Personality Development - Unit 1: Concept, Nature, Traits Of Personality PDF

Personality Development - Unit 1: Concept, Nature, Traits of Personality Concept of Personality: 1. The term ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means a ‘theatrical mask’ used by actors, such as in Roman theatre, to indicate their role in a play. 2. The...

Personality Development - Unit 1: Concept, Nature, Traits of Personality Concept of Personality: 1. The term ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means a ‘theatrical mask’ used by actors, such as in Roman theatre, to indicate their role in a play. 2. The term ‘persona’ was popularized by many eminent figures including Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung, who said that persona is the social face the individual presents to the world. 3. Every person has a personality, both an inner and outer self, interacting with each other. 4. The first comprehensive theory of personality was propounded by the Austrian neurologist and founder of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. 5. Definition: Gordon Allport (1937): “Personality is that dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment.” Gordon Allport proposed one of the first scientific theories that tried to explain personality in terms of traits. Nature/Features/Characteristics of Personality: 1. From Allport’s definition, we understand that personality is not static but dynamic; it is an organization of physical and mental traits (e.g., general physique, colour of the eye, interests, attitudes, and so on.) 2. Personality is a system of traits that are dynamically inter-related and hence, each trait is influenced by the other. 3. Personality is unique; every person has a unique personality – his adjustment to his/her society or environment as a whole is unique in every respect. This stems from the overall uniqueness of the experiences that a person goes through. 4. Personality constitutes those more or less persistent qualities of an individual. 5. The determinants of personality can be broadly classified into 1) biological factors such as heredity and 2) environmental factors such as socialization. 6. Personality is acquired and not inborn. It is not endowed to a person at birth but owes its representation to the dynamic orientation of the individual to his/her environment. Only certain aspects such as the basic physical structure and native abilities may be acquired. 7. Personality is greatly influenced by socialization. Influences from social contact, interaction and other environmental influences contribute to the development of personality. 8. There are different internal and external aspects of personality such as physical, mental, intellectual, emotional and social. 9. Personality expresses itself in different ways: a. The overt action involves the gross bodily muscles and habits, that is, the activities which are controlled by the muscles. b. The verbal and communicative activities. c. The thought and other internal subjective processes namely, emotions, impulses, and so on which can be expressed using the medium of language. Personality Trait: 1. A personality trait is a characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, or behaving that tends to be consistent over time and across relevant situations. 2. Traits are building blocks and human behaviour can be described in terms of these traits 3. A trait in general, is a description of behaviour that is manifested consistently, for example, friendliness, sociableness, assertiveness and so on. 4. Definition: According to Atkinson, Atkinson and Hilgard, “A trait refers to any characteristics that differ from person to person in a relatively permanent and consistent way”. 5. Personality Traits are not Personality Types: Personality Traits Personality Types According to Atkinson, Atkinson and According to Morgan and King, “A type is Hilgard, “A trait refers to any simply a class of individuals said to share a characteristics that differ from person to common collection of characteristics”. person in a relatively permanent and consistent way”. Durable characteristics of a person. Collection of traits that are said to occur together in some persons and do not present durable personality patterns. Trait Theories of Personality: Gordon Type Theories of Personality: Carl Jung’s Allport’s trait theory; Raymond Cattell’s type theory. trait theory. 6. Gordon Allport was among the first to study traits in order to explain personality. Allport, along with H.S Odbert (1936) listed down thousands of traits from the dictionary and brought it down to 200 by eliminating synonyms. Allport differentiated between 3 types of traits: a. Cardinal: traits that dominate a person’s life; are rare traits to find in a person but deterministic; shape and direct the behaviour of a person above all else; is ingrained and colours all the aspects of the life of that person; pervasive and manifest themselves in a person’s behaviours, attitudes and purpose. E.g., Mother Teresa’s altruism. b. Central: traits that found to some extent in all persons, and simply affect their behaviour but do not determine it; they become the building blocks for personality. E.g., anxiousness, friendliness. c. Secondary: traits that emerge only in certain situations or the immediate context; less consistent and less relevant. E.g., impatience while waiting in line. 7. In the 1990s Raymond Cattell and Hans Eyesenck further expanded the research on personality traits. 