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Psychology vocabulary · Personality

Trait

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/treɪt/nounCore term

In psychology, trait means: A relatively stable tendency to think, feel or behave in a certain way across many situations, such as being outgoing, anxious or organised.

In Turkish: kişilik özelliği, özellik

How it is used

Used in personality psychology (trait theory, the Big Five traits) and in anxiety research (trait anxiety versus state anxiety). Traits are treated as dimensions: people score higher or lower on them rather than simply having them or not.

Example sentences

  1. Conscientiousness is the personality trait most consistently linked to job performance.

  2. Trait anxiety was measured with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.

Common collocations

  • personality trait
  • trait theory
  • trait anxiety
  • score high on a trait
  • personalityThe fairly stable pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving that makes a person different from others and consistent across situations and over time.
  • Big FiveA widely used model that describes personality with five broad traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
  • extraversionA personality trait describing how outgoing, talkative, energetic and sociable a person is, and how much they seek stimulation and the company of others.
  • temperamentA child's inborn, biologically based style of reacting to the world, such as activity level, mood and how easily they adapt, which forms a basis for later personality.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Personality

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.