Personality can be seen as the collection of characteristics that make each individual unique. These are the characteristics of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Most agree that a personality represents a fairly stable and permanent set of human characteristics.
Common phrases that have entered the language such as “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” and “once a thief, always a thief,” illustrate the common understanding of personality as a permanent feature of a person.
We are able to recognise the uniqueness of each person, yet we group them into categories or types. We may refer to a person as being friendly, extroverted, introverted, aggressive, passive, assertive or impulsive. These intuitive definitions tell us quite a lot about the personalities of others, yet many of us are unable to define our own personality in the same way. People have built in antennae that helps them to detect what type of person they have encountered.
One of the key arguments running through personality theory since the inception of psychology is whether a personality is primarily inborn or whether it is determined by the environment.
The genetic theories point to inborn personality traits as the overriding factor in determining personality. Other genetic explanations include the personality type theories. According to these people are born into one of four or five major personality types. Key elements in determining the types are factors such as introversion versus extroversion.
Environmental theories include the behavioural approach of theorists such as BF Skinner and John Watson. The behavioural view, which was popular in the first half of the last century, defines personality (or in this case behaviour) as a result simple cause and effect. The theories were developed from Pavlov’s classical conditioning model and a number of variations onconditioning were defined.
The Humanist school emphasises free will and individual experience in the formation of the personality. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (the originator of the Hierarchy of Needs) are central to these theories.
The phycho-dynamic or psychoanalytic theories as developed by Sigmund Freud and others emphasise the role of the sub-conscious in determining personality. Key concepts are the ego or the self, the super-ego or social self and the id which can be defined as theprimitive drives within each person. It is the interaction of these components within the individual and his or her interactions with the environment that are key in the formation of the personality.
Many psychometric tests have been developed to place individuals into specific personality types. Some of these have been used to identify potential managers within an organisation and even as part of the recruitment process itself.
Personality is a highly complex area that psychologists are just beginning to understand. However, there is still little agreement as to what are the major determinants of personality.
