Act Frequency Approach
In science, it has proven to be very difficult, if not impossible, to find exact definitions for concepts of layman psychology, by either stating the conditions that constitute a certain personality trait, or by exhaustively listing all the acts that identify a bearer of that trait. What exactly defines an individual as "creative", "humorous", or "ambitious"? Equally difficult is the measurement of how strongly a trait is pronounced in an individual. As a solution, Buss and K. H. Craik (1980) proposed to introduce prototype theory into personality psychology.
First, a group of people is asked to list acts that a person bearing the trait in question would show. Next, a different group of people is asked to name from that list those acts that are most typical for the trait. Then the measurement is conducted by counting the number of times (within a given period of time), a proband performs the typical acts.
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