Traits Are Summaries Of How A Person Usually Acts

If traits are not brain circuits that cause a certain type of behavior in all situations, then what are they? Traits could be thought of as summaries of how a person usually acts. The most popular trait framework (the “big five”) was in fact developed by analyzing personality-descriptive words.

A different way to think of personality is as a set of processes — characteristic ways of perceiving, interpreting, and responding to certain features of situations.