Personality is the characteristic sets of
behavior
Behavior (American English) or behaviour ( British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as w ...
s,
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thoug ...
s, and
emotion
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
al patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time.
While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, most theories focus on
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
and
psychological
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betw ...
interactions with the environment one is surrounded by. Trait-based personality theories, such as those defined by
Raymond Cattell, define personality as traits that predict an individual's behavior. On the other hand, more behaviorally-based approaches define personality through learning and
habits. Nevertheless, most theories view personality as relatively stable.
The study of the psychology of personality, called
personality psychology
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. Its areas of focus include:
* construction of a ...
, attempts to explain the tendencies that underlie differences in behavior. Psychologists have taken many different approaches to the study of personality, including biological, cognitive, learning, and trait-based theories, as well as psychodynamic, and humanistic approaches. The various approaches used to study personality today reflect the influence of the first theorists in the field, a group that includes
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
,
Alfred Adler,
Gordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of persona ...
,
Hans Eysenck,
Abraham Maslow, and
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (and client-centered approach) in psychology. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of p ...
.
Measuring
Personality can be determined through a variety of tests. Due to the fact that personality is a complex idea, the dimensions of personality and scales of such tests vary and often are poorly defined. Two main tools to measure personality are
objective tests and projective measures. Examples of such tests are the:
Big Five Inventory (BFI),
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2),
Rorschach Inkblot test
The Rorschach test is a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a pe ...
,
Neurotic Personality Questionnaire KON-2006, or
Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). All of these tests are beneficial because they have both
reliability
Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Computing
* Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage
* High availability
* Reliability (computer networking), ...
and
validity
Validity or Valid may refer to:
Science/mathematics/statistics:
* Validity (logic), a property of a logical argument
* Scientific:
** Internal validity, the validity of causal inferences within scientific studies, usually based on experiments
...
, two factors that make a test accurate. "Each item should be influenced to a degree by the underlying trait construct, giving rise to a pattern of positive intercorrelations so long as all items are oriented (worded) in the same direction." A recent, but not well-known, measuring tool that psychologists use is the
16PF
The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) is a self-report personality test developed over several decades of empirical research by Raymond B. Cattell, Maurice Tatsuoka and Herbert Eber. The 16PF provides a measure of personality and can ...
. It measures personality based on Cattell's 16-factor theory of personality. Psychologists also use it as a clinical measuring tool to diagnose psychiatric disorders and help with prognosis and therapy planning.
Personality is frequently broken into factors or dimensions, statistically extracted from large questionnaires through
factor analysis
Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observed ...
. When brought back to two dimensions, often the dimensions of introvert-extrovert and neuroticism (emotionally unstable-stable) are used as first proposed by Eysenck in the 1960s.
Five-factor inventory
Many factor analyses found what is called the
Big Five, which are
openness to experience,
conscientiousness,
extraversion,
agreeableness, and
neuroticism (or emotional stability), known as "OCEAN". These components are generally stable over time, and about half of the variance appears to be attributable to a person's genetics rather than the effects of one's environment.
Some research has investigated whether the relationship between happiness and extraversion seen in adults also can be seen in children. The implications of these findings can help identify children who are more likely to experience episodes of depression and develop types of treatment that such children are likely to respond to. In both children and adults, research shows that genetics, as opposed to environmental factors, exert a greater influence on happiness levels. Personality is not stable over the course of a lifetime, but it changes much more quickly during childhood, so personality constructs in children are referred to as temperament. Temperament is regarded as the precursor to personality.
Another interesting finding has been the link found between acting
extraverted and positive affect. Extraverted behaviors include acting talkative, assertive, adventurous, and outgoing. For the purposes of this study, positive affect is defined as experiences of happy and enjoyable emotions.
This study investigated the effects of acting in a way that is counter to a person's dispositional nature. In other words, the study focused on the benefits and drawbacks of introverts (people who are shy, socially inhibited, and non-aggressive) acting extraverted, and of extraverts acting introverted. After acting extraverted, introverts' experience of positive affect increased
whereas extraverts seemed to experience lower levels of positive affect and suffered from the phenomenon of ego depletion.
Ego depletion, or cognitive fatigue, is the use of one's energy to overtly act in a way that is contrary to one's inner disposition. When people act in a contrary fashion, they divert most, if not all, (cognitive) energy toward regulating this foreign style of behavior and attitudes. Because all available energy is being used to maintain this contrary behavior, the result is an inability to use any energy to make important or difficult decisions, plan for the future, control or regulate emotions, or perform effectively on other cognitive tasks.
