Personality
Personality
Personality refers
to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person’s unique
adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values,
self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns. Various theories explain the
structure and development of personality in different ways, but all agree that
personality helps determine behavior.
The field of
personality psychology studies the nature and definition of personality as well
as its development, structure and trait constructs, dynamic processes,
variations (with emphasis on enduring and stable individual differences), and
maladaptive forms.
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality
and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are
individually different due to psychological forces.[1] Its areas of focus
include:
construction of a coherent picture of the individual and their major
psychological processes
investigation of individual psychological differences
investigation of human nature and psychological similarities between
individuals
"Personality" is a dynamic and organized set of characteristics
possessed by an individual that uniquely influences their environment,
cognition, emotions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations. The word
personality originates from the Latin persona, which means "mask".
Personality also pertains to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social
adjustments, and behaviors persistently exhibited over time that strongly
influences one's expectations, self-perceptions, values, and attitudes.
Personality also predicts human reactions to other people, problems, and
stress.[2][3] Gordon Allport (1937) described two major ways to study
personality: the nomothetic and the idiographic. Nomothetic psychology seeks
general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle
of self-actualization or the trait of extraversion. Idiographic psychology is
an attempt to understand the unique aspects of a particular individual.
The study of personality has a broad and varied history in psychology, with
an abundance of theoretical traditions. The major theories include
dispositional (trait) perspective, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological,
behaviorist, evolutionary, and social learning perspective. Many researchers
and psychologists do not explicitly identify themselves with a certain
perspective and instead take an eclectic approach. Research in this area is
empirically driven – such as dimensional models, based on multivariate statistics
such as factor analysis – or emphasizes theory development, such as that of the
psychodynamic theory. There is also a substantial emphasis on the applied field
of personality testing. In psychological education and training, the study of
the nature of personality and its psychological development is usually reviewed
as a prerequisite to courses in abnormal psychology or clinical psychology.
Philosophical assumptions
Many of the ideas conceptualized by historical and modern personality
theorists stem from the basic philosophical assumptions they hold. The study of
personality is not a purely empirical discipline, as it brings in elements of
art, science, and philosophy to draw general conclusions. The following five
categories are some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions on which
theorists disagree:[4]
Freedom versus determinism – This is the question of whether humans have
control over their own behavior and understand the motives behind it, or if
their behavior is causally determined by forces beyond their control. Behavior
is categorized as being either unconscious, environmental or biological by
various theories.
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Heredity (nature) versus environment (nurture) – Personality is thought
to be determined largely either by genetics and biology, or by environment and
experiences. Contemporary research suggests that most personality traits are
based on the joint influence of genetics and environment. One of the
forerunners in this arena is C. Robert Cloninger, who pioneered the Temperament
and Character model.[4]
Uniqueness versus universality – This question discusses the extent of
each human's individuality (uniqueness) or similarity in nature (universality).
Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers were all advocates of the
uniqueness of individuals. Behaviorists and cognitive theorists, in contrast,
emphasize the importance of universal principles, such as reinforcement and
self-efficacy.[4]
Active versus reactive – This question explores whether humans primarily
act through individual initiative (active) or through outside stimuli.
Traditional behavioral theorists typically believed that humans are passively
shaped by their environments, whereas humanistic and cognitive theorists
believe that humans play a more active role.[4] Most modern theorists agree
that both are important, with aggregate behavior being primarily determined by
traits and situational factors being the pri
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