Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Trait Concept: Current Theoretical Considerations, Empirical Facts, and Implications for Personality Inventory Construction

  • Chapter
Personality Assessment via Questionnaires

Abstract

The book Personality and Assessment by Walter Mischel (1968) was very influential in the development of personality research. Whereas several authors had previously studied the situational specificity of behavior and the interaction of persons and situations (e.g., Byrne, 1964; Endler, Hunt, & Rosenstein, 1962; Helson, Blake, Mouton, & Olmstead, 1956), it was Mischel (1968) who most vehemently attacked the fundamental idea of the trait concept on which traditional differential psychology is based. He stated that “while trait theory predicts behavioral consistency, it is behavioral inconsistency that is typically observed” (Mischel, 1968). In his opinion, the consistency of individual behavior assumed by lay persons is illusory; our concepts are biased in this respect. This view seems to be supported by the literature on implicit personality theory (IPT) and the systematic distortion found in correlations between trait measures (D’Andrade, 1974; Schneider, 1973; Shweder, 1975, 1982). Mischel (1968), however, did not only criticize trait theories about personality structure. He stated that the many studies performed and scales constructed so far had produced validity coefficients of only about r = .30 -so-called “personality coefficients” -which are undoubtedly significant for large samples of subjects but useless for the prediction of individual behavior. Accordingly, the basis for trait-based psychodiagnostics also seemed to be impaired.

The studies reported were supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to Manfred Amelang (Az. Am 37/5 and Am 37/7–1).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Alker, H.A. (1972). Is personality situationally specific or intrapsychically consistent? Journal of Personality, 40 ,1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., & Borkenau, P. (1981). Vorhersagen für einige Personen und viele Merkmale. Oder: Konsistenz über Merkmale und Kontextbedingungen als Eigenschaft. In Michaelis, W. (Ed.), Bericht über den 32. Kongreß der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Zürich ,1980 (Vol. 2). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., & Borkenau, P. (1982). Über die faktorielle Struktur und externe Validität einiger Fragebogen-Skalen zur Erfassung von Dimensionen der Extraversion und emotionalen Stabilität. Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie ,3 ,119–146.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., & Borkenau, P. (1984 a). Versuche einer Differenzierung des Eigenschaftskonzepts: Aspekte intraindividueller Variabilität und differentieller Vorhersagbarkeit. In Amelang, M., & Ahrens, H.J. (Eds.), Brennpunkte der Persönlichkeitsforschung. Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., & Borkenau, P. (1984 b). Constructing cross-situational consistency in behavior: Some tests on Bem’s thoughts on social desirability as a moderator variable. In Bonarius, H., van Heck, G., & Smid, N. (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe: The oretical and empirical developments. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., & Löhr, F.J. (1983). Formale und inhaltliche Gesichtspunkte der Item-Formulie rung (Soziale Erwünschtheit, Verständlichkeit und Abstraktheit) als Einflußfaktoren der Validität (Unpublished manuscript).

