Modern personality research tends to focus on specific traits. Psychologists have moved away from attempting to develop "grand theories" of personality such as those of the psychodynamic and humanistic theorists. Why do you think this has occurred? Do you think the trend toward "mini-theories" that focus on specific personality traits is the best way to advance our understanding of personality?

What will be an ideal response?


A good approach to answering this question would be to point to the lack of empirical evidence that's available to support the grand theories of the psychodynamic and humanistic theorists. On the other hand, theories about specific traits have been easier to test.

An insightful response to this question might be one that acknowledges the advances that the mini-theories have accomplished at least some fairly reliable understanding of some of the "pieces" of personality. But a fuller understanding of personality requires that these pieces be arranged in such a way that there is a completed puzzle of personality results. And this might be best accomplished under the direction of an overall blueprint, i.e., a grand theory. So there would seem to be some need for these larger theories as well.

Psychology

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