Abstract
This chapter is about the way traits are used in personality descriptions. My research is concerned with what traits mean, both in isolation and in combination. It is grounded in a constructivist view of personality, which is an example of the broader social-constructivist movement in psychology (Gergen, 1985; Landman & Manis, 1983). According to this view, socially constructed concepts (e.g., “madness,” “childhood,” and “aging”) are composed of attributes in the real world and the social significance attached to them. Personality may also be thought of as a social creation based on behaviors and the social meanings attached to them (Hampson, 1988).
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Hampson, S.E. (1989). Using Traits to Construct Personality. In: Buss, D.M., Cantor, N. (eds) Personality Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4_22
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