IRT can also represent the empirical fit, or traitedness, of individual item response patterns to the theoretical assumptions of psychological dimensions. Broadly speaking, traitedness is a way to quantify the degree to which specific traits are consequential in affecting an individual’s behaviors, thoughts, and affects (Sheppard, 1999). Reise and Waller (1993), working toward a more specific operationalization of this concept, stated that traitedness refers to “the degree to which a person’s behavior is consistent with a dimensional trait construct.” These investigators explored traitedness as a variable to evaluate the degree to which an individual’s pattern of responses is not congruent with theoretically anticipated response patterns on a particular dimension.
