Trait theorists generally believe that our traits are largely inherited rather than acquired. Agressiveness is a personality trait; so is shyness. Our propensity to be outgoing(extroverted) or introverted (quiet and reserved) is a result, according to the trait psychologists, primarily from our genetics and not from our experiences. Trait theorists, however, differ on what specific traits are the most important ones and how those traits can be observed. For the most part, personality traits are the more or less permanent characteristics each of us has. Taken together, they make up our personality.
We infer a trait from how a person behaves. If someone consistenly throws parties, goes to great lengths to make friends, and travels in groups, we might safely conclude that this person possesses a high degree of socialbility. Our language has many words that describe personality traits.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_personality_traits
1. Gorden Allport (1897-1967) went through the dictionary and found nearly 18,000 words that might refer to personality traits. For Allport, traits-or "dispositions", as he called them- are literally encoded in the nervous system as structures that guide consistent behavior across a variety of situations. He categorized and identified three types of traits; cardinal traits(traits that override a person's whole being), central traits(the primary characteristics of a person) and secondary traits(traits that constitute interests). http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/allport.html
2. Raymond Cattell saw traits differently. Using a statistical technique called factor analysis, rated people on 200 personality characteristics. He found that traits tend to cluster in groups. thus a person who is described as determined is also likely to be thought of as responsible, ordered, attentive and stable. These observable traits he called surface traits. However, source traits, are the traits that we cannot observe, but produce the behavior we see. Cattell narrowed personality source traits down to 16 characteristics. http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/fehringer.html
3.Hans Eysenck, http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/eysenck.html developed the the Eysenck Personality Inventory, a questionarie designed to examine peoples personalities based on three major traits: Psychoticism, Extroversion,and Neuroticism. Take the test and record your result s http://similarminds.com/eysenck.html
4. Are You type A or B? Take a 5 minute Quiz to find out http://cl1.psychtests.com/take_test.php?idRegTest=2986
5. According to William Sheldon what somatotype are you? http://wilderdom.com/personality/L6-1PersonalityTypes.html
6. McCrea The Big Five Personality Test http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/
http://test.personality-project.org/
http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newbig5.pl
This test will classify your personality into five categories and provide charts with percentage scores for each category. These are considered the Big Five personality categories: 1. Neuroticism 2. Extraversion 3. Openness to Experience 4. Agreeableness 5. Conscientiousness. It will provide an overall chart with a percentage score for each of the five categories and an overall personality description. Then each of the five categories will further be broken down into subcategories on a chart with percentages and another paragraph describing more of your personality specific to the particular category. You can email yourself the results of this survey and it will email the entire page with charts and all.
7. Homework: Big Five Dimensions of Personality and read "The Testing of America" http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040920/20test.htm
Read and summarize what the article is saying about the tests you have just taken.
*Perhaps the most widely used assessment tool that measures traits is the MMPI-2,(Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, second edition). This test is frequently used as a prepackaged assessment tool measuring everything from traits to mental disorders.is one of the great "grand-daddy" psychological tests. It is given only under certain conditions for specific reasons, usually by a clinical psychologist, sometimes a psychiatrist, in a clinical or mental-health center setting.
To make it available to the general public, for example on line or in the Sunday newspaper, would be self-defeating, in that it would lose two central features of all such tests: validity and reliability.
Try the Keirsey Temperament Sorter http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0
Requirements: Print a copy of the short report and hand in questions by the end of the period.
JUST FOR FUN
Some other fun personality inventories: Two Sides of Love Personality Survey
Personality test whose end result will describe you as one of four animals (lion, beaver, otter, and golden retriever). This website is not as sophisticated as the others, but the survey is a good one, and is especially easy to remember because of the animals. It will not calculate your results automatically. You will either need to print it out and complete it by circling the descriptors in each section or write down your descriptors for each section and tally your total by hand. It seems complex, but it will be worth your while.