8. In 1993, Eyesenck came up with a 3-dimensional model sometimes called the Big Three model which defines three core personality traits: extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism. 9. Raymond Cattell differentiated between surface traits (traits that are easily observable in the outward actions) and source traits (traits that underlie the surface traits and form the core of personality). He believed that the source traits were very significant and by 1995, came up with 16 ‘source traits’ or ‘personality factors’ namely Warmth, Reasoning, Emotional stability, Dominance, Liveliness, Rule-consciousness, Social boldness, Sensitivity, Vigilance, Abstractedness, Privateness, Apprehension, Openness to change, Self-reliance, Perfectionism and Tension. This later developed into the famous 16PF or 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire. 10. It was Raymond Cattell who defined these source traits as trait dimensions or continuums in which 2 opposite traits are at the opposite ends of the continuum and a person could fall anywhere between the two opposites.  For example, Warmth |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| Reserved Outgoing 11. This stimulated other researchers also to examine and explore personality factors and the dimensional structure of trait ratings. 12. In 1961, Tupes and Christal found five, relatively strong and recurrent factors which eventually became known as The Big Five (Goldberg, 1981) The Big Five Personality Traits/ The Big Five Factor Model/ OCEAN model 1. In the Big Five, there are 5 factors that extremely broad on their own, and it does not imply that personality differences can be reduced to only five traits. Instead, it implies that these dimensions represent personality at the broadest level of abstraction and each dimension summarizes a large number of distinct, more specific personality characteristics or traits. 2. The Big Five are Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. 3. “Personality Psychology has concerned itself with a range of developmental issues that are relevant to The Big Five such as the antecedents of adult personality traits, how traits develop, the timelines for and the emergence and peak expression of traits, their stability or change throughout the lifespan and the effects of traits on other aspects of personal development.” 4. “Openness to Experience describes the breadth, depth, originality and complexity of an individual’s mental and experiential life.” It is a dimension ranging from imaginative, witty, curiosity and having broad interests regarding a variety of ideas, values, ways of thinking and behaviour on one end. Towards the other end is down to earth, simple, having narrow interests. People who are low on openness to experience hesitate to try a new restaurant, travel to a different country, or listen to a speech expressing a political perspective with which they do not agree. 5. “Conscientiousness describes socially-prescribed impulse control that facilitates task-and-goal directed behaviour such as thinking before acting, delaying gratification, following norms and rules, and planning, organizing, and prioritizing tasks.” This dimension ranges from well- organized, careful, self-disciplined, responsible, precise, orderly, striving to do what is right on the one end. On the other end is disorganized, impulsive, careless and undependable. People who are very conscientious would probably never cheat, manipulate others intentionally or forget to complete a task. 6. “Extraversion implies an energetic approach toward the social and material world and includes traits such as sociability, activity, assertiveness, and positive emotionality.” It is a dimension ranging from energetic, sociable, talkative, enthusiastic and warm in social interactions, assertive and sensation-seeking. Towards the other end of the dimension is retiring, sober, reserved, silent and cautious and most of these traits are evident in introverts. Extroverts on the other hand are usually the life of the party and they drive the activity in a group. 7. “Agreeableness contrasts a prosocial and communal orientation towards others with antagonism, and includes traits such as altruism, tender-mindedness, trust and modesty.” This dimension ranges from good-natured, cooperative, trusting, helpful, wanting to get along with others, modesty, generosity (time and resources) on the one side, to irritable, suspicious,  uncooperative and antagonistic. People who are more agreeable may hesitate to express opinions that would cause conflict; they put the needs of others before their own. 8. “Neuroticism contrasts emotional stability and even-temperedness with negative emotionality such as feeling anxious, nervous, sad and tense.” This dimension is about how much negative emotion a person experiences and how much those emotions impact him/her. For people who fall in the higher end of neuroticism, this dimension includes traits such as nervousness, anxiety, tension, hypochondria, depression and being abnormally self-conscious. On the other side of the dimension is poised, calm, composed and not hypochondriac. Dimensions High Low O Imaginative/ Experimental Practical/ Realistic C Focused/ Organized Easy going/ Impulsive E Social / Extrovert Quiet/Introvert A Generous/ Cooperative Tough/ Competitive N Sensitive/ Anxious/ Nervous Strong/ Resilient/ Calm