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PERSONALITY TRAIT THEORIES Introduction Trait theories are concerned with what personality is made of, whereby Psychoanalytic theories deal with how personality develops. Human beings display an almost unlimited variety of personalities. Yet perhaps each is simply a combination of a few primary personality traits. Ascertaining what these primary characteristics are is a key objective of trait theory. A trait is defined as "any relatively enduring way in which one individual differs from another" (Guilford, 1959). This explanation highlights three assumptions underlying trait theory. * First of all, personality traits are comparatively constant over time. For instance when James Conley (1985) compared the personality traits of several hundred adults at three different times in their lives, he revealed that extraversion, neuroticism and impulse control hardly changed over a forty-five-year period. * The second assumption is that personality traits are consistent over situations. A person who is dominant at work is likely to be dominant...

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