One question that has been posed is why extroverts tend to be happier than introverts. The two types of explanations that attempt to account for this difference are instrumental theories and temperamental theories.
The instrumental theory suggests that extraverts end up making choices that place them in more positive situations and they also react more strongly than introverts to positive situations. The temperamental theory suggests that extroverts have a disposition that generally leads them to experience a higher degree of positive affect. In their study of extraversion, Lucas and Baird
found no statistically significant support for the instrumental theory but did, however, find that extraverts generally experience a higher level of positive affect.
Research has been done to uncover some of the mediators that are responsible for the correlation between extraversion and happiness. ''Self-esteem'' and ''
self-efficacy'' are two such mediators.
Self-efficacy is one's belief about abilities to perform up to personal standards, the ability to produce desired results, and the feeling of having some ability to make important life decisions.
Self-efficacy has been found to be related to the personality traits of extraversion and subjective well-being.
Self-efficacy, however, only partially mediates the relationship between extraversion (and neuroticism) and subjective happiness.
This implies that there are most likely other factors that mediate the relationship between subjective happiness and personality traits. ''Self-esteem'' maybe another similar factor. Individuals with a greater degree of confidence about themselves and their abilities seem to have both higher degrees of subjective well-being and higher levels of extraversion.
Other research has examined the phenomenon of ''mood maintenance'' as another possible mediator. ''Mood maintenance'' is the ability to maintain one's average level of happiness in the face of an ambiguous situation – meaning a situation that has the potential to engender either positive or negative emotions in different individuals. It has been found to be a stronger force in extroverts.
This means that the happiness levels of extraverted individuals are less susceptible to the influence of external events. This finding implies that extraverts' positive moods last longer than those of introverts.
Developmental biological model
Modern conceptions of personality, such as the
Temperament and Character Inventory have suggested four basic temperaments that are thought to reflect basic and automatic responses to danger and reward that rely on associative learning. The four temperaments, ''harm avoidance'', ''reward dependence'', ''novelty-seeking'' and ''persistence'', are somewhat analogous to ancient conceptions of melancholic, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic personality types, although the temperaments reflect dimensions rather than distance categories.
The harm avoidance trait has been associated with increased reactivity in insular and amygdala salience networks, as well as reduced 5-HT2 receptor binding peripherally, and reduced GABA concentrations. Novelty seeking has been associated with reduced activity in insular salience networks increased striatal connectivity. Novelty seeking correlates with dopamine synthesis capacity in the striatum and reduced auto receptor availability in the midbrain. Reward dependence has been linked with the
oxytocin
Oxytocin (Oxt or OT) is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary. It plays a role in social bonding, reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth. Oxytoci ...
system, with increased concentration of plasma oxytocin being observed, as well as increased volume in oxytocin-related regions of the
hypothalamus
The hypothalamus () is a part of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei with a variety of functions. One of the most important functions is to link the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus ...
. Persistence has been associated with increased striatal-
mPFC connectivity, increased activation of ventral striatal-orbitofrontal-anterior cingulate circuits, as well as increased salivary amylase levels indicative of increased noradrenergic tone.
Environmental influences
It has been shown that personality traits are more malleable by environmental influences than researchers originally believed.
Personality differences predict the occurrence of life experiences.
One study has shown how the home environment, specifically the types of parents a person has, can affect and shape their personality. Mary Ainsworth's
strange situation experiment showcased how babies reacted to having their mother leave them alone in a room with a stranger. The different styles of attachment, labeled by Ainsworth, were Secure, Ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized. Children who were securely attached tend to be more trusting, sociable, and are confident in their day-to-day life. Children who were disorganized were reported to have higher levels of anxiety, anger, and risk-taking behavior.
Judith Rich Harris's group socialization theory postulates that an individual's peer groups, rather than parental figures, are the primary influence of personality and behavior in adulthood. Intra- and intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships such as parent-child relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. Thus, this theory points at the peer group representing the environmental influence on a child's personality rather than the parental style or home environment.
Tessuya Kawamoto's ''Personality Change from Life Experiences: Moderation Effect of Attachment Security'' talked about some significant laboratory tests. The study mainly focused on the effects of life experiences on change in personality and life experiences. The assessments suggested that "the accumulation of small daily experiences may work for the personality development of university students and that environmental influences may vary by individual susceptibility to experiences, like attachment security".
Some studies suggest that a shared family environment between siblings has less influence on personality than individual experiences of each child. Identical twins have similar personalities largely because they share the same genetic makeup rather than their shared environment.
