Personality as a stimulus: some psychologists consider its social stimulus value in order to define personality. How an individual affects other persons with whom he comes in contact, whether he is impressive or repulsive, he has dominating or submissive personality. Personality, from this point of view, becomes identical to reputation and impression, mostly in terms of physical appearance, clothing, conversation and etiquette. Generally, this concept of personality is used in selecting applicants for various hobs and courses. 2.
Personality, in layman’s term usually involves useful judgments such as social attractiveness of a person. People sometimes used this lay definitions of personality to highlight the features of an individual’s physical appearance and maybe several comments on their way of interactions with others. These definitions are normally associated with our implicit personality theories and elements of folklore within a certain culture are often included. Hence, using these definitions, personality seems to be judged based on social context. However, in psychological term personality is defined as the characteristics, or the distinct qualities in an individual.
The concept of personality has fascinated psychologists for years. Allport proposed the hierarchy of traits – cardinal, central, and secondary traits (Allport, 1945). Cattell also proposed his theory, the sixteen dimensions of human personality (Cattell, 1944). Jung developed a type-based theory of personality, with different dichotomous personality categories, which was further developed by Myers and Briggs in 1962 to produce the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Ford, 2013). Some psychologists have even argued that personality does not exist; that people change behaviour over time and across various situations.
‘Personality traits are relatively stable, cognitive, emotional and behavioural characteristics of people that help establish their individual identities and distinguish them from others.’(Holt, Bremner, Sutherland, Vliek, Passer, Smith, 2015, p645) Some examples of such traits or characteristic include funny, outgoing or shy. As with many areas of psychology there are many theories and perspectives on development and approach to personality. I will discuss some of these theories, some of which are still used today. Psychodynamic psychologists such as Freud would argue that adult personality is influenced mainly by childhood experiences whereas humanistic psychologists might argue that personality depends on a person’s experience as an adult
It is considered that personality relates to the specific traits a person displays. A trait is a characteristic, which can be related to a person, for example ‘laziness’. Therefore Peterson (1998) suggests that is a combination of these traits which results in personality. As with any construct in psychology there are numerous theories behind personality. The most common used theory in the literature currently is The Five Factor Model of Personality (FFM) used by many in their writing (Wiggins, 1996; Bleidorn et al.
Introduction A person’s body works in an extraordinary way. One’s behaviour and personality can either be shaped or even influences by internal (psychological development) or external factors (environment). In this assignment theories that contribute to personality will be dealt with in depth but first one has to understand what personality is. Personality can be defined, according to Meyer, Moore & Viljoen (2008), “as the constantly changing but nevertheless relatively stable organisation of all physical, psychological and spiritual characteristics of the individual which determine his or her behaviour in interaction within the context in which the individual finds himself or herself ’’ ¬(p.11). Later in this assignment we will go through
Personality refers to individual variations in characteristic patterns consists of physical characteristics which can be observed easily. Physical characteristics include appearance, mannerisms, voice, speech, the ability of brains, skills activities. Unlike mental characteristics, which is difficult to be observed, including emotions, attitudes, values, interests, aspirations, ideals, goals and the ability to adapt to the environment. Such characteristics are derived from an individual’s genetics and environment. Therefore, the characteristics are the ability to adapt to the environment and the differences between individuals.
The first factors that influencing an individual’s behavior is personality. There are three Personal characteristics that lead to consistent patterns of behavior. The first is observable patterns of behavior that last over time known as trait theory, second is how the unconscious of an individual reacts to stimuli called Psychoanalytic theory and the third is self-actualization and the drive to realize one’s potential also known Humanistic theory. According to Slocum and Hellriegal, “Personality represents the overall profile or combination of stable psychological attributes that capture the unique nature of a person. It combines a set of mental and physical characteristics that reflects how a person looks, thinks, acts and feels”.
James Bridges (1932) referred to personality as the quality or state of being a person, as well as, being that which constitutes or characterizes a human being. Whereas, the Encyclopedia of Psychology (2000) personality referred to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. Both definitions of personality act as an example to the evolutional psychological conception of personality. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other aspect understands how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.
I. Personality The work personality is derived from the Latin word persona, which was used to describe the different roles or disguises performed by theatrical performers. Personality can be defined as an individual’s unique characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Gordon Allport defined personality as – “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment.” II. Personality Models Many models have been given by various researchers to analyse the personality.