Hello ToK Society,

In our previous discussions of Formism, trait theory / type theory has been brought up.

Personality psychologists in academia typically favor trait theory, (particularly the "Big Five"), and typically reject type theory, (at least as far as I can tell). Trait theory dominates.

However, when you look at abnormal psychology, (particularly the DSM), it's implicitly a type theory...specifically, a categorization of disordered personality types, no? 

What's up with that? Why does "mainstream" psychology implicitly seem to be OK with type theory only in a negative sense? That is, perfectly fine with the notion of unhealthy, disordered and maladaptive personality types while rejecting the notion of healthy, ordered and adaptive personality types?

~ Jason Bessey