss how invariable the personality in
different context, situations and events that an individual
encounters. So the micro focus of the research in this theory
is how an individual understands of constructs like self,

~ 42 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
people and situations, the ideas about the social world,
values and competencies, executive abilities are stable and
not across the situations (Mischel & Shoda, 1995, Shoda
et,al, 2012) [33, 40].
Trait based individual comparison
Trait psychology’s the first and foremost debate is
identifying the differences and similarities of individual for
which the comparison is a major task. The studies on
comparing individuals on the traits began in the early
examinations of trait psychology. At present the
examination area of the variables in question has been
applied to wide array of dimensions of individual’s behavior
ranging from personal life, academic life to work life and all
the interpersonal and intrapersonal encounters. Though
these comparisons in the past were mostly concerning on
psychiatric populations, now the question has been extended
to healthy persons’ underlying stable patterns of emotional
and behavioral function (Erlen et al., 2011) [13]. Their main
objective is to understand the role of personality traits for
health promotion. One of the widely debated researches in
this type is how excessively high levels of neuroticism
causes or correlates with the risk of cardiac diseases (Erlen
et al., 2011) [13]. The understanding on how traits are
associated with psychiatric or other diseased conditions has
lead to the advancements in the prevention research on
suicidal behaviors of the individuals (Sharif et al., 2014) [39].
The comparison research on personality traits are widely
discussed related to the Broad traits in Big Five model. The
variables like success in the team and individual sport
behaviors (Besharat, 2010) [34], Development across lifespan
(Smith, 1952), organizational and vocational attitudes
behaviors (Colakoglu & Gozukara, 2016) are some of the
one under researchers’ common interest in this field.
Consistency of Behavior
The consistency of personality traits and the behavior
caused by such traits remain as the main quest in trait
psychology. The definition of trait itself stands for the
consistency of patterns overtime in a given individual
personality. The theories which advocate for the core of the
trait approach say that there is relatively less or no change of
a behavioral pattern in the individual in different situations.
Almost all the studies in trait psychology attempts to
advocate for this idea in a more or less manner. The
behavioral consistency goes even beyond the scope of trait
psychology. It gets associated and become a part of with the
so called “Personality triad”; personality, situation and
behavior (Leikas, et al. 2012) [38]. Many of these studies on
behavioral consistence have been evaluated between
individual behaviors ((Leikas, et al. 2012) [38]. and the
intraindividual examinations are relatively rare. Any
unhealthy behavior of which the consistent pattern is an
expression of trait, influence the individual’s health
(physical or mental. Such behaviors may be Eating (Vainik
et al., 2015) [48], or other disordered behaviors (MacKay &
Haskel, 2015) [28]. But many of the personality trait theorist
put the weight upon the consistency of trait itself to the traits
and consistency of behavior to the situations (Funder &
Colvin, 1991) [16].
Study on How traits overlap with each other
The overlapping of a personality trait with one another can
be seen in many of the research evidences done on
personality traits, especially those in broad category. For
example, the behaviors accounting for one dimension of
personality traits can account for another dimension too.
The researchers have proven that this kind of shared
variance exists in a continuum of behaviors where a certain
group of behaviors are belonging to one trait dimension and
the other group belongs to the others. Researches done on
General Factors of Personality (GFP) (especially those in
Big Five and Esenck’s), are found to overlap with others to
a considerable extent (Linden, Tsaousis & Petrides, 2012)
[27]. The psychological variables like intelligence, trait
emotional intelligence (Gonzalez & Ruiz, 2014, Siegling,
Furnham & Petrides, 2015) [37, 41] have shown accounting for
this shared variance when compared with other
classifications of trait dimensions.
Personality traits across lifespan
Personality traits accounts for the relative stability of
behaviors across different situations. But the question that
whether personality traits are same across the life span of a
given individual is another interesting area where the current
trait researchers seek to generate in depth understanding.
