Trait, Factor, and Social Cognitive Personality Theories

Trait and Factor Theories

Personality trait and factor theories have been developed as a means of identifying common elements within the personalities of different people — indeed, across the entire population. Within any given group, there are common threads of experience, similar nurturing, and even shared genetics, yet the personality of each member is a unique construction of individual elements working together. Among those who have produced significant work in this area are Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck. Each used scientific factor analysis to identify common traits, or permanent dispositions, of people. Cattell identified a large number of personality traits, whereas Eysenck's research extracted only three general factors (McGraw-Hill, 2002). Like Freud, who identified the id, ego, and superego as measurements of the personal mind, will, and emotion, the categories identified by these researchers give us the ability to understand the unique functions of personality, emotions, and desires.

Allport's Dispositional Theory

Gordon Allport distinguished between common traits held within a group and personal dispositions, which are individual. He believed that individuals have overlapping levels of personality, which included:

• Cardinal dispositions — controlling and dominating characteristics.
• Central dispositions — general characteristics around which a person's life revolves.
• Secondary dispositions — less reliable and less conspicuous than central traits.

Allport believed that these dispositions were motivated by individual motivational characteristics. He identified three motivations that drove people to act according to their individual dispositions:

• Reactive and Proactive Theories of Motivation: People either responded to their environment or proactively sought to influence their surroundings.
• Functional Autonomy: People are motivated at different levels of the psyche that are not specifically interdependent.
• Conscious and Unconscious Motivation: People are motivated by deliberate conscious actions as well as subconscious desires (McGraw-Hill, 2002).

Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory

Bandura was dissatisfied with what he called simplistic perspectives on personality, and developed a framework based on the assumption that a person's personality and their environment determine and influence each other. His work began with adolescents, from which he drew four steps in the process that models and shapes personal character:

• Attention: The degree to which a person is affected by their environment is a measure of the attention paid to it. Bandura suggested that people pay the most attention to that which is most like themselves.
• Retention: We remember what we have paid attention to, and therefore those influences are likely to have the greatest effect on us.
• Reproduction: Those things to which we have given our attention and internalized through retention are the characteristics most likely to resurface and be reproduced in our lives.
• Motivation: These three activities are likely to remain inactive unless we perceive a motivation to apply what we have taken in. Bandura suggests that the most influential motivators are reinforcements for behavior or punishment for our actions (Boeree, 1998).

Bandura's social cognitive approach is explored in depth in his foundational work on social learning theory, which underpins much of contemporary personality and developmental psychology.

Conclusion

Together, these theories reflect an evolution in how psychologists understand personality — from identifying stable traits and dispositions to recognizing the dynamic, reciprocal relationship between a person and their environment. Cattell and Eysenck provided a broad taxonomic foundation; Allport refined that foundation by emphasizing the individuality of personal dispositions; and Bandura shifted the focus entirely toward the interactive processes through which personality is shaped and, at times, distorted. Understanding these frameworks provides essential grounding for the broader study of personality psychology.