Question

Discuss one of the major personality theories and how this theory is used to conduct assessment?

Answer 1

personality is the unique way in which each individual thinks acts ndd feels throughout the lifetime. it is an area of psychology in which there are several ways in which the characteristic behavior of human beings can be explained. there are vaarious theories of personality. a major one is the trait theory by cattell. trait theories are less concerned with the explanation of personality development and changing personality than they are with describing it and predicting behavior. trait is a consistentv enduring way of thinking, feeling, or behaving and trait theories attempt to describe personality in terms of a persons trait. raymond cattell (1990) defined two types of traits as surface traits and source traits. surface traits are like thoe found by al.lport representing the personality characteristics easily seen by other people. source traits are basic traits that underlie surface traits. eg-shyness, being quiet, disliking crowds are all surgface traits to the source traits of introversion which is the tendency to withdraw from excessive stimulation. using a statistical technique which looks for groups and commonalities in numerical data called factor anallysis he discovered 16 source traits. he developed a questionnaire based on this known as 16PF i.e. 16 personality factor questionnaire in 1995. these traits are seen as trait dimensions, continuum, in which 2 opposite traits are pssible at both the ends.