The major contributions to the stability of personality traits
across lifespan are given by Costa and McCrae in national
institute of aging in Baltimore (Nelson-Guffey, 2015).
According to Nelson-Guffey (2015), those two researchers
have some of the key personality traits are stable across the
lifespan where a person who is emotionally stable at young
adulthood would remain same even at the age of 65. They
have concluded that the key personality traits are consistent
across the lifespan. Even for two day the findings of these
two researchers remain as one of the major contribution to
the trait psychology. But some of the recent contradictory
findings report that personality traits can be stable as well as
subject to change over the time. Investigating the changes in
mean levels and rank orders of Big Five personality traits,
Specht, Egloff & Schmukle (2011) [44], reported that in a
sample of 14718 Germans, age effect on the changes in
personality traits across the lifespan, they also reported that
the fluctuations can be seen in the stability where the peak
years of influence of personality traits are 40-60 and
personality can subject to change due to some other factors
than intrinsic motivation. The idea that personality traits can
change overtime is supported by some other recent findings
too. APA (2003) [45], quoting a study by Oliver, Samuel,
Gosling & Potter done with 132515 adults reports that the
changes are possible in the personality traits, they further
says that conscientiousness is likely to increase with the age
while the agreeableness doesn’t change after the age of 30.
Further neuroticism tends to get narrower with the age and
openness shows a small decline with aging. These findings
about contentiousness and neuroticism are consistent with
the findings of the studies done by Donnellan & Lucas
(2008) [10].
Personality traits and Situations
The power of situational variable in the traits assessment
was first emphasized in the trait psychology by Walter
Miscel in 1968. Because of an individual’s tendency to
behave differently depending on the situation, he concluded
the research findings saying that people do not behave in the
same way in different situations though they have the same
trait (PsyBlog, 2007). For example, the way I respond to a
situation of getting late due to the traffic jam will be

~ 43 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
different in a situation of my everyday travelling and
traveling to a very important interview. Currently the
researcher who bridge between Traits and Situations
attempts to set an agreement between the two debated of
“personality is fixed” and “Personality doesn’t determine
the behavior, situation do”.
Traits-situations interaction is another aspect of this debate.
Following the ideas presented by Miscel, several current day
researchers are interested in examining the interaction
between traits and situations rather than putting more weigh
on either. This stands for the idea that behavior is a product
of interaction between traits and situations (Abel, 2017,
Raad, 2001) [3]. A common example for the interaction
between the trait and the situation is “trait anxiety may
interact with an immediate situational threat to produce a
transient state of anxiety (Mathews, Deary & Whiteman,
2009) [29]. One of the famous examples that they present is a
person with high level of impulsivity would respond in the
destined way when only a situation demands but not on the
other. Abel (2017), further clarifies that one of the function
of personality traits is to select the situation which will
fulfill the needs of the traits to be expressed. Here the
personality traits are capable of evoking specific responses
from the environment and the personality traits functions to
manipulate the behaviors of the others. This also supports
the idea that humans are not behaving on the reflexive
action rather on selective behavior (Khilstrom, n.d.)
supporting the social cognitive aspects of situation selection.
But still, some of the current researchers eager to reject the
idea of competition between person-situation interaction
(Furr, n,d) indicating that situation sometimes gain power
over the dispositional sources and vice versa. So their
argument is neither the claims are fully acceptable.
Measurement of Personality traits
The trait model of personality is sometimes called
psychometric model because it heavily relies on objective
assessments of personality traits. Questionnaires, self-
reports, inventories, and other forms of metric tools have
been developed to assess the personality traits. These
measurement tools have been beneficial to number of
applied settings such as clinical practice (hospitals and other
health settings), organizational practice (practices associated
with organizational behavior) (Stabile, n.d.), academic and
educational settings and many others. The advanced nature
of the statistics, computer science and other related
interdisciplinary areas of psychology itself have been
supportive to establish highly approximate accuracies of
such tools though assessing their psychometric properties.
