Understanding Personality Psychology:The Essential Guide to Models, Tests, Types, and Traits
Let's differentiate these four important foundations for understanding and proper use of personality psychology resources.
- 1.What is a personality model?
- 2.What is a personality test?
- 3.What is a personality type?
- 4.What is a personality trait?
Tom (Type Mapp)
Psychology Digest Editorial Team
1. What is a personality model?
Personality models are theories and conceptual frameworks that seek to describe, explain, organize, and predict cognitive, behavioral, and emotional patterns.
Models organize principles in order to anticipate outcomes. They can, differ significantly from one another in terms of structure and logic.
In summary, each personality model is a theoretical framework that explains psychological particularities according to its own criteria.
For example, the Enneagram model frames personality in terms of emotional fixations, while the MBTI model describes cognitive structures. The Big Five model, on the other hand, stands out for being based on statistical models and factor analysis.
2. What is a personality test?
These are questionnaires designed to evaluate and classify the test-taker according to categories predefined by the models—that is, based on psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and/or emotional characteristics.
Key insight: The personality test is the instrument that allows identification of the principles of a theoretical personality model.
Personality tests can have many approaches and applications. While some aim to describe which variation of person you are—like the aforementioned examples—others are more specific, focusing on identifying a single trait, such as trustworthiness or a particular disorder.
3. What is a personality type?
A personality type is a set of coherent psychological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics defined within a specific theory.
Definition: It serves as an identifier of multiple likely traits grouped under one broad category—the type. By knowing that two people share the same type, you can broadly infer similar characteristics between them, within the limits of the theoretical framework.
4. What is a personality trait?
A personality trait is a stable and measurable psychological characteristic that influences an individual's thinking, emotions, and behavior. Traits exist on a continuum, meaning that a person is not categorized in an absolute way, but rather presents a specific degree of each trait.
Difference between trait and personality type
A personality type is a general classification that groups people according to predominant characteristics, without exact measurement. That is, it broadly describes how someone tends to behave, but without specifying the degree to which they do so.
A personality trait, on the other hand, is a specific and quantifiable dimension. Instead of classifying someone into a closed category, it identifies at what level they present a particular characteristic.
Key Takeaway
Personality types offer a global and simplified view, while personality traits allow for more precise and quantifiable analysis.
Two people of the same type may resemble each other, but they can have a completely different impact in situations depending on how they manifest critical traits.
Understanding the Foundations
These four concepts form the foundation of personality psychology and are essential for anyone looking to understand themselves and others more deeply.
Models & Tests
Provide the theoretical framework and measurement tools for understanding personality
Types & Traits
Offer different approaches to categorizing and measuring individual differences
Tom (Type Mapp)
Psychology Digest Editorial Team
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