[I have wanted for some time to address the issue of characters--how to discover, define and choose the right one for the right story. The following list of questions is the foundation of what I hope will ultimately become a scalable, comprehensive character description system.]

Two key factors that have to be defined when creating a story is the Main Character's goal and their motivation. You may have even heard of the GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) method of defining characters which is also useful for defining both Main characters as well as others within the story.

But why those goals and motivations?

Following is a list of questions (subject to update) that address how a person arrives at their worldview and how that impacts their thinking. This is based on a fair amount of research I've done in psychological character trait systems and artificial intelligence modeling. (If you want more details, skip down below.)

The most important thing...

Remember that average is boring. Focus on traits that make the character stand out or a combination of traits that may seem contradictory but--because of their unique situation--are not. (Go back to your idea filter.) You don't want the character to be too strange though, so not every area needs to stand out. Consider how a common factor may run through your answers, tying the character together in the same way a single theme ties the various events of a story together.

AWARENESS
Based on their experience, what do they believe is or is not true?
What areas are they most focused on?
What do they not notice or are not aware of?

ATTITUDE
What provokes the strongest emotional reaction (good or bad) and how do they react?
What do they love, hate, value, think is important or useful?

EXPECTATIONS
How do these factors influence their ability to project and plan for future events? (In situation X, outcome Y will generally occur.*)
What significant factors do they consider Likely, Possible, Unlikely, Impossible?

BELIEFS
What do they believe should or should not be?
Which belief is strongest?
Which beliefs may seem contradictory?
How do their beliefs contrast with/contradict the beliefs of others they consider significant?(family, institutional, governmental, social, cultural, moral beliefs, etc.)
Which of these other beliefs do they feel are unimportant or wrong?

DESIRES (MOTIVATIONS)
In what way does their perception of how things are, conflict with their evaluation of how things should be or how they would prefer them to be?
How does this/these conflict(s) motivate them?
What motivation is strongest?

GOALS
What condition(s) would satisfy their desire? (What do they want to cause to happen?)
How do these goals conflict with other goals they hold?
Which goal do they consider most important?
How do these goals conflict with goals other people/institutions hold?

ABILITIES/LIMITATIONS
In addition to Attitude, Beliefs and Expectations, what other factors (real or perceived) affect how they might respond to their desire to achieve their goals?

PLANS
How do they actually plan to achieve their goals?
How are these plans un/realistic and or in/sufficient to achieve their goals?
Who will oppose them or what obstacles will interfere?
How will the plans have to change?

* How does their experience form their ideas of how the world works? For example, do they believe that hard work always pays off in the end, or do they believe one needs to cheat to get ahead because nice guys always finish last?

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Background

I have a love/hate relationship with character profile sheets. Perhaps, because of my gamer background, I really like them and feel they can be useful for fleshing out and understanding a character. Unfortunately, the majority of such profile sheets are filled with stuff that is either irrelevant to the types of stories I'm trying to tell or truly trivial. So how to create a character profile that is actually useful?

Approach

I started by examining various psychological trait systems like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the better supported (scientifically) "Big 5" and its many offshoots. Though promising, I increasingly felt that the numerous listed traits were arbitrarily grouped, often with traits that I felt arose from different mental processes. For a more systematic approach, I began to dig into Social Dynamics computer simulation and Artificial Intelligence models. (This turned out to be a useful source: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/17/4/13.html)

Conclusions

To arrive at something useful, I boiled my notes down to eight factors that determine how people make decisions. In retrospect, it all seems rather intuitive, but the process works like this:

1. Conscious sensory input and unconscious stimuli provoke an emotional response (Awareness).

2. Emotional responses build associations between categories of experiences creating attitudes.

3. Associations filter and interpret perception and build expectations. (E.g. We tend to see what we expect to see and often miss the unexpected.)

4. Cultural and personal beliefs, obligations and morality, filter and inform expectations.

5. Discrepancy between perception and expectation produces desire.

6. Beliefs (associations & expectations) and desire (emotions) suggest goals.

7. Attitudes and expectations (which here include self-perception of ability and limitations) filter and order goals and produce intentions (Plans)

Each factor is listed above with their associated questions. Ifyou include items from other character sheets, it might help to organize themby these same principles. These questions still don't quite get us to specific character traits--which would be persistent ways of understanding/responding to specific situations--but they do help define how these traits are formed. My ultimate goal would be to produce a systematic, comprehensive and (especially) scalable character description system that will allow the author to identify and describe those traits most relevant to their story.

If you have any helpful thoughts on the subject, please comment or PM me.