Vast array of literature have documented the advantages of
questionnaires, self-reports as well as behavioral measures
(McDonald, 2008) [31]. Almost all the trait measurement
tools are quantitative.
Behavioral observations are another aspect of the traits
assessment. Some of the trait researchers are interested in
relying only on the behavioral assessment of traits while
other attempts to understand the consistencies between the
self-repot measures and the behavioral assessments. Here
most probable the researcher examines the availability of a
given trait, such as impulsivity (Meda, et al., 2009) [32] and
the consistencies of the results generated by self-reports on
impulsivity as well as behavioral measures on impulsivity.
Behavioral examinations are mostly coming from but not
limited to laboratory settings (Dougherty et. al, 2003, Pillay
et al., 2016) [11, 52]. One of the advantages of behavioral
measures in trait assessment is, it overcomes the limitations
presented by self-report measures of traits (Dixon, 2014).
But it seems, it is sad to say that behavioral assessments of
traits are one of the ill controlled aspects in the trait research
(Leichtman, 2017). With such limited support from the
discipline itself, the researchers are interested in using
behavioral measure to such settings as work situations etc
(Speer, Christiansen & Honts, 2015) [15]. Currently,
Experimental measures of trait exhibited behaviors have
been developed to understand how the particular trait is
exhibited (Mathews, Deary & Whitman, 2009) [29].
Cross cultural research on Personality traits
This is one of the fascinating and recent domains of
personality trait research. The early studies on this topic
were mostly focused on but not limited to how; traits are
exhibited in different cultures. One of the major research
works in this area is the Eyesenck’s three personality
dimensions. He believed that three personality dimensions
are a kind of universal constructs for humans. Some of the
researchers are interested in studying the relationship
between culture and exhibited traits within the individual
(Migliore, 2011). But most of the researchers focus on how
the same trait characteristics are exhibited in the individuals
in different culture when measured in a similar or same tool
(Church, et. al, 2008, McCrae, et al., 2010) [7, 30]. When it
comes to understand how traits are exhibited across the
cultures, the variables include healthier aspects of the
personality traits as well as the disordered conditions
(Terracciano & McCrae, 2006) [46]. The Big five model is
one of the heavily researched theories for its cross cultural
validity (McCrae, 2002) [29].
5. Summary
Although several decades have been passed in the study of
personality traits, the Big five model which was introduced
during 1980s, still remains as the master question for many
of the researchers. But it is not sufficient to say that there
are no other taxonomies of personality traits. Several
attempts have been made to check the possibility of
reducing the number of factors even from the Big Five
model. Some other attempts have been made to propose
alternative taxonomies of traits.
The present day traits researchers are more interested in
studying the narrow specific traits and their utility in the
everyday situational and applied context. Further it has been
found that narrow specific personality traits, when compared
to broad traits, more accurate in making predictions in such
applied settings like work life and psychiatric disorders. The
inquiry into the causal factors of traits remains same with
minor modifications, but surprisingly the key findings have
been challenged that the entire trait related tendencies
cannot be attributed to genes. The overlapping of the traits
and personality across lifespan are for the much interest of
the current day trait researchers. The stability across the life
in a given individual has been studies widely in relation to
the exhibition of Big Five traits. Some of the dimensions are
found to consistent but not the others. When it comes to
measurement of personality traits, the help of statistics and
computer technology have made the study area more
progressive. The number of the tools that are being invented
is increasing. The accuracy of the psychometric properties

~ 44 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
of such tools is found to be advance. But still there is a need
for the attention paid to behavioral measures of traits.
6. References
1. Ackerman PL, Heggestad ED. Intelligence, personality,
and interests: Evidence for overlapping traits.
Psychological Bulletin. 1997; 121(2):219-245.
doi:10.1037//0033-2909.121.2.219
2. Ashton M, Lee K. The HEXACO-60: A Short Measure
of the Major Dimensions of Personality. Journal of
Personality Assessment. 2009; 91(4):340-345. doi:10.
