A model of the cognitive representation of personality traits is proposed in which traits are regarded as categories which are applied to situation‐specific action units composed of situational, behavioural and motivational attributes. Evidence to support the view that trait categories vary on a dimension of trait‐behaviour associatedness and that instances of trait categories vary in terms of prototypicality is presented. The power of the model to account for previous findings in implicit personality theory, and to resolve the issue of the epistemological status of personality traits, is discussed.
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Sarah E. Hampson (1982) studied this question.