Cross-cultural studies
There has been some recent debate over the subject of studying personality in a different culture. Some people think that personality comes entirely from culture and therefore there can be no meaningful study in cross-culture study. On the other hand, many believe that some elements are shared by all cultures and an effort is being made to demonstrate the cross-cultural applicability of "the Big Five".
Cross-cultural assessment depends on the universality of personality traits, which is whether there are common traits among humans regardless of culture or other factors. If there is a common foundation of personality, then it can be studied on the basis of human traits rather than within certain cultures. This can be measured by comparing whether assessment tools are measuring similar constructs across countries or cultures. Two approaches to researching personality are looking at emic and etic traits. Emic traits are constructs unique to each culture, which are determined by local customs, thoughts, beliefs, and characteristics. Etic traits are considered universal constructs, which establish traits that are evident across cultures that represent a biological basis of human personality. If personality traits are unique to the individual culture, then different traits should be apparent in different cultures. However, the idea that personality traits are universal across cultures is supported by establishing the Five-Factor Model of personality across multiple translations of the NEO-PI-R, which is one of the most widely used personality measures.
When administering the NEO-PI-R to 7,134 people across six languages, the results show a similar pattern of the same five underlying constructs that are found in the American factor structure.
Similar results were found using the Big Five Inventory (BFI), as it was administered in 56 nations across 28 languages. The five factors continued to be supported both conceptually and statistically across major regions of the world, suggesting that these underlying factors are common across cultures.
There are some differences across culture, but they may be a consequence of using a lexical approach to study personality structures, as language has limitations in translation and different cultures have unique words to describe emotion or situations.
Differences across cultures could be due to real cultural differences, but they could also be consequences of poor translations, biased sampling, or differences in response styles across cultures.
Examining personality questionnaires developed within a culture can also be useful evidence for the universality of traits across cultures, as the same underlying factors can still be found.
Results from several European and Asian studies have found overlapping dimensions with the Five-Factor Model as well as additional culture-unique dimensions.
Finding similar factors across cultures provides support for the universality of personality trait structure, but more research is necessary to gain stronger support.
Historical development of concept
The modern sense of individual personality is a result of the shifts in culture originating in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...
, an essential element in
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...
. In contrast, the Medieval European's sense of
self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...
was linked to a network of social roles: "the
household
A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...
, the
Kinship
In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says th ...
network, the
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
, the
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
– these were the building blocks of personhood".
Stephen Greenblatt observes, in recounting the recovery (1417) and career of
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated in ...
' poem ''
De rerum natura'': "at the core of the poem lay key principles of a modern understanding of the world." "Dependent on the family, the individual alone was nothing," Jacques Gélis observes. "The characteristic mark of the modern man has two parts: one internal, the other external; one dealing with his environment, the other with his attitudes, values, and feelings."
Rather than being linked to a network of social roles, the modern man is largely influenced by the environmental factors such as: "urbanization, education, mass communication, industrialization, and politicization."
In 2006, for example, scientists reported a relationship between personality and political views as follows: "Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable."
Temperament and philosophy
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the la ...
(1842–1910) argued that temperament explains a great deal of the controversies in the history of philosophy by arguing that it is a very influential premise in the arguments of philosophers. Despite seeking only impersonal reasons for their conclusions, James argued, the temperament of philosophers influenced their philosophy. Temperament thus conceived is tantamount to a bias. Such bias, James explained, was a consequence of the trust philosophers place in their own temperament. James thought the significance of his observation lay on the premise that in philosophy an objective measure of success is whether philosophy is peculiar to its philosopher or not, and whether a philosopher is dissatisfied with any other way of seeing things or not.
Mental make-up
James argued that temperament may be the basis of several divisions in academia, but focused on philosophy in his 1907 lectures on ''
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
''. In fact, James' lecture of 1907 fashioned a sort of trait theory of the empiricist and rationalist camps of philosophy. As in most modern trait theories, the traits of each camp are described by James as distinct and opposite, and maybe possessed in different proportions on a continuum, and thus characterize the personality of philosophers of each camp. The "mental make-up" (i.e. personality) of rationalist philosophers is described as "tender-minded" and "going by "principles", and that of empiricist philosophers is described as "tough-minded" and "going by "facts." James distinguishes each not only in terms of the philosophical claims they made in 1907, but by arguing that such claims are made primarily on the basis of temperament. Furthermore, such categorization was only incidental to James' purpose of explaining his pragmatist philosophy and is not exhaustive.