1080/00223890902935878
3. Berge MT, Raad BD. The construction of a joint
taxonomy of traits and situations. European Journal of
Personality. 2001; 15(4):253-276. doi:10.1002/per.410
4. Boag S. Explanation in personality psychology: “Verbal
magic” and the five-factor model. Philosophical
Psychology. 2011; 24(2):223-243.
doi:10.1080/09515089.2010.548319
5. Brezo J, Paris J, Hébert M, Vitaro F, Tremblay, R,
Turecki G. Broad and narrow personality traits as
markers of one-time and repeated suicide attempts: A
population-based study. BMC Psychiatry. 2008; 8(1).
doi:10.1186/1471-244x-8-15
6. Buss AR. The Trait-Situation Controversy and the
Concept of Interaction. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin. 1977; 3(2):196-201.
doi:10.1177/014616727700300207
7. Church AT, Katigbak MS, Reyes JA, Salanga MG,
Miramontes LA, Adams NB. Prediction and cross-
situational consistency of daily behavior across
cultures: Testing trait and cultural psychology
perspectives. Journal of Research in Personality, 2008;
42(5):1199-1215. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.03.007
8. Çolakoğlu N, Gözükara I. A Comparison Study on
Personality Traits Based on the Attitudes of University
Students toward Entrepreneurship. Procedia - Social
and Behavioral Sciences, 2016; 229:133-140.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.07.122
9. Credé M, Harms PD, Blacksmith N, Wood D.
Assessing the Utility of Compound Trait Estimates of
Narrow Personality Traits. Journal of Personality
Assessment, 2016; 98(5):503-513.
doi:10.1080/00223891.2016.1170023
10. Donnellan MB, Lucas RE. Age differences in the big
five across the life span: Evidence from two national
samples. Psychology and Aging, 2008; 23(3):558-566.
doi:10.1037/a0012897
11. Dougherty DM, Mathias CW, Marsh DM, Jagar AA.
Laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity.
Behavior Research Methods, 2005; 37(1):82-90.
doi:10.3758/bf03206401
12. Eysenck HJ. Crime and Personality. Medico-Legal
Journal. 1979; 47(1):18-32.
doi:10.1177/002581727904700104
13. Erlen JA, Stilley CS, Bender A, Lewis MP, Garand L,
Kim Y, Shaler C. Personality traits and chronic illness:
a comparison of individuals with psychiatric, coronary
heart disease, and HIV/AIDS diagnoses. Applied
Nursing Research. 2011; 24(2):74-81.
doi:10.1016/j.apnr.2009.04.006
14. Fitsgerald DA. Issacc D. Genotype-phenotype
correlations with personality traits of healthcare
professionals: a new use for the Human Genome
Project. Medical Journal of Australia. 2002; 76(7):339-
40
15. Funder DC. Global Traits: A Neo-Allportian Approach
to Personality. Psychological Science, 1991; 2(1):31-
39. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1991.tb00093.x
16. Funder DC, Colvin CR. Explorations in behavioral
consistency: Properties of persons, situations, and
behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 1991; 60(5):773-794.
doi:10.1037//0022-3514.60.5.773
17. Funder DC, Furr RM. Persons, Situations and Person
Situation interactions in John, O.P. & Robins, R.
W.(ed) Handbook of personality.
18. Furnham A, Crump J. Personality traits, types, and
disorders: an examination of the relationship between
three self-report measures. European Journal of
Personality. 2005; 19(3):167-184. doi:10.1002/per.543
19. González I, Peñas-Lledó EM, Pérez B, Dorado P,
Álvarez M, Llerena A. Relation between CYP2D6
phenotype and genotype and personality in healthy
volunteers. Pharmacogenomics, 2008; 9(7):833-840.
doi:10.2217/14622416.9.7.833
20. Heinstrom J. Five personality dimensions and their
influence on information behavior, 2003.
