Personality traits unveiled

The idea of personality traits may be as old as human language itself. Aristotle (384-322 BC) writing the ethics in the fourth century BC, saw dispositions such as vanity, modesty and cowardice as key determinants of moral and immoral behavior. Everyday conceptions of personality traits make two key assumptions. First, traits are stable over time. It may be observed that an individual¿s behaviour naturally varies somewhat from occasion to occasion, but would maintain also that there is a core of consistency which is defined as an individual¿s ¿true nature¿. Stability distinguishes traits from more transient properties of the person, such as temporary mood states. Second, it is generally believed that traits directly influence behaviour. This study is an attempt to distinguish internal properties of the person from behaviour and to analyze the causal relationship between them leading to identifying the personality traits.