Final answer:
Trait theory describes personality as a composite of an individual's psychological processes, focusing on stable characteristics and ways of behaving.
Step-by-step explanation:
Trait theorists believe personality can be understood via the approach that all people have certain traits, or characteristic ways of behaving. For example, one trait theorist, Gordon Allport, found 4,500 words in the English language that could describe people and organized these personality traits into three categories: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits. Trait theorists attempt to explain our personality by identifying our stable characteristics and ways of behaving. The Five Factor Model is the most widely accepted theory today, which includes dimensions of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.