Ch. 5: Traits and Types: The Big Five and Beyond

Single-trait approach

The research strategy of focusing on one particular trait of interest and learning as much as possible about its behavioral correlates, developmental antecedents, and life consequences

Many-trait approach

The research strategy that focuses on a particular behavior and investigates its correlates with as many different personality traits as possible in order to explain the basis of the behavior and to illuminate the workings of personality

Essential-trait approach

The research strategy that attempts to narrow the list of thousands of trait terms into a shorter list of the ones that really matter

Typological approach

The research strategy that focuses on identifying types of individuals. Each type is characterized by a particular pattern of traits

California Q-set

A set of 100 descriptive items (e.g., “is critical, skeptical, not easily impressed”) that comprehensively covers the personality domain

Lexical hypothesis

The idea that, if people find something is important, they will develop a word for it, and therefore the major personality traits will have synonymous terms in many different languages