Central Traits Versus Peripheral Traits

Descriptions of Personality

The first usage of these terms crops up in descriptions of an individual's personality. Gordon Allport asserted that an individual's personality often contained between five to ten central traits that organized and influenced much of that person's behavior. What those five to ten traits were, however, differed from individual to individual, but if those traits could be identified, an observer could then predict how the person would respond in a wide variety of situations. At times, Allport conceded, a person's behavior might be dependent on more peripheral traits (which he termed secondary traits), but the operation of these traits would be much narrower than that of a person's central attributes.

Descriptions of Self

The second usage of central versus peripheral traits refers to people's perceptions of themselves. Central traits loom large in a person's self-concept; peripheral traits do not. According to psychological theorists stretching back all the way to William James, selfesteem is influenced the most by people's performances along these central traits. For example, if intelligence is a central trait for a person, then academic performances will have a greater impact on selfesteem than it will for someone for whom intelligence is not central.

Studies show how a trait's centrality influences selfesteem as well as behavior. People like to do well along central traits. Indeed, they like to think of themselves as superior to others along these traits. This desire can even lead people to sabotage the efforts of their friends so that they can outperform those friends along central traits, according to the work by Abraham Tesser on his self-evaluation maintenance model. Along peripheral traits, no such sabotage occurs. Instead, people bask in the reflected glory of their friend's achievements along these peripheral dimensions and feel no envy about being outperformed.

The link between trait centrality and self-esteem, however, is complex. Failure along central traits does not guarantee a significant or long-lasting blow to selfesteem. This is because people often reevaluate a trait's centrality after succeeding or failing along it. If a person chronically fails in the classroom, for example, that person can choose to de-emphasize the centrality of academic achievement in his or her self-concept. If the person succeeds in some other arena—in social circles, for example—he or she can decide to emphasize traits relevant to that arena (e.g., social skills) as more central to their self-concept. Recent evidence shows that the traits people view as central to their self-concept just happen to be the ones that they already think they have. One would expect this if people constantly reanalyzed a trait's centrality based on past successes and failures.

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