    Google Scholar 

  • Amelang, M., Kobelt, C., & Frasch, A. (1985). Auf der Suche nach Personen mit Eigenschaften: Untersuchungen zur Restriktion des Eigenschaftsmodells auf Untergruppen von Personen, Verhaltensweisen und Situationen. In Albert, D. (Ed.), Bericht über den 34. Kongreß der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Wien ,1984 (Vol. 1). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyle, M. (1977). Predicted and generated rules model of P × S interaction. In Magnusson, D., & Endler, N.S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross-roads: Current issues in interactional psychology. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aries, E.J., Gold, C., & Weigel, R.H. (1983). Dispositional and situational influences on dominance behavior in small groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44 ,779–786.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bem, D.J. (1972). Constructing cross-situational consistency in behavior: Some thoughts on Alker’s critique of Mischel. Journal of Personality, 40 ,17–26.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bem, D.J., & Allen, A. (1974). On predicting some of the people some of the time: The search for cross-situational consistencies in behavior. Psychological Review, 81 ,506–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berman, J.S., & Kenny, D.A. (1976). Correlational bias in observer ratings. Journal of Per sonality and Social Psychology, 34 ,263–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, J. (1977). Advancing the psychology of personality: Paradigmatic shift or improving the quality of research. In Magnusson, D., & Endler, N.S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross roads: Current issues in interactional psychology. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borkenau, P. (1981). Intraindividuelle Variabilität und differentielle Vorhersagbarkeit. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Heidelberg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borkenau, P., & Amelang, M. (1985). Individuelle Angemessenheit von Eigenschaftskonstrukten als Moderatorvariable für die Übereinstimmung zwischen Selbst-und Bekanntenratings. Diagnostica ,31 ,105–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borkenau, P., & Angleitner, A. (1985). Systematische Verzerrungen in der Beurteilung von Personen: Faktum oder Fiktion? In Albert, D. (Ed.), Bericht über den 34. Kongreß der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Wien 1984 (Vol. 1). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowers, K.S. (1973).Situationism in psychology: An analysis and a critique. Psychological Review ,80 ,307–330.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Burisch, M. (1978). Construction strategies for multi-scale personality inventories. Applied Psychological Measurement, 2 ,97–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burisch, M. (1984). Approaches to personality inventory construction: A comparison of merits. American Psychologist, 39 ,214–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, P.A., Kraut, R.E., & Dworkin, R.H. (1984). Traits, consistency, and self-schemata: What do our methods measure? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47 ,568–579.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buse, L. (1980). Intraindividuelle Merkmalsvariation und Validität eines Extraversionsfragebogens. Eine Untersuchung zur Gültigkeit des Eigenschaftsbegriffs. Zeitschrift für Diffe rentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie ,1 ,35–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buss, D.M., & Craik, K.H. (1980). The frequency concept of disposition: Dominance and prototypically dominant acts. Journal of Personality, 48 ,379–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buss, D.M., & Craik, K.H. (1981). The act frequency analysis of interpersonal dispositions: Aloofness, gregariousness, dominance and submissiveness. Journal of Personality, 49 ,175–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, D. (1964). Repression-sensitization as a dimension of personality. Progress in Ex perimental Personality Research, 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campus, N. (1974). Transsituational consistency as a dimension of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29 ,593–600.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chaplin, W.F., & Goldberg, L.R. (1984). A failure to replicate the Bem & Allen study of individual differences in cross-situational consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47 ,1074–1090.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cheek, J.M. (1982). Aggregation, moderator variables, and the validity of personality tests: A peer rating study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 ,1254–1269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cronbach, L.J., & Gleser, G.C. (1965). Psychological tests and personnel decisions. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Andrade, R.G. (1974). Memory and the assessment of behavior. In Blalock, H. (Ed.), Measurement in the social sciences. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickes, P., & Steiwer, L. (1977). Ausarbeitung von Lesbarkeitsformeln für die deutsche Sprache. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie ,9 ,20–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Larsen, R.J., & Emmons, R.A. (1984). Person x situation interactions: Choice of situations and congruence response models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol ogy, 47 ,580–592.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Endler, N.S., Hunt, J.McV., & Rosenstein, A.J. (1962). An S-R-inventory of anxiousness. Psychological Monographs, 76 ,(No. 17).

    Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 ,1097–1126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eysenck, H.J., & Eysenck, S.B.G. (1964). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Inventory. London: University of London Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eysenck, M., & Eysenck, H.J. (1980). Mischel and the concept of personality. British Journal of Psychology, 71 ,191–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fahrenberg, J., & Selg, H. (1974). Das Freiburger Persönlichkeitsinventar FPI(2nd ed.). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farr, J.N., Jenkins, J.J., & Paterson, D.G. (1951). Simplification of Flesch’s reading ease formular. Journal of Applied Psychology, 35 ,333–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fishbein ,M., & Ajzen, I. (1974). Attitudes towards objects as predictors of single and multiple behavioral criteria. Psychological Review, 81 ,59–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fiske, D.W., & Butler, J.M. (1963). The experimental conditions for measuring individual differences. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 23 ,249–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flesch, R. (1948). A new readability yardstick. Journal of Applied Psychology, 32 ,321–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gifford, R. (1982). Affiliativeness: A trait-measure in relation to single-act and multi-act behavior criteria. Journal of Research in Personality, 16 ,128–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, L.R. (1981). Developing a taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms. In Fiske, D. (Ed.), New directions for methodology of social and behavioral science: Problems with language imprecision (No. 9). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golding, S.L. (1975). Flies in the ointment: Methodological problems in the analysis of the percentage of variance due to person and situation. Psychological Bulletin, 82 ,278–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gormly, J. (1983). Predicting behavior from personality trait-scores. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9 ,267–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hampson, S.E. (1982). Person memory: A semantic category model of personality traits. Brit ish Journal of Psychology, 73 ,1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helson, H., Blake, E.E., Mouton, J.S., & Olmstead, J.A. (1956). Attitudes as adjustments to stimulus, background, and residual factors. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology ,52 ,314–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann, T. (1973). Persönlichkeitsmerkmale. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewitt, J.K. (1984). Normal components of personality variation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47 ,671–675.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hormuth, S.E. (1982). Self-focused attention and the adherence to personal standards. In Kosakowsky, A., & Obuchowski, K. (Eds.), Progress in psychology of personality. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jaccard, J.J. (1974). Predicting social behavior from personality traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 7 ,358–367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, D.N., & Strieker, L.J. (1982). Is implicit personality theory illusory? Armchair criticism vs. replicated empirical research. Journal of Personality, 50 ,240–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, D.N., Chan, D.W., & Stricker, L.J. (1979). Implicit personality theory: Is it illusory? Journal of Personality, 47 ,1–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • John, O.P., Goldberg, L.R., & Angleitner, A. (1984). Better than the alphabet: Taxonomies of personality descriptive terms in Englisch, Dutch, and German. In Bonarius, H.M., van Heck, G., & Srnid, N. (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe: Theoretical annd empiri cal developments. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenrick, D.T., & Stringfield, D.O. (1980). Personality traits and the eye of the beholder: Crossing some traditional philosophical bounderies in the search for consistency in all of the people. Psychological Review, 87 ,88–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keren, A. (1979). Inhaltlich-semantische Analyse der Items aus fünf deutschsprachigen Persön lichkeitsfragebogen. Bonn: Diplomarbeit, Psychologisches Institut Bonn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lay, C.H., & Jackson, D.N. (1969). Analysis of the generality of trait inferential relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12 ,12–21.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lay, C.H., Burron, B.F., & Jackson, D.N. (1973). Base rates and information value in impression formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28 ,390–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, M. (1967). The meaning of a response, or why researchers in infant-behavior should be oriental metaphysicians. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 13 ,7–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Löhr, F.J. (1977). Formale und inhaltliche Merkmale von Fragebogenitems -zum Einfluß von Itemeigenschaften auf den Beantwortungsprozeß bei deutschen Persönlichkeitsfragebogen (Vols. 1, 2). Bonn: Master’s thesis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magnusson, D. (1980). Personality in an interactional paradigm of research. Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie ,1 ,17–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magnusson, D., & Endler, N.S. (1977). Interactional psychology: Present status and future prospects. In Magnusson, D. & Endler, N.S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross-roads: Cur rent issues in interactional psychology. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCrae, R.R. (1982). Consensual validation of personality traits: Evidence from self-reports and ratings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 ,293–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGowan, J., & Gormly, J. (1976). Validation of personality traits: A multicriteria approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34 ,791–795.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirels, H.L. (1976). Implicit personality theory and inferential illusions. Journal of Person ality, 44 ,467–487.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirels, H.L. (1982 a). The illusory nature of implicit personality theory. Logical and empirical considerations. Journal of Personality, 50 ,203–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirels, H.L. (1982b). Tenacious inferential illusions: Experimental facts vs. critical fancy. Journal of Personality, 50 ,245–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W. (1977). The interaction of persons and situation. In Magnusson, D., & Endler, N.S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross-roads: Current issues in interactional psychology. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W., & Peake, P.K. (1982). Beyond déjà vu in the search for cross-situational consistency. Psychological Review, 89 ,730–755.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monson, T.C., Hesley, J.W., & Chernick, L. (1982). Specifying when personality traits can and cannot predict behavior: An alternative to abandoning the attempt to predict singleact criteria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 ,385–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moskowitz, D.S. (1982). Coherence and cross-situational generality in personality: A new analysis of old problems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 ,754–768.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mulaik, S.A. (1964). Are personality factors raters’ conceptual factors? Journal of Consulting Psychology, 28 ,506–511.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Norman, W.T., & Goldberg, L.R. (1966). Raters, ratees and randomness in personality structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 4 ,681–691.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olweus, D.A. (1977). A critical analysis of the “modern” interactionist position. In Magnusson, D., & Endler, N.S. (Eds.), Personality at the cross-roads: Current issues in interac tional psychology. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Passini, F.T., & Norman, W.T. (1966). A universal conception of personality structure? Jour nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4 ,44–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paunonen, S.V., & Jackson, D.N. (1979). Nonverbal trait inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 ,1645–1659.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pawlik, K. (1973). Right answers to the wrong questions? A reexamination of factor analytic personality research and its contribution to personality theory. In Royce, J.R. (Ed.), Multivariate analysis and psychological theory. London: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pawlik, K. (1979). Der “Interaktionismus” aus verhaltenswissenschaftlicher Sicht. In Eckens-berger, H. (Ed.), Bericht über den 31. Kongreß der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie in Mannheim ,1978 ,(Vol. 1). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, R.H., & Bouffard, D.L. (1974). Behavioral appropriateness and situational constraint as dimensions of social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30 ,579–586.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J.B., Gibbons, F.X., Wicklund, R.A., Fazio, R.H., & Hood, R. (1977). Self-focussed attention and self-report validity. Journal of Personality, 45 ,513–527.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, D.C. (1982). Monozygotic twin cross-correlations as a validation of personality structure: A test of the semantic bias hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ,43 ,1072–1079.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rushton, J.P., Jackson, D.N., & Paunonen, S.V. (1981). Personality: Nomothetic or idiographic? A response to Kenrick & Stringfield. Psychological Review, 88 ,582–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, D.J. (1973). Implicit personality theory: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 79 ,294–309.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shrauger, J.S., & Osberg, T.M. (1981). The relative accuracy of self-prediction and judgements by others in psychological assessment. Psychological Bulletin, 90 ,322–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A. (1975). How relevant is an individual difference theory of personality? Journal of Personality, 43 ,455–484.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A. (1977a). Illusory correlation and the MMPI controversy (Commentaries by J. Block and A. Edwards). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49 ,917–924.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A. (1977 b). Illusory correlation and the MMPI controversy: Author’s reply to some of the allusions and illusions in Block’s and Edward’s commentaries. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 45 ,936–940.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A. (1982). Fact and artifact in trait-perception: The systematic distortion hypothesis. Progress in Experimental Personality Research, 11 ,65–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A., & D’Andrade, R.G. (1979). Accurate reflection or systematic distortion? A reply to Block, Weiss, and Thorne. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 ,1075–1084

