figure 13.7 Is a trait a “thing”—a single structure in the mind or brain that causes consistent patterns of behavior? Maybe not. Trait terms might just be words that describe patterns of correlations among personality test items that are inherently interconnected. That is an implication of network analysis. In this network analysis of the correlations among items designed to measure the Big Five personality traits, items (indicated by numbers) that are closer in the network are more highly correlated. Traits (neuroticism, extraversion, etc.) do not cause the correlations to occur; they merely describe naturally occurring patterns in the data. The inset diagram in the upper right is what the network would look like if the five traits were independent.