Personality Traits

Classics in the History of Psychology
An internet resource developed by
Christopher D. Green
York University, Toronto, Ontario
ISSN 1492-3173
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PERSONALITY TRAITS: THEIR CLASSIFICATION AND MEASUREMENT [1]

By Floyd H. Allport & Gordon W. Allport (1921)
First Published in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 16, 6-40.
Posted March 2000
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I.
The Nature and Criteria of Personality
THOSE who have been active of late in measuring intelligence have made great progress in the development of measuring scales but very slight progress in the actual definition of intelligence. In dealing with the elusive term "Personality" we may well expect still less satisfactory clarity of definition, no matter what success we have in its measurement. In the measurement of intelligence we have at least the advantage of scales of performance in various mental functions standardized into age or point scale groups. We have, in other words, a means of comparing an individual with his fellows in certain abilities, even though we may not be so bold as to term those abilities intelligence. We may seek, moreover, for a person's mental level in his relative success of adjustment, either to the problems of the school curriculum or to the general problems of life. In this manner a quantitative statement of at least an hypothetical intelligence may be obtained.
The measurement of personality, however, embraces none of these advantages. Individual differences are so great and personal traits so vaguely related to the solution of problems that the notion of an age scale in personality has no significance. Moreover, personalities of divers sorts succeed equally well in the general adaptation to situations of practical life. It may be added that differences of personality are of a qualitative rather than a quantitative sort. These difficulties stand in the way of the development of a personality measurement based. on the correlation between tests...