Empiricists and rationalists
According to James, the ''temperament'' of
rationalist philosophers differed fundamentally from the ''temperament'' of
empiricist philosophers of his day. The tendency of rationalist philosophers toward ''refinement'' and ''superficiality'' never satisfied an empiricist temper of mind. Rationalism leads to the creation of ''closed systems'', and such optimism is considered shallow by the fact-loving mind, for whom perfection is far off. Rationalism is regarded as ''pretension'', and a temperament most inclined to ''abstraction''.
Empiricists
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
, on the other hand, stick with the external senses rather than logic. British empiricist
John Locke's (1632–1704) explanation of personal identity provides an example of what James referred to. Locke explains the identity of a person, i.e. personality, on the basis of a precise definition of identity, by which the meaning of identity differs according to what it is being applied to. The identity of a person is quite distinct from the identity of a man, woman, or substance according to Locke. Locke concludes that consciousness is personality because it "always accompanies thinking, it is that which makes everyone to be what he calls self," and remains constant in different places at different times.
Rationalists conceived of the identity of persons differently than empiricists such as Locke who distinguished identity of substance, person, and life. According to Locke,
Rene Descartes (1596–1650) agreed only insofar as he did not argue that one immaterial spirit is the basis of the person "for fear of making brutes thinking things too." According to James, Locke tolerated arguments that a soul was behind the consciousness of any person. However, Locke's successor
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
(1711–1776), and empirical psychologists after him denied the soul except for being a term to describe the cohesion of inner lives.
However, some research suggests Hume excluded personal identity from his opus
''An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding'' because he thought his argument was sufficient but not compelling.
Descartes himself distinguished active and passive faculties of mind, each contributing to thinking and consciousness in different ways. The passive faculty, Descartes argued, simply receives, whereas the active faculty produces and forms ideas, but does not presuppose thought, and thus cannot be within the thinking thing. The active faculty mustn't be within self because ideas are produced without any awareness of them, and are sometimes produced against one's will.
Rationalist philosopher
Benedictus Spinoza (1632–1677) argued that ideas are the first element constituting the human mind, but existed only for actually existing things. In other words, ideas of non-existent things are without meaning for Spinoza, because an idea of a non-existent thing cannot exist. Further, Spinoza's rationalism argued that the mind does not know itself, except insofar as it perceives the "ideas of the modifications of body", in describing its external perceptions, or perceptions from without. On the contrary, from within, Spinoza argued, perceptions connect various ideas clearly and distinctly. The mind is not the free cause of its actions for Spinoza. Spinoza equates the will with the understanding and explains the common distinction of these things as being two different things as an error which results from the individual's misunderstanding of the nature of thinking.
Biology
The
biological basis of personality
The biological basis of personality is the collection of brain systems and mechanisms that underlie Personality, human personality. Neuroscience, Human neurobiology, especially as it relates to complex traits and behaviors, is not well understood, ...
is the theory that anatomical structures located in the brain contribute to personality traits. This stems from
neuropsychology, which studies how the structure of the brain relates to various psychological processes and behaviors. For instance, in human beings, the
frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove b ...
s are responsible for foresight and anticipation, and the
occipital lobes are responsible for processing visual information. In addition, certain physiological functions such as hormone secretion also affect personality. For example, the hormone
testosterone
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondary sexual characteris ...
is important for sociability, affectivity,
aggressiveness, and sexuality.
Additionally, studies show that the expression of a personality trait depends on the volume of the brain cortex it is associated with.
Personology
Personology confers a multidimensional, complex, and comprehensive approach to personality. According to
Henry A. Murray, personology is:
From a holistic perspective, personology studies personality as a whole, as a system, but at the same time through all its components, levels, and spheres.
[Strack, S. (2005). ''Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology''. Wiley]
See also
*
Association for Research in Personality, an academic organization
*
Cult of personality, political institution in which a leader uses mass media to create a larger-than-life public image
*
Differential psychology
*
Human variability
Human variability, or human variation, is the range of possible values for any characteristic, physical or mental, of human beings.
Frequently debated areas of variability include cognitive ability, personality, physical appearance ( body ...
*
Offender profiling
Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative strategy used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects and has been used by investigators to link cases that may have been committed by the same perpetrator ...
* ''
Personality and Individual Differences'', a scientific journal published bi-monthly by Elsevier
*
Personality computing Personality computing is a research field related to artificial intelligence and personality psychology that studies personality by means of computational techniques from different sources, including text, multimedia and social networks.
Overview ...
*
Personality crisis
*
Personality disorder
Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's cultur ...
*
Personality rights, consisting of the right to individual publicity and privacy
*
Personality style
Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
*
Trait theory
References
Further reading
*
*
*
{{Authority control
Conceptions of self
Epistemology
Human development
Metaphysics of mind
Personality