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In this term paper we will discuss about:- 1. Definitions of Personality 2. Personality- It’s Concept 3. Development and Types 4. Personality Characteristics 5. Dimensions or Aspects.
Term Paper Contents:
- Term Paper on the Definitions of Personality
- Term Paper on the Concept of Personality
- Term Paper on the Development and Types of Personality
- Term Paper on Personality Characteristics
- Term Paper on the Dimensions or Aspects of Personality
Term Paper # 1. Definitions of Personality:
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Actually, the term personality comes from the Latin word “Persona” which means masks used by actors on the stage. This was perhaps the reason that at one time personality was considered synonymous with appearance. If it were so then one could see his personality in the mirror which produces the clearest and most faithful image in line, form, colour and beauty. In fact, personality refers to the extent to which a person impresses other persons.
Personality covers the whole nature of the individual and so is difficult to define. It is unbelievably complex, the result of life-long experiences and influences. Allport considered personality as “a person’s pattern of habits, attitudes and traits that determine his adjustment to his environment.” Behaviour is moral and it can be broken into atoms.
These atoms may be said to be certain characteristics of the organism that become permanent with the individual. These habitual characteristics of the behaviour determine the quality of man’s personality. It is a “marvellously intricate structure delicately woven of movies, emotions, habits and thoughts into a pattern that balances the pulls and pushes of the world outside.” It is the whole person who acts, loves, suffers fights and dies. An individual’s dealing with his environment has a quality, an individuality of its own. Every-one of us has a quality of behaviour. This total quality of one’s behaviour is what we mean by personality.
There are numerous definitions of personality. Each definition suggests a different approach towards personality. In other words, we may say that Psychologists too have added to the confusion by offering a large number of divergent definitions.
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A few of them are given below:
“Personality is the integration of those systems of habits that represent one individual’s characteristic adjustment to his environment.” —Kemph
“The entire organization of a human being at any stage of development is personality.” —Warren & Carmichael
“Personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation.” —Cattel, R.B.
“The personality of an individual may be defined as his persistent tendencies to make certain qualities and kinds of adjustment.” —Shaffer & Shober
“Personality is the sum total of all the biological innate disposition, impulses, tendencies, appetites and instincts of the individual and the acquired dispositions and tendencies.” —Morton Prince
“It is an individual’s typical or consistent adjustment to his environment.” —Boring
“It is the sum total of innate and acquire dispositions.” —Valentine
“We shall define personality as the pattern of responses which characterizes the individual.” —Stagner
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“By personality we refer to a pattern of traits rather than to a mere list or collection of characteristics.” —Gates
“Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment.” —Allport
Term Paper # 2.
Personality- It’s Concept:
Every individual is said to have a personality of his own which is unique and distinct from every other personality. In a popular sense, by personality we mean that an individual has some striking qualities or traits in which he differs from others i.e., in appearance, in aggressiveness or pleasant manners, etc. But, these are not the only points that make up the person. Every individual has a typical and distinctive style of behaving.
This unique quality of his behaviour constitutes shape to his personality, i.e., feelings, values, reactions, prejudices, attitudes, perceptions etc., are the basis of one’s behaviour. Thus, personality includes physique, habits, temperament, sentiments, will and intelligence, etc. Personality pervades every aspect of human life and influences every behaviour. It is on the ground that Woodworth calls personality as the quality of one’s behaviour.
The personality of the individual is much more complex and goes deeper. Personality is meant the individual’s characteristic and reaction to social situations and has adaptation to his social features of his environment. Hence, personality is not only what we do in relation to others, but something more than that. Psychologically, personality is all that a person is. It is the totality of his being and includes physical, mental, emotional and temperamental make-up.
Personality is a term that has been used very widely, but each time to mean some different aspects of a person. We often hear an adolescent admiring the ‘good looking’ personality of a film-star, Amitabh Bachchan or the great personality Smita Patil or the great personality of a national leader like Indira Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose. A student may admire his Professor’s personality.
Similarly, Vaibhav may speak of his friend Anuraag has having a pleasant personality while Anuraag may denounce Vaibhav as a boy having ‘No personality’ or ‘Zero Personality’ at all. In this light personality means the impact that an individual produces on the persons interacting with him. Dashiell says it is a “system of reactions and reaction-possibilities in toto as viewed by fellow-members of the society. It is the sum-total of behaviour-trends manifested in his social adjustments.” It does not exist as an entity by itself. It is one’s “habitual modes of response.”
In other words, we can say that it is “the sum total or our ways of behaving, especially towards others.” However, the above meaning of personality is only a part of the actual meaning of the term. What makes up a personality is the difference between various individuals. If all individuals were equal, there would have been no question of personality.
Term Paper # 3.
Development and Types of Personality:
Development of Personality:
By the development of personality we mean the development or growth of habitual tendencies which are excited by social stimuli. Personality-development is a process of developing substitute stimuli and substitute responses in place of original or in place of earlier stimuli and original or earlier response-tendencies. It emphasizes that personality is only gradually achieved and the individual is building up the pattern of his personality through constant interaction within himself and with the environment outside.
Psychologists have tried to study the development of personality in relation to various factors. Many of them emphasize the importance of early childhood in the shaping of personality. Freud believed that the foundation of personality takes its root by the age of five years. Lewin stresses the gradual differentiation of personality pattern from childhood to adulthood. However, the actual shaping of personality takes place under the influence of parents, the way that treat and bring up children, follow social practices and observe religion, provide the type of education, etc. We now turn to the general factors which affects the process of personality development.
