Literature Review Trait theory is “a relatively consistent way of thinking, feeling, and behaving in different situations” as it relates to communication (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011) . Trait theory could also be classified as personality theory since personality is what causes a person to behave in a certain way due to their emotional qualities, or way of thinking and feeling. Communication is “the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behavior to express or exchange information or to express ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. to someone else” (“communication,” 2013). Komarraju et al. (2011) define communication as a process of encoding, recalling, organizing and applying information. By comparing the definitions of both trait and communication, it becomes clear that personality is an important factor in communication as both utilize behaviors due to thoughts and feelings. Although thoughts and feelings are associated with emotions, emotions and personality are not synonymous, although emotions are often confused with an individual's personality (Hall, Gunnery, & Andrzejewski, DATE). When researching trait theory and how traits influence communication, one particular trait theory has stood out the most due to both the ease of application and the amount of research done on this particular theory. The Five Factor Model of Personality, or The Big Five, appeared to be the most relevant theory researched, although not much study has been done on the theory in direct application to communications, existing research has correlations with communication that make the theory relevant in studies on trait theory for communication. These studies are relevant to all forms of communication. Because of the five-factor model of personality that is defined…middle of the paper…experience has greater access to a variety of feelings, thoughts, perspectives, and ideas,” (George & Zhou, 2001). If we consider the definition of communication with the traits of individuals with a high score in terms of openness, this would imply that open individuals should be better at expressing themselves than others, therefore, they are better at communicating in certain ways than others considering that communication is more than just words, the highly artistic and creative traits of open individuals would indicate that these individuals may be more skilled at communicating visually than those with less open characteristics. However, when examining communication, openness appeared to have less influences some types of communication compared to other traits. For example, openness had a minimal impact on social media use compared to other traits (Source, DATE).