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shweder, R.A., & D’Andrade, R.G. (1980). The systematic distortion hypothesis. In Shweder, R.A. (Ed.). Fallible judgement in behavioral research. New directions for methodology of social and behavioral science (Vol. 4). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 ,1075–1084.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30 ,526–537.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, M. (1979). Self-monitoring processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology ,12 ,85–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, M., & Gangestad, S. (1982). Choosing social situations: Two investigations of self-monitoring processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 ,123–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, M., & Monson, T.C. (1975). Persons, situations, and the control of social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32 ,637–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, M., & Tanke, E.D. (1976). Behavior and attitude: Some people are more consistent than others. Journal of Personality, 44 ,501–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stagner, R. (1977). On the reality and relevance of traits. The Journal of General Psychology ,96 ,185–207.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stern, G.G. (1970). People in context: Measuring person-environment congruence in education and industry. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stones, M.J., & Burt, D. (1978). Quasi-statistical inference in rating behavior. Journal of Re search in Personality, 12 ,381–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stricker, L.J., Jacobs, P.I., & Kogan, N. (1974). Trait interrelations and implicit personality theories and questionnaire data. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30 ,198–207

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tränkle, U. (1982). Über Zusammenhänge zwischen der sprachlichen Schwierigkeit von Fragebogen-Items, teststatistischen Gütekriterien und Beantwortungsverhalten. Diagnosti ca ,28 ,289–306.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, R.G. (1978). Consistency, self-consciousness, and the predictive validity of typical and maximal personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality. 12 ,117–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, R.G., & Gilliland, L. (1979). The comparative relevance and predictive validity of subject generated trait descriptions. Journal of Personality, 47 ,230–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tzeng, O.C.S. (1982). The artificial dispute over implicit personality theory: An answer to Jackson, Stricker, and Mirels. Journal of Personality, 50 ,251–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tzeng, O.C.S., & Tzeng, C.-H. (1982). Implicit personality theory: Myth or fact? An illustration of how empirical research can miss. Journal of Personality, 50 ,223–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wachtel, P.L. (1973). Psychodynamics, behavior therapy and the implacable experimenter: An inquiry into the consistency of personality. Journal of Psychology, 82 ,324–334.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weigel, R.H., & Newman, L.S. (1976). Increasing attitude-behavior correspondence by broadening the scope of the behavioral measure. Journal of Personality and Social Psy chology, 33 ,793–802.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, J.S. (1973). Personality and prediction. Principles of personality assessment. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiggins, J.S. (1979). Psychological taxonomy of trait descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 ,395–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willerman, L. ,Turner, R.P., & Peterson, M. (1976). A comparison of the predictive validity of typical and maximal personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 10 ,482–492.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zanna, M.P., Olson, J.M., & Fazio, R.H. (1980). Attitude-behavior consistency -An individual difference perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38 ,432–440.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Manfred Amelang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter Borkenau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Universitätsstraße, D-4800, Bielefeld 1, Deutschland

    Alois Angleitner

  2. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2075 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6T 1W5

    Jerry S. Wiggins

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Amelang, M., Borkenau, P. (1986). The Trait Concept: Current Theoretical Considerations, Empirical Facts, and Implications for Personality Inventory Construction. In: Angleitner, A., Wiggins, J.S. (eds) Personality Assessment via Questionnaires. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70751-3_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70751-3_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-70753-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-70751-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation