PERSONALITY

CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY

Personality is the total quality of an individual. The word personality comes from the Latin 'persona' which means the mask worn by players in the theater. Personality consists of observable behaviour. It is defined as an individual, typical or consistent adjustments to his environment. The elements of personality are called the traits of personality, it is the traits that make one person different from another person in his behaviour. Shyness and sociability are different traits of personality. Personality is the dynamic organisation of the traits and characteristic of an individual. All characteristics which an individual possesses are his powers, needs, abilities, wants, habits, his goal and aspirations. His patterns of behaviour to objects and persons continue his personality.

Since an individual is a bundle of characteristics as traits we can define personality as an integrated pattern of traits. According to Worth, one's personality is made up of high physique, chemique, instincts, and intelligence.

1. Material self (his body, clothes, family property etc.)

2. Social self (his home, club, office, church etc.)

3. Spiritual self (his ability to argue and discriminate consciousness, moral sensitivities).

 According to Medougali personali consists of his (a) disposition, (b) temper, (c) temperament and (d) character.

DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY

                  Personality is that which makes one effective, or gives one influence over others. In the language of psychology it is one's social stimulus value-May, M.A.

                   A man's personality is the total picture of his organised behaviour, especially as it can be characterised basis fellow men in a consistent way – Dashiell, J.F.

                   Our personality is the result of what we start with and what we have lived through. It is the 'reaction mass' as a whole – Watson, J.B.

                   Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment – Allport, G.W.

It can, therefore be defined as an individual's typical or consistent adjustments to his environment. It is the most characteristic integration of an individual's structure, modes of behaviour, interests, attitudes, capacities and aptitudes.

PERSONALITY TRAITS

Traits may be regarded as a dimension of personality. For example, dominance-submission is a trait that a person may show in any degree. A trait is a description of human behaviour. The traits of a person describe his personality. One's traits and the ways they are patterned make him different from other person. In identifying a defining traits, psychology has made considerable progress toward a specific and objective understanding of personality. Personality is unique. This uniqueness is the result of the difference in the traits of different individuals and in the dynamic organisation of the traits. Some of the traits are ascendant, cheerful-gloomy, friendly hostile etc.

Cateel has given two types of traits (a) surface traits and qualities of one's behaviour that are observable directly in action and (b) source traits – the qualities at a deeper level.

GORDON ALLPORT: FATHER OF PERSONALITY THEORY

Gordon Allport (1897-1967) is often called the father of personality theory: He was very much a trait theorist and believed in the individuality and uniqueness of the person and that people have consistent personalities. Allport attempted to blend nomothetic and idiographic perspectives: he called this blend the morphogenic approach.

Allport believed that each person had traits of various types:

• Individual: traits possessed by one person
• Common: traits possessed by many people
• Cardinal traits: One trait that dominates the person
• Central traits: small number of traits important traits that may affect many behaviours
• Secondary traits: many consistent traits which are not often exhibited
• Motivational traits: Very strongly felt traits
• Stylistic traits: Less strongly felt traits.

 PERSONALITY TRAITS: IDIOGRAPHIC VS. NOMOTHETIC

However the whole issue of whether a trait exists in all people to a greater or lesser degree is complicated by different views of the trait perspective.

There are two different views as to whether all traits exist in all people:

• Idiographic: people have unique personality structures; thus some traits (cardinal traits) are more important in understanding the structure of some people than others
• Nomothetic: people's unique personalities can be understood as them having relatively greater or lesser amounts of traits that are consistently across people (e.g., the NEO is nomothetic)

The Idiographic view emphasizes that each person has a unique psychological structure and that some traits are possessed by only one person; and that there are times when it is impossible to compare one person with others. This viewpoint also emphasizes that traits may differ in importance from person to person (cardinal, central and secondary traits). It tends to use case studies, bibliographical information, diaries etc for information gathering.

The Nomothetic view, on the other hand, emphasizes comparability among individuals but sees people as unique in their combination of traits. This viewpoint sees traits as having the same psychological meaning in everyone. The belief is that people differ only in the amount of each trait. It is this which constitutes their uniqueness. This approach tends to use self-report personality questions, factor analysis etc.

THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY FACTORS

A strong consensus has emerged since the mid-1980's about the number and nature of personality traits. Five superordinate factors have emerged, often referred to to as the "Big Five" or the 5-factor model. Early evidence supporting a 5-factor model was published by Fiske, in 1949. Not everyone however agrees in the naming of the five supertraits.

The 5-factor model is commonly measured by the NEO by McCrae and Costa (2003).
The Big 5 according to the NEO are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness
to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (Remember OCEAN, or NEOAC):

• Neuroticism (Emotional Stability)
• Extraversion (Introversion)
• Openness to experience (Closedness to experiences)
• Agreeableness (Disagreeableness)
• Conscientiousness (Lack of conscientiousness)

Each Supertrait is measured by 6 facets (or subordinate traits). These are:

N	E	O	A	C
Anxiety	Warmth	Fantasy	Trust	Competence
Angry hostility	Gregariousness	Aesthetics	Straightforward-ness	Order
Depression	Assertiveness	Feelings	Altruism	Dutifulness
Self-consciousness	Activity	Actions	Compliance	Achievement striving
Impulsiveness	Excitement-seeking	Ideas	Modesty	Self Discipline
Vulnerability	Positive emotion	Values	Tender-mindedness	Deliberation

PERSONALITY TYPES

 Jung has given this introversion-extraversion type in personality. Introverts will react negatively to situations, withdraw from the society, inwardly, selective. The introvert withdraw from the active participation in the objective world and he is interested in his inner world of thought and fantasy. He will not move freely with others. He won't express out his feelings and inner desires. He is sensitive to criticism, magnifies his failures and occupied with self criticism.

Extroverts are opposite to introverts. Extroverts react positively and outwardly expressive. An extrovert is supposed to be thick skinned and relatively sensitive to criticism, spontaneous in his emotional expression, impersonal in argument, neither deeply affected by failures nor much occupied with self analysis of self-criticism.

SHELDON'S CLASSIFICATION (TYPES)

Sheldon classifies the people into 3 types. (1) Endomorphy, (2) Mesomorphy and (3) Ectomorphy. In addition to this Sheldon also classified people into 3 types according to their temperaments. They are (1) Viscerotonia, (2) Somatotonia and (3) Cerebrotonia.

MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY

 The measurement of personality serves both the critical and practical purposes. When an individual who has difficulties of personnel adjustment comes for help to a psychiatrist, it is valuable to assess his personality. To measure the personality we have to measure the trails of personality. It is possible to measure needs, attitudes, interests, values and other personality characteristics also.

The following methods have been used for measuring personality characteristics.

1. THE QUESTIONNAIRE METHOD

 This method involves the preparation of a list of questions or statements. Each one is concerned with some aspect of the feeling, attitude, habit or mode of behaviour related to the personality characteristic which is intended to be measured. The respondent is required to indicate his agreement or disagreement, acceptance or rejection, affirmation or denial of each statement. The questions are constructed in such a way that the affirmation of some and the denial of others express the presence of the trait that is measured. Each question is followed by 'Yes', 'No', 'Untrue', 'Doubtful' or other similar responses. Here the respondent under line a response that shows his character.

Example: 

1. In social gatherings, I like to be the centre of attention.

2. In a meeting, I prefer to occupy a back seat.

3. When you have to make an important decision, do you prefer someone else to decide for you.

          Usually a personality test contains 30 or 50 items. This questionnaire method is also called objective test of personality. In this method the respondent should be truthful and very frank.

2. PROJECTIVE TESTS

 Projective tests are so named because they induce the individual to project to put himself into the test situation or to identify with the person therein and by telling about them, to reveal his own motives, attitudes, apprehensions and aspirations.

The use of projective test is based on the mechanism of projection. The projective test is a device for measuring the personality which the person tested does not recognize as such. He makes spontaneous responses in the test. The test presents a highly ambiguous situation which the tests is required to perceive and describe. The situation has no definite characteristics and so different persons perceive it in different ways. In perceiving the ambiguous situation, each person reflects his own needs, attitudes, habits, interests, feelings and behaviour patterns. The projective method is called projective because in perceiving and describing the situation, a person brings out his personality characteristics.

Two well known projective tests are (1) Roschach Inkblot Test and (2) Thematic apperception Test.

a) RORCHACH TEST

Rorschach test was introduced by Hermann Rorschach. So the test was called after his name. This is the most widely used test. It was first described in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist.

Rorchach Test consists of 10 cards, each one having an inkblot on it. Some blots are coloured and some are in black and white. These cards are always presented in regular serial order. The inkblot does not represent any subject. It is ambiguous or unstructured figure. The ambiguity of the blot results in the great variety of responses it produces. Such an inkblot is placed before the subject. He is asked to describe what he sees. He is also required to say in what portion he sees and what makes him see the object that he describes. His responses are noted and classified under different categories.

These responses differ from person to person. Some respond to the whole figure, some to the parts of the figure. Some respond to form a shape, some to colour or the white space between the coloured or black patches. Some see moving and others stationery objectives. Some see human figures or parts of human body. Others see animals. Classification of the responses made to the 10 cards by a subject shows that certain types and categories are made consistently. These responses are interpreted as indicating the personality characteristics of the respondent.

b) THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT)

This TAT is also widely used projective Test. This TAT was first given by Murray. This test consists of 20 pictures. Each picture contains one or more persons in very ambiguous situations. For example, in one picture a very old woman is standing behind a young woman looking very serious. The subject is asked to write a story on each picture. The study should have a theme.

It should say what is happening, and what is going to be the outcome or result. In writing a story, the subject is expected to identify himself unconscientously with a character in the story. The story thus express out his own needs and frustrations, feelings and attitudes, ideas of self and of others, real or imaginary and so on. One cannot get clue about the characteristics of the subject from a single story. When one finds the recurrence of the same or similar characters, expressing similar feelings and attitudes, entertaining similar hopes and fears etc., one may be led to think that the stories reveal the person's own characteristics.

3. PERSONALITY RATING

In this method one person judges or rates the characteristic of another person. The person who judges is the rater and the person who is judged is the rate. The basis of the rating is the rater's general impression drawn from his observation of the behaviour of the rates in a variety of related situations. For example, a class teacher may be asked to judge such personality characteristics of his pupils as orderlines, punctuality, industriousness, co-operativeness etc. The teacher may be asked to express his rating on each trait by locating the position of each pupil on a so called rating scale.

EXAMPLE OF A RATING SCALE PUNCTUALITY

5	4	3	2	1
Always in time	Generally punctual	Sometimes punctual	Generally unpunctual	Never in time

If the teacher feels that the student is highly punctual he would place him at the left end of the scale and give him the score of 5.

  

4. SITUATIONAL TEST

In this situational test, a person is required to act in a situation which is specially arranged for the purpose of testing. The tester observes the behaviour of the testee while he is acting in the situation. Generally the testing is done in a group. For example, a party of 10 students is taken out and camps at the foot of hill. The students are given some cash. They are asked to plan and arrange for preparing their lunch. In this they will discuss and plan to report lunch. The teacher who accompanies them observes the behaviour of each and come to the conclusion regarding their personality character.

5. INTERVIEW

Interview is one of the methods to assess personality. The interview is a face to face situation consisting of the interviewee and the interviewer. The success of the interview depends upon the degree to which the interviewee makes free and frank responses. The interviewer should win the complete confidence of the interviewer should win the complete confidence of the interviewee. He should establish with the interviewee of a relation of cordiality, warmth and responsiveness. Such a relation has been called 'rapport' without a rapport no psychological interview can be a success.