Guilford’s trait theory

  J.P. Guilford is another important psychologist who have tried to analyse and predict about personality on the basis of traits. The importance of trait for Guildford’s view about personality can be understood from his definition of personality which states that an individual personality is nothing but the individual’s unique pattern of traits. Trait, for him, is any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one person differs from another.

Using factor analysis, Guilford came to the conclusion that there are seven modalities of traits, that is (i) morphological, (ii) physiological, (iii) needs, (iv) interest, (v) attitudes (vi) aptitudes and (vii) temperament. The first two are the somatic traits whereas the last five are behavioural aspects of personality.

Guilford has emphasised that these modalities should not be regarded as seven separate constituent parts of personality but personality must be seen as integrated whole and these seven modalities can be seven different directions from which the whole can be viewed. In other words, personality is not the sum total of seven traits but rather a whole or single entity which can be looked at from at least seven different angles. 

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