Types of Classification of Personality:
A large number of studies advocated the theory of type of personality by classifying human beings into more or less clear cut types based on their temperament, ways of behaviour, body build, mental make-up or the objectives they pursued or aimed at in life.
Term Paper # 4.
Personality Characteristics:
Confining ourselves to those aspects of personality that are characteristics and distinctive simplifies considerably the problem of studying personality. We find that personality characteristics often overlap and are highly co-related with each other, e.g., honesty, integrity, dependability.
We shall consider several sets of characteristics under the following heading:
1. Personality Traits,
2. Personality Types,
3. Abilities, Interest Attitudes,
4. Motives, and
5. Modes of Adjustment.
(1) Personality Traits:
A trait is a generalized tendency toward action, but trait is an abstraction, it cannot be analyzed. Trait is “higher order habits.” or organized frames of references.
A trait is any aspect of personality that is reasonably characteristic and distinctive.
The following are the general personality traits:
(i) Social adaptability
(ii) Emotional control
(iii) Conformity
(iv) Inquiring intellect, and
(v) Confident self-expression.
Individual Traits:
The following are the individual traits:
(i) Cheerful-depressed. Talkative-silent.
(ii) Unshakable-easily upset, self-sufficient emotional expression.
(iii) Readiness, good, natured, trustful, selfish, easy going, self-centred.
(iv) Broad or narrow interests, imaginative depending.
(v) Assertive-submissive opposite sex, expression.
(2) Personality Types:
There have been many attempts to classify persons on the basis of their personality pattern.
According to Thorndike, persons are of three types on the basis of thinking:
(i) Abstract thinker,
(ii) Ideal thinker and
(iii) Thing or concert thinker.
According to Jung, persons are of two types:
(i) Introverts, and
(ii) Extroverts are most famous. An introvert is self-centred shy, simple impractical {e.g., philosopher, scientist painter). Extroverts are practical minded persons they try to please others.
Most of them are in between the two can be termed as:
(iii) Ambiverts type
Several attempts have been made on the different basis:
(a) Physique
(b) On interest
(c) Social type
(d) Bodily type
(e) Intelligence
(f) Adjustment, and
(g) On the basis of imagination.
(3) Abilities, Attitude and Interests:
Any descriptive of personality characteristics is incomplete if it does not include such things. He is intelligent, conservative and sports loving.
They are more often measured by objective tests. They are often measured for special purpose such as selection of the students, vocational counselling or public opinions.
(4) Motives:
It is also possible to describe a person in terms of his motives and goals. We need to have concepts of personality that are cast in terms of motives as well as traits. The traits are described by motives.
A classification of major personal motives.
(5) Modes of Adjustment:
Another was characterizing people is by their typical modes of adjustment.
The term adjustment refers to accommodating oneself to circumstances or motives under various circumstances:
(i) Conflict of motives approach-approach circumstances avoidance, approach-approach.
(ii) Defence Mechanisms.
(iii) Neurotic Reactions.
(iv) Effect of Functions.
(v) Psycho-Reactions.
Term Paper # 5.
Dimensions or Aspects of Personality:
It is convenient to use a number of terms to refer to certain components or aspects of personality that we may wish to evaluate.
These terms and the meanings that attach to them are discussed briefly below:
a. Character:
Character traits are aspects of individual behaviour to which definite social value has been attached. Honesty, cooperativeness, thrift, kindliness, and loyalty are all labels for social virtues. Educational and religious organizations have always been concerned with the inculcation of such virtues. Based on this concern there have been developed a number of evaluation procedures that we shall refer to as measure of character.
b. Adjustment:
Educationists and psychologists have long been concerned with the concept of adjustment. The mental hygiene approach as applied both in and out of school has striven to develop “well-adjusted personalities.” Maladjustment is recognized in individuals who fail to fit into the social group or who appear to live unhappy and unproductive lives.
As with character, degree of adjustment represents a social judgement, and what is conceived to be well-adjusted behaviours varies from one culture to another, depending upon what is normal for the culture. Normal behaviour in our competitive, acquisitive, society might seem pathological if transferred to a south sea island. Adjustment will mean, then, behaviour patterns that enable the person to get along in and be comfortable in his social setting.
c. Temperament:
From early days observers of human nature have noted conspicuous differences in energy level, prevailing mood, and general style of life. Literary men and men of science alike have proposed systems or classifying temperaments. Hippocrates, for example, proposed that men could be divided into the sanguine (energetic and cheerful), choleric (energetic and irascible), phlegmatic (sluggish and placid), and melancholic (sluggish and sad), and proposed physiological bases for these distinctions. There have been many other classifications before and since. Appraisals of such dimensions as these we shall speak of as measures of temperament.
d. Interest:
The individual makes a variety of choices with respect to the activities in which he engages. He shows preferences for some, aversion to others. Appraising these tendencies to seek or avoid particular activities constitutes the domain of interest measurement.
e. Attitude:
The individual responds with enthusiasm and aversion not only toward activities but also to social groups, social institutions, and the other aspects of his world. These reactions, with their various ramifications, constitute the individual’s constellation of attitudes. Various devices have been developed for evaluating these prejudices pros and cons, and these constitute the field of attitude measurement.