In psychology, trait theory is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are aspects of personality that are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals, are relatively consistent over situations, and influence behaviour. Traits are in contrast to states, which are more transitory dispositions.
The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is a public medical school in Charleston, South Carolina. It opened in 1824 as a small private college aimed at training physicians and has since established hospitals and medical facilities across the state. It is one of the oldest continually operating schools of medicine in the United States and the oldest in the Deep South.
In trait theory, the Big Five personality traits are a group of five unique characteristics used to study personality:
Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. Their behavioral responses may include procrastination, substance use, and other maladaptive behaviors, which may temporarily aid in relieving negative emotions and generating positive ones.
Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's original concept. Extraversion tends to be manifested in outgoing, talkative, energetic behavior, whereas introversion is manifested in more reflective and reserved behavior. Jung defined introversion as an "attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents", and extraversion as "an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object".
Lisa A. Cooper is an American internal medicine and public health physician who is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Equity in Health and Healthcare at Johns Hopkins University, jointly appointed in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and in the departments of Health, Behavior and Society, Health Policy and Management; Epidemiology; and International Health in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, and Director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. Cooper is also a Gilman Scholar and a core faculty member in the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research. She is internationally recognized for her research on the impact of race, ethnicity and gender on the patient-physician relationship and subsequent health disparities. She is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In 2007, she received a MacArthur Fellowship.
Personality change refers to the different forms of change in various aspects of personality. These changes include how we experience things, how our perception of experiences changes, and how we react in situations. An individual's personality may stay somewhat consistent throughout their life. Still, more often than not, everyone undergoes some form of change to their personality in their lifetime.
Arline Geronimus wrote about the weathering hypothesis the early 1990s to account for health disparities of newborn babies and birth mothers due to decades and generations of racism and social, economic, and political oppression. It is well documented that people of color and other marginalized communities have worse health outcomes than white people. This is due to multiple stressors including prejudice, social alienation, institutional bias, political oppression, economic exclusion, and racial discrimination. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the cumulative burden of these stressors as individuals age is "weathering", and the increased weathering experienced by minority groups compared to others can account for differences in health outcomes. In recent years, social scientists investigated the biological plausibility of the weathering hypothesis in studies evaluating the physiological effects of social, environmental and political stressors among marginalized communities. The weathering hypothesis is more widely accepted as a framework for explaining health disparities on the basis of differential exposure to racially based stressors. Researchers have also identified patterns connecting weathering to biological phenomena associated with stress and aging, such as allostatic load, epigenetics, telomere shortening, and accelerated brain aging.
Valerie Montgomery Rice is an American obstetrician, gynecologist, and college administrator. She is the president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine.
Tonda Hughes is an American professor of nursing and associate dean for global health research at the School of Nursing at Columbia University. She is best known for her research of factors influencing the health of sexual minority women, particularly in the area of substance use. Hughes is the principal investigator of the Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women Study, the longest-running longitudinal study of sexual minority women's health, with a focus on alcohol use and mental health.
Anna María Nápoles is an American behavioral epidemiologist and science administrator. She is the Scientific Director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She was a professor and epidemiologist at University of California, San Francisco.
Michele Kim Evans is an American internist and medical oncologist. She is a senior investigator and Deputy Scientific Director at the National Institute on Aging.
Kisha Braithwaite Holden is a scientist known for her research on mental health of African-Americans and members of other minority groups. She is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and community health & preventive medicine and interim director of Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Giselle Corbie-Smith is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. She serves as Director of the UNC Center for Health Equity Research and Associate Provost of the Institute of Rural Innovation. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018. Her research considers racial disparities in healthcare.
Lucile L. Adams-Campbell is the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States. She serves as the Professor of Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and associate director for Minority Health at the Georgetown University Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, and the Washington DC Hall of Fame.
Monica S. Webb Hooper is an American behavioral scientist and clinical psychologist serving as deputy director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She was a professor at Case Western Reserve University and associate director for cancer disparities research and director of the Office of Cancer Disparities Research in the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Monica Baskin is an American psychologist who is a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research considers health disparities in the Deep South. She serves as Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Hope Landrine was an American psychologist and professor. She is mostly recognized for her research and scholarship related to health disparities in ethnic minorities. At the end of her life, she was the director of the Center for Health Disparities Research at East Carolina University.
Kathleen T. Brady is an American psychiatrist.
Raymond N. DuBois is an American academic and scientist. He is the incumbent director of the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina and executive chairman of the board of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research. He was the president of the American Association for Cancer Research between 2008 and 2009.