41 Questions Personality Quiz
This is a 41 question personality quiz that will classify your personality into a descriptive category. It will describe your personality based on your answers and also give you career suggestions that might best suit you based on your personality. Make sure to read the instructions before beginning. After you have received your result, you can email yourself the results. They will send you a hyperlink to the results page so that you can look at it again. If you click on the more in depth results button, it will just take you to an advertisement, so you might want to skip that part even though it seems enticing, it goes nowhere.
Human Metrics Personality Survey
This personality survey is a Myers Briggs (considered to be the standard in personality tests) survey and will classify you into one of four categories (Guardian, Idealist, Artisan, and Rational) with four subcategories in each category for 16 total possibilities (Supervisor(ESTJ),Inspector(ISTJ), Provider(ESFJ),Protector(ISFJ), Promoter(ESTP), Crafter(ISTP), Performer(ESFP),Composer(ISFP), Teacher(ENFJ), Counselor(INFJ), Champion(ENFP), Healer(INFP), Fieldmarshal(ENTJ), Mastermind(INTJ), Inventor(ENTP), Architect(INTP). It will score you on a scale of 8 items in 4 categories (intorvert/extrovert, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling, judging, perceiving) and then give you a four letter combination to describe your total personality. After you receive your results, you can go to a couple of other links to find out more information about your personality type. These are quite extensive and give lots of great information. In addition, it will also give the names of famous people who have the same personality type as you. Do you know who any of these people are? Can you identify with any of the people?
The Enneagram Personality Survey
The Enneagram scores you into one of nine personality categories: The Perfectionist (the One), The Helper (the Two), The Achiever (the Three), The Romantic (the Four), The Observer (the Five), The Questioner (the Six), The Adventurer (the Seven), The Asserter (the Eight), and The Peacemaker (the Nine). In addition, it will also give you two supporting numbers that are your secondary personality categories that complement and add to your primary number or category. You will get a numerical representation of your type on the results page. It will give an overview of each of the nine types. To find out more about your specific type, click on it and it will take you to a more in depth description. This one will tell you what your type is like at your best and not so best as well as how to relate to the other types.
Career Path: Lots of work... but worth it!
http://www.csun.edu/~sp20558/dis/discover.html
We infer a trait from how a person behaves. If someone consistenly throws parties, goes to great lengths to make friends, and travels in groups, we might safely conclude that this person possesses a high degree of socialbility. Our language has many words that describe personality traits.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_personality_traits
1. Gorden Allport (1897-1967) went through the dictionary and found nearly 18,000 words that might refer to personality traits. For Allport, traits-or "dispositions", as he called them- are literally encoded in the nervous system as structures that guide consistent behavior across a variety of situations. He categorized and identified three types of traits; cardinal traits(traits that override a person's whole being), central traits(the primary characteristics of a person) and secondary traits(traits that constitute interests). http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/allport.html
2. Raymond Cattell saw traits differently. Using a statistical technique called factor analysis, rated people on 200 personality characteristics. He found that traits tend to cluster in groups. thus a person who is described as determined is also likely to be thought of as responsible, ordered, attentive and stable. These observable traits he called surface traits. However, source traits, are the traits that we cannot observe, but produce the behavior we see. Cattell narrowed personality source traits down to 16 characteristics. http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/fehringer.html
3.Hans Eysenck, http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/eysenck.html developed the the Eysenck Personality Inventory, a questionarie designed to examine peoples personalities based on three major traits: Psychoticism, Extroversion,and Neuroticism. Take the test and record your result s http://similarminds.com/eysenck.html
4. Are You type A or B? Take a 5 minute Quiz to find out http://cl1.psychtests.com/take_test.php?idRegTest=2986
5. According to William Sheldon what somatotype are you? http://wilderdom.com/personality/L6-1PersonalityTypes.html
6. McCrea The Big Five Personality Test http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/
http://test.personality-project.org/
http://similarminds.com/cgi-bin/newbig5.pl
This test will classify your personality into five categories and provide charts with percentage scores for each category. These are considered the Big Five personality categories: 1. Neuroticism 2. Extraversion 3. Openness to Experience 4. Agreeableness 5. Conscientiousness. It will provide an overall chart with a percentage score for each of the five categories and an overall personality description. Then each of the five categories will further be broken down into subcategories on a chart with percentages and another paragraph describing more of your personality specific to the particular category. You can email yourself the results of this survey and it will email the entire page with charts and all.
