404. What are psychological traits or characteristics?

Traits and characteristics are the same thing. A trait is a distinguishing characteristic, feature or quality.  In psychological terms, we usually think about personality traits and behavioral characteristics that define an individual. We all have traits. Psychologists often refer to personality traits or characteristics.  The unique combination of personality traits we each possess makes us individuals.  But, certain traits have become associated with psychological problems. For example, if someone is very neat and orderly, many people might call them obsessive-compulsive. That implies that all orderly people have something wrong with them, and that’s just not true! 

Many psychologists have studied personality traits, and have attempted to identify or define all of the different human characteristics. Of course, there is continuing debate about how many different personality traits exist. You might want to think of people possessing personality traits on a continuum. That is, some people have a lot of a particular trait, and others have very little of that trait. If we studied lots of people, we would be able to identify what is an average amount of each trait. That is exactly what psychologists have done.  We all possess some traits more than most people, and possess other traits less than other people, and possess still other traits in about an average amount. The unique combination of traits makes us individuals, and the number of possible combinations of traits is in the millions. 

Here are some examples of personality traits psychologists have identified and studied: 

• warmth
• emotional stability
• independence
• dominance
• impulsivity
• sensitivity
• imagination
• introversion-extroversion
• suspiciousness
• boldness