Personality

In psychology, personality is a description of consistent emotional, thought, and behavior patterns in a person. The several theoretical perspectives on personality involve different ideas about the relationship between personality and other psychological constructs as well as different ideas about the way personality develops.

Personality theories

Most theories can be grouped into one of the following classes.

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Trait theories

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, personality traits are "prominent aspects of personality that are exhibited in a wide range of important social and personal contexts." In other words, persons have certain characteristics which partly determine their behaviour. According to the theory, a friendly person is likely to act friendly in any situation because of the traits in his personality.

Related Topics:
''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual'' - American Psychiatric Association

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Gordon Allport delineated different kinds of traits, which he also called dispositions. Central traits are basic to an individua's personality, while secondary traits are more peripheral. Common traits are those recognized within a culture and thus may vary from culture to culture. Cardinal traits are those by which an individual may be strongly recognized.

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Raymond Cattell's research propagated a two-tiered personality structure with sixteen "primary factors" (16 Personality Factors) and five "secondary factors." A different model was proposed by Hans Eysenck, who believed that just three traits - extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism - were sufficient to describe human personality. Differences between Cattell and Eysenck emerged due to preferences for different forms of factor analysis, with Cattell using oblique, Eysenck orthogonal, rotation to analyse the factors that emerged when personality questionnaires were subject to statistical analysis.

Related Topics:
Raymond Cattell - 16 Personality Factors - Hans Eysenck - Extraversion - Neuroticism - Psychoticism - Factor analysis

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Building on the work of Cattell and others, Lewis Goldberg proposed a five-dimension personality model, nicknamed the "Big Five":

Related Topics:
Lewis Goldberg - "Big Five"

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• Neuroticism
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Openness to experience

John L. Holland proposed a "RIASEC" model of personality widely used in vocational counseling. The RIASEC is a circumplex model where the six types are represented as a hexagon where adjacent types are more closely related than those more distant.

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• Realistic - physical, hands-on, tool-oriented, masculine
• Investigative - scientific, technical, methodical
• Artistic - writing, painting, singing, etc.
• Social - nurturing, supporting, helping, healing
• Enterprising - organizing, activating, motivating
• Conventional - clerical, detail-oriented

Building on the writings of Carl Jung, Isabel Meyers and her mother, Katherine Briggs delineated personality types by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Their personality typology has some aspects of a trait theory: it explains people's behaviour in terms of opposite fixed characteristics.

Related Topics:
Carl Jung - Isabel Meyers - Katherine Briggs - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

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• Introversion / Extraversion
• Sensing / Intuition
• Thinking / Feeling
• Judging / Perceiving

Psychodynamic theories

Psychodynamic (also called psychoanalytic) theories explain human behaviour in terms of interaction between the various components of personality. Sigmund Freud was the founder of this school. He broke the human personality down to three significant components: the ego, superego, and id. According to Freud, personality is shaped by the interactions of these three components.

Related Topics:
Sigmund Freud - Ego, superego, and id

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Behaviorist theories

Behaviorists explain personality in terms of reactions to external stimuli. This school of thought was initiated by B. F. Skinner. According to these theories, people's behaviour is formed by processes such as operant conditioning.

Related Topics:
Behaviorists - B. F. Skinner - Operant conditioning

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Cognitive and social-cognitive theories

In cognitivism, behaviour is explained as guided by cognitions (e.g. expectations) about the world, and especially those about other people. Albert Bandura, a social learning theorist suggested that the forces of memory and feelings worked in conjunction with environmental influences.

Related Topics:
Cognitivism - Albert Bandura - Social learning theorist - Memory - Feeling

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Humanistic theories

In humanistic psychology, it is emphasized that people have free will and that they play an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons instead of factors that determine behaviour. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were proponents of this view.

Related Topics:
Humanistic psychology - Abraham Maslow - Carl Rogers

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