7. Homework: Big Five Dimensions of Personality and read "The Testing of America" http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040920/20test.htm
Read and summarize what the article is saying about the tests you have just taken.
*Perhaps the most widely used assessment tool that measures traits is the MMPI-2,(Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, second edition). This test is frequently used as a prepackaged assessment tool measuring everything from traits to mental disorders.is one of the great "grand-daddy" psychological tests. It is given only under certain conditions for specific reasons, usually by a clinical psychologist, sometimes a psychiatrist, in a clinical or mental-health center setting.
To make it available to the general public, for example on line or in the Sunday newspaper, would be self-defeating, in that it would lose two central features of all such tests: validity and reliability.
Try the Keirsey Temperament Sorter http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/instruments2.aspx?partid=0
Requirements: Print a copy of the short report and hand in questions by the end of the period.
JUST FOR FUN
Some other fun personality inventories: Two Sides of Love Personality Survey
Personality test whose end result will describe you as one of four animals (lion, beaver, otter, and golden retriever). This website is not as sophisticated as the others, but the survey is a good one, and is especially easy to remember because of the animals. It will not calculate your results automatically. You will either need to print it out and complete it by circling the descriptors in each section or write down your descriptors for each section and tally your total by hand. It seems complex, but it will be worth your while.
41 Questions Personality Quiz
This is a 41 question personality quiz that will classify your personality into a descriptive category. It will describe your personality based on your answers and also give you career suggestions that might best suit you based on your personality. Make sure to read the instructions before beginning. After you have received your result, you can email yourself the results. They will send you a hyperlink to the results page so that you can look at it again. If you click on the more in depth results button, it will just take you to an advertisement, so you might want to skip that part even though it seems enticing, it goes nowhere.
Human Metrics Personality Survey
This personality survey is a Myers Briggs (considered to be the standard in personality tests) survey and will classify you into one of four categories (Guardian, Idealist, Artisan, and Rational) with four subcategories in each category for 16 total possibilities (Supervisor(ESTJ),Inspector(ISTJ), Provider(ESFJ),Protector(ISFJ), Promoter(ESTP), Crafter(ISTP), Performer(ESFP),Composer(ISFP), Teacher(ENFJ), Counselor(INFJ), Champion(ENFP), Healer(INFP), Fieldmarshal(ENTJ), Mastermind(INTJ), Inventor(ENTP), Architect(INTP). It will score you on a scale of 8 items in 4 categories (intorvert/extrovert, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling, judging, perceiving) and then give you a four letter combination to describe your total personality. After you receive your results, you can go to a couple of other links to find out more information about your personality type. These are quite extensive and give lots of great information. In addition, it will also give the names of famous people who have the same personality type as you. Do you know who any of these people are? Can you identify with any of the people?
The Enneagram Personality Survey
The Enneagram scores you into one of nine personality categories: The Perfectionist (the One), The Helper (the Two), The Achiever (the Three), The Romantic (the Four), The Observer (the Five), The Questioner (the Six), The Adventurer (the Seven), The Asserter (the Eight), and The Peacemaker (the Nine). In addition, it will also give you two supporting numbers that are your secondary personality categories that complement and add to your primary number or category. You will get a numerical representation of your type on the results page. It will give an overview of each of the nine types. To find out more about your specific type, click on it and it will take you to a more in depth description. This one will tell you what your type is like at your best and not so best as well as how to relate to the other types.
Career Path: Lots of work... but worth it!
http://www.csun.edu/~sp20558/dis/discover.html
