2. Personality -Trait Theories

Hans Eysenck was born in Germany and moved to England to study when he was 18.  Through his years of study as a psychologist, he wrote many books and articles .  

During 1940s Eysenck was working at the Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London. His job was to make an initial assessment of each patient before their mental disorder was diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Through this position he compiled a battery of questions about behavior, which he latter applied to 700 soldiers who were being treated for neurotic disorders at the hospital (Eysenck (1947).

He used a technique called factor analysis. This technique reduces behavior to a number of factors which can be grouped together under separate headings, called dimensions.

Eysenck (1947) found that their behavior could be represented by two dimensions: Introversion / Extroversion (E); Neuroticism / Stability (N). Eysenck called these second-order personality traits.

IntroversionExtraversion      and       Neuroticism/Emotional Stability  scales