Traits and States and Characters

Note: Tomorrow through Sunday I will be busy leading and doing Moulage at Missouri Hope, a grueling schedule out in the middle of a county park's low maintenance/challenge course area. I don't know if I will have the time, energy, or bandwidth to write installations. I'd love to find the time, because life in the moulage tent tends to be a gruesome party as well as a learning experience.
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In psychology, particularly in personality psychology, behaviors and feelings can be categorized in two ways: traits and states.

Traits are behaviors and feelings that are stable over time; they are patterns and behaviors. For those of us who write, traits are items that we document in a character sheet. So we have characters who are introverted or extroverted, quiet or loud, amused or hostile, mellow or excitable (all of these actually fall on a spectrum; there are few total introverts or total extroverts). These are modes we see our characters in day-to-day, and that we describe often through actions, facial expressions and body language, and verbal expressions.

States are behaviors and feelings that result from situations and motives at one point in time. They're fleeting. When the situation resolves, or the motive is realized or released, the state resolves as well. Again, as writers, we express these through actions, facial expressions and body language, and verbal expressions. (Note: It's better to show feelings in writing by describing than simply stating "I'm mad".)

One way to think of states is that they're the behavior that results from challenge, whether that be conflict, threat, or change.

A demonstration of traits versus states:

     Jill sat on the floor in the living room in sweats and bunny slippers, her legs sprawled out in front       of her, her back propped up against the couch. She sat with a bowl of popcorn in her lap,                     watching Next Generation on Netflix with her roommate Emma, who sat on the couch.

     "Data," Jill sighed as she passed the bowl up to Emma, "I want to marry Data."

     "Jill," Emma pointed out dryly, "Data is an android."

     "Yeah, but he'd never piss me off, would he?" Jill joked.

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Jill doesn't face any sort of challenge. Her natural personality -- the traits -- show up here. She's laid-back (her posture on the couch, her happy sigh), her bonding with Emma (the popcorn bowl), her sense of humor (wanting to marry Data).

Let's introduce a challenge:

     Jeff strolled in on his lanky legs, puppy in tow. The scar on his cheek accentuated the cold look in       his eyes. Jill stiffened up as Jeff towered over her.

    "Jeff, do you have the rent for me yet?" Jill asked after a deep breath. "You owe three months               now."

     Jill glanced up to see Jeff scrutinize her little black cat sprawled on a chair. She felt a chill as               Jeff's face twisted into an arrogant pout and he casually offered, "It would be a shame if that cat           wound up dead one morning."

     Jill felt herself stand as if pulled by strings; she strode up to Jeff and got in his face, spearing his         gaze as if she was his long-ago drill sergeant. Her voice turned to ice despite her internal                     trembling: "If you so much as lay a finger on my cat, I will take your puppy, I will strangle it, I           will cut it up and feed it to you, and you will think it's chicken." Jill turned on her heel and stalked       out before Jeff could see she was bluffing.
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Jill has just gone from easygoing to menacing because of a threat to her cat. She carries it off despite the fact she is shaking internally, almost as if she's possessed. But this is not her normal state -- it's just what she's pressed to do.

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When focusing on state-based behavior (i.e. behavior as the result of a challenge), it has to be believable -- wrapped in trait behavior and an incident that proves the change has a reason.  It also helps if the character has to examine the change in the behavior:

     Jill stood in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She saw her pale face, but she knew t           that was not the face that had faced Jeff. She had felt only fury, fury she didn't know she had, fury       that she could channel into lethal ice. She knew she would never kill the puppy, much less cook           him for dinner. But she would never let Jeff know that, or else she would fall into danger again.

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Study yourself. What would you consider your traits? What are some situations that have had you "not acting like yourself" -- in other words, personality states?