Personality psychology

Personality psychology studies personality based on theories of individual differences. One emphasis in this area is to construct a coherent picture of a person and his or her major psychological processes (Bradberry, 2007). Another emphasis views personality as the study of individual differences, in other words, how people differ from each other. A third area of emphasis examines human nature and how all people are similar to one other. These three viewpoints merge together in the study of personality.

Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations (Ryckman, 2004). The word "personality" originates from the Latin "persona", which means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to "disguise" the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent or "typify" that character.

The pioneering American psychologist, Gordon Allport (1937) described two major ways to study personality, the nomothetic and the idiographic. "Nomothetic psychology" seeks general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle of self-actualization, or the trait of extraversion. "Idiographic psychology" is an attempt to understand the unique aspects of a particular individual.The study of personality has a rich and varied history in psychology, with an abundance of theoretical traditions. Some psychologists have taken a highly scientific approach, whereas others have focused their attention on theory development. There is also a substantial emphasis on the applied field of personality testing with people.

Philosophical assumptions

Many of the ideas developed by the historical and modern Personality Theorists stem from basic philosophical assumptions they hold. A good textbook for understanding basic assumptions behind personality theories is Hjelle and Ziegler (1992) - this book is now out of print, but similar views are articulated by Ryckman (2000). Psychology is not a purely empirical discipline, as it brings in elements of art, science, and philosophy to draw general conclusions. The following five categories are some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions where theorists disagree:

Freedom versus Determinism

The debate over whether we have control over our own behavior and understand the motives behind it (Freedom), or if our behavior is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences (Determinism).

Heredity versus Environment

Personality is thought to be determined largely by either genetics and/or heredity, or by environment and experiences, or both. There is evidence for all possibilities. Ruth Benedict was one of the leading anthropologists that studied the impact of one's culture on the personality and behavioral traits of the individual.

Uniqueness versus Universality


Active versus Reactive

Do we primarily act through our own initiative (Active), or do we react to outside stimuli (Reactive)?

Optimistic versus Pessimistic

Finally, whether or not we can alter our personalities (Optimistic) or if they remain the same throughout our whole lives (Pessimistic).

Optimistic=looking at the present & future "with" hope.

Pessimistic=looking at the present & future "without" hope.


Personality theories

Critics of personality theory claim personality is "plastic" across time, places, moods, and situations. Changes in personality may indeed result from diet (or lack thereof), medical effects, significant events, or learning. However, most personality theories emphasize stability over fluctuation.

Trait theories

According to the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" of the American Psychiatric Association, personality traits are "enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts." Theorists generally assume a) traits are relatively stable over time, b) traits differ among individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing while others are shy), and c) traits influence behavior.

The most common models of traits incorporate three to five broad dimensions or factors. The least controversial dimension, observed as far back as the ancient Greeks, is simply extraversion vs. introversion (outgoing and physical-stimulation-oriented vs. quiet and physical-stimulation-averse).

*Gordon Allport delineated different kinds of traits, which he also called dispositions. "Central traits" are basic to an individual's personality, while "secondary traits" are more peripheral. "Common traits" are those recognized within a culture and thus may vary from culture to culture. "Cardinal traits" are those by which an individual may be strongly recognized.

*Raymond Cattell's research propagated a two-tiered personality structure with sixteen "primary factors" (16 Personality Factors) and five "secondary factors."

*Hans Eysenck, who believed just three traits - extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism - were sufficient to describe human personality. Differences between Cattell and Eysenck emerged due to preferences for different forms of factor analysis, with Cattell using oblique, Eysenck orthogonal, rotation to analyse the factors that emerged when personality questionnaires were subjected to statistical analysis. Today, the Big Five factors have the weight of a considerable amount of empirical research behind them. Building on the work of Cattell and others.

*Lewis Goldberg proposed a five-dimension personality model, nicknamed the "Big Five":
*#Extraversion - outgoing and stimulation-oriented vs. quiet and stimulation-avoiding
*#Neuroticism - emotionally reactive, prone to negative emotions vs. calm, imperturbable, optimistic
*#Agreeableness - affable, friendly, conciliatory vs. aggressive, dominant, disagreeable
*#Conscientiousness - dutiful, planful, and orderly vs. laidback, spontaneous, and unreliable
*#Openness to experience - open to new ideas and change vs. traditional and oriented toward routine:For ease of remembrance, this can be written as either OCEAN or CANOE.

*John L. Holland's "RIASEC" vocational model, commonly referred to as the Holland Codes, stipulates there are six personality traits that lead people to choose their career paths. This model is widely used in vocational counseling and is a circumplex model where the six types are represented as a hexagon where adjacent types are more closely related than those more distant.

Trait models have been criticized as being purely descriptive and offering little explanation of the underlying causes of personality. Eysenck's theory, however, does propose biological mechanisms as driving traits, and modern behavior genetics researchers have demonstrated a clear genetic substrate to them.vague Another potential weakness with trait theories is they lead people to accept oversimplified classifications, or worse offer advice, based on a superficial analysis of one's personality. Finally, trait models often underestimate the effect of specific situations on people's behavior. It is important to remember traits are statistical generalizations that do not always correspond to an individual's behavior.