21. Iversen OL. Rimol R. Using narrow personality traits to
identify top talents within a group of successful
managers-Presented at the 17th congress of the
European Association of Work and Organizational
Psychology. assessit. Retrieved on. 2015, 2017. from
www. assessit.no
22. Kausel EE, Slaughter JE. Narrow personality traits and
organizational attraction: Evidence for the
complementary hypothesis. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes, 2011; 114(1):3-14.
doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2010.08.002
23. Kersting K. In Brief: Personality changes for the better
with age. PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2003.
doi:10.1037/e301162003-010
24. Kihlstrom JF. The Person–Situation Interaction. Oxford
Handbooks Online, 2013.
doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199730018.013.0038
25. Kraus. Do Genes Influence Personality? A Summary of
Recent Advances in the Nature vs. Nurture
Debate/Psychology Today. Psychology Today: Health,
Help, Happiness Find a Therapist, 2013.
26. Kressel L, Uleman J. Personality traits function as
causal concepts. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology. 2010; 46:213-216.
27. Linden DV, Tsaousis I, Petrides K. Overlap between
General Factors of Personality in the Big Five, Giant
Three, and trait emotional intelligence. Personality and
Individual Differences, 2012; 53(3):175-179.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2012.03.001
28. Mackay J, Haskell M. Consistent Individual Behavioral
Variation: The Difference between Temperament,
Personality and Behavioral Syndromes. Animals. 2015;
5(3):455-478. doi:10.3390/ani5030366
29. Mathews G, Deary IJ. Whitemanm MC. Personality
Traits. Mccrae RR. Cross-Cultural Research on the
Five-Factor Model of Personality. Online Readings in
Psychology and Culture, 2002; 4(4). doi:10.9707/2307-
0919.1038
30. Mccrae RR, Terracciano A, Fruyt FD, Bolle MD,
Gelfand MJ, Jr PT. The Validity and Structure of

~ 45 ~
International Journal of Applied Research
Culture-Level Personality Scores: Data from Ratings of
Young Adolescents. Journal of Personality. 2010;
78(3):815-838. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00634.x
31. McDonald JD. Measuring Personality Constructs: The
Advantages and Disadvantages of Self -Reports, In
formant Reports and Behavioural Assessments.
Enquire. 2008; 1(1):75-94.
32. Meda SA, Stevens MC, Potenza MN, Pittman B,
Gueorguieva R, Andrews MM. Pearlson GD.
Investigating the behavioral and self-report constructs
of impulsivity domains using principal component
analysis. Behavioural Pharmacology, 2009; 20(5-6),
390-399. doi:10.1097/fbp.0b013e32833113a3
33. Mischel W, Shoda Y. A cognitive-affective system
theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations,
dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality
structure. Psychological Review, 1995; 102(2):246-268.
doi:10.1037//0033-295x.102.2.246
34. Nia ME, Besharat MA. Comparison of athletes’
personality characteristics in individual and team sports.
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010;
5:808-812. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.189
35. Ostendorf F, Angleitner A., a COMPARISON OF
Different Measures proposed to measure Big Five.
European Review of Applied Psychology, 1994;
44(1):45-53.
36. Paterniti S, Niedhammer I, Lang T., Consoli, TM.
Psychosocial factors at work, personality traits and
depressive symptoms. The British Journal of
psychiatry. 2002; 181(2):111-117;
DOI: 10.1192/bjp.181.2.111
37. Pérez-González JC, Sanchez-Ruiz M. Trait emotional
intelligence anchored within the Big Five, Big Two and
Big One frameworks. Personality and Individual
Differences, 2014; 65:53-58.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.021
38. Pimontel M, Sneed JR. Journal Watch review of
Persons, situations and behaviors: Consistency and
variability of different behaviors in four interpersonal
situations. Leikas S. Lönnqvist J. -E. Verkasalo M.
