Final answer:
Rona's self-ascribed characteristics of being smart, strong, and self-assured are known as central traits. These traits form an essential part of her personality and indicate typical behavior across different situations, unlike cardinal or secondary traits.
Step-by-step explanation:
The characteristics that Rona ascribes to herself, seeing herself as a smart, strong, self-assured young woman, can be best described as central traits. According to trait theorists like Gordon Allport, central traits are the fundamental characteristics that make up our personalities.
These are traits such as being loyal, kind, agreeable, friendly, or, in Rona's case, smart, strong, and self-assured. Unlike cardinal traits, which dominate a person's entire personality, central traits are the basic building blocks that depict how we typically behave across various situations. They are not as situational as secondary traits, which are only evident under specific circumstances. Furthermore, trait theorist Raymond Cattell took the approach of scoring each dimension, such as warmth or reasoning, along a continuum to reflect the varying degrees of traits present in each individual.