Persons, situations and behaviors: Consistency and
variability of different behaviors in four interpersonal
situations. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.
2013; 103:1007-1022. Journal of the American
Psychoanalytic Association, 2012; 61(2):337-339.
doi:10.1177/0003065113484799
39. Sharif F, Farsnia A, Mani A, Vasoghi M, Setoodeh G.
Comparison of Personality Traits, Coping Styles, and
Psychiatric Disorders in Adult Suicidal and Non-
Suicidal Individuals. International Journal of
Community based nursing and Midwifery, 2014;
2(3):148-156.
40. Shoda Y, Wilson NL, Whitsett DD, Lee-Dussud J,
Zayas V. (n.d.). The person as a cognitive-affective
processing system: Quantitative ideography as an
integral component of cumulative science. APA
handbook of personality and social psychology, 4:
Personality processes and individual differences. 2014;
491-513. doi:10.1037/14343-022
41. Siegling AB, Furnham A, Petrides KV. Trait Emotional
Intelligence and Personality. Journal of Psycho
educational Assessment, 2014; 33(1):57-67.
doi:10.1177/0734282914550385
42. Smith, ME. A Comparison of Certain Personality Traits
as Rated in the Same Individuals in Childhood and Fifty
Years Later. Child Development, 1952; 23(3):159.
doi:10.2307/1126098
43. Speer Andrew B. Christiansen, Neil; and Honts,
Christopher. Assessment of Personality through
Behavioral Observations in Work Simulations,
Personnel Assessment and Decisions: 2015; 1(1):6.
Available at:
http://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/pad/vol1/iss1/6
44. Specht J, Egloff B, Schmukle SC. Stability and change
of personality across the life course: The impact of age
and major life events on mean-level and rank-order
stability of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 2011; 101(4):862-882.
doi:10.1037/a0024950
45. Ten Item Personality Measure (TIPI) | Gosling. (n.d.).
Retrieved, 2017.
http://www.bing.com/cr?
IG=29C9F2C7405B4A8AA7B280724156DE8B&CID
=312FA389A826668A0C71A977A920677F&rd=1&h=
tmfA10f1u-
SYKWYeUwbEalpAQYfkwEzi4lAobGOlf7k&v=1&r=
http%3a%2f%2fgosling.psy.utexas.edu%2fscales-
weve-developed%2ften-item-personality-measure-
tipi%2f&p=DevEx,5064.1
46. Terracciano A, Mccrae RR. Cross-cultural studies of
personality traits and their relevance to psychiatry.
Epidemiologia e Psichiatria Sociale, 2006; 15(03):176-
184. doi:10.1017/s1121189x00004425
47. University of Minnesota (n.d)-Personality and
Behavior-Approaches and Measurement Introduction to
Psychology.
48. Vainik U, Dubé L, Lu J, Fellows, LK. Personality and
Situation Predictors of Consistent Eating Patterns. Plos
One, 10(12). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0144134
49. Verhulst B, Eaves LJ, Hatemi PK. Correlation not
Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits
and Political Ideologies. American Journal of Political
Science, 2011; 56(1):34-51.
doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00568.x
50. Wright LL. Review of Literature. A Comparison of Big
Five and Narrow Personality Traits In Relation to
Academic Performance-Doctoral Dissertations-
University of Tennesee. 2008, 6-40.
51. Widiger TA. Personality and psychopathology. World
Psychiatry, 2011; 10(2):103-106. doi:10.1002/j.2051-
5545.2011.tb00024.x
52. Yuen CH, Pillay N, Heinrichs M, Schoepf I, Schradin,
C. Personality traits are consistent when measured in
the field and in the laboratory in African striped mice
(Rhabdomys pumilio). Behavioral Ecology and
Sociobiology, 2016; 70(8):1235-1246.
doi:10.1007/s00265-016-2131-1