Type theories

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of people. Personality types are distinguished from personality traits, which come in different levels or degrees. According to type theories, for example, there are two types of people, introverts and extraverts. According to trait theories, introversion and extraversion are part of a continuous dimension, with many people in the middle. The idea of psychological types originated in the theoretical work of Carl JungFact|date=June 2008 and William Marston, whose work is reviewed in Dr. Travis Bradberry's "The Personality Code". Jung's seminal 1921 book on the subject is available in English as "Psychological Types".

Building on the writings and observations of Carl Jung, during World War II Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother Katharine C. Briggs delineated personality types by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This model was later used by David Keirsey with a different understanding from Jung, Briggs and Myers. In the forner Soviet Union, Lithuanian Aušra Augustinavičiūtė independently derived a model of personality type from Jung's called Socionics.


Perceiving functions: intuition and sensing (trust in conceptual/abstract models of reality or concrete sensory-oriented facts)

Judging functions: thinking and feeling (thinking as the prime-mover in decision-making or feelings as the prime-mover in decision-making).

Briggs and Myers also added another personality dimension to their type indicator in order to indicate whether a person has a more dominant judging or perceiving function. Therefore they included questions designed to indicate whether someone desires to either perceive events or have things done so that judgements can be made.

This personality typology has some aspects of a trait theory: it explains people's behaviour in terms of opposite fixed characteristics. In these more traditional models, the intuition factor is considered the most basic, dividing people into "N" or "S" personality types. An "N" is further assumed to be guided by the thinking or objectication habit, or feelings, and be divided into "NT" (scientist, engineer) or "NF" (author, human-oriented leader) personality. An "S", by contrast, is assumed to be more guided by the perception axis, and thus divided into "SP" (performer, craftsman, artisan) and "SJ" (guardian, accountant, bureaucrat) personality. These four are considered basic, with the other two factors in each case (including always extraversion) less important. Critics of this traditional view have observed that the types are quite strongly stereotyped by professions, and thus may arise more from the need to categorize people for purposes of guiding their career choice. This among other objections led to the emergence of the five factor view, which is less concerned with behavior under work stress and more concerned with behavior in personal and emotional circumstances. Some critics have argued for more or fewer dimensions while others have proposed entirely different theories (often assuming different definitions of "personality").

Socionics, a social psychology discipline founded by Aushra Augusta, equates Jung's function concept with information elements and aspects, which are elements of Anton Kepinsky's information metabolism theory.vague [Augusta, A.: Notes on the Socion] The information elements are observed to have conflicts between themselves, which lead to persistent patterns of relation between two individuals. [Augusta, A.: The Dual nature of Man]


Psychoanalytic theories


Freud divides human personality into three significant components: the ego, superego, and id. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", demanding immediate gratification of its needs regardless of external environment; the ego then must emerge in order to realistically meet the wishes and demands of the id in accordance with the outside world, adhering to the "reality principle". Finally, the superego inculcates moral judgment and societal rules upon the ego, thus forcing the demands of the id to be met not only realistically but morally. The superego is the last function of the personality to develop, and is the embodiment of parental/social ideals established during childhood. According to Freud, personality is based on the dynamic interactions of these three componentsCarver, C., & Scheier, M. (2004). "Perspectives on Personality" (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson.] .

The channeling and release of sexual (libidal) and aggressive energies, which ensues from the "Eros" (sex; instinctual self-preservation) and "Thanatos" (death; instinctual self-annihilation) drives respectively, are major components of his theory. It is important to note Freud's broad understanding of sexuality included all kinds of pleasurable feelings experienced by the human body.

Freud proposed five psychosexual stages of personality development. He believed adult personality is dependent upon early childhood experiences and largely determined by age five. Fixations that develop during the Infantile stage contribute to adult personality and behavior.




Behaviorist theories



Ivan Pavlov is another notable influence. He is well known for his classical conditions experiments involving a dog. These physiological studies on this dog led him to discover the foundation of behaviorism as well as classical conditioning.

Cognitive theories




* Self-efficacy work, dealing with confidence people have in abilities to do tasks (Bandura, 1997);

* Locus of control theory (Lefcourt, 1966; Rotter, 1966) dealing with different beliefs people have about whether their worlds are controlled by themselves or external factors;

* Attributional style theory (Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale, 1978) dealing with different ways in which people explain events in their lives. This approach builds upon locus of control, but extends it by stating we also need to consider whether people attribute to stable causes or variable causes, and to global causes or specific causes.

Various scales have been developed to assess both attributional style and locus of control. Locus of control scales include those used by Rotter and later by Duttweiler, the Nowicki and Strickland (1973) Locus of Control Scale for Children and various locus of control scales specifically in the health domain, most famously that of Kenneth Wallston and his colleagues, The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (Wallston et al, 1978). Attributional style has been assessed by the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson & Villanova, 1988), the Attributions Questionnaire (Gong-guy & Hammen, 1990), the Real Events Attributional Style Questionnaire (Norman & Antaki, 1988) and the Attributional Style Assessment Test (Anderson, 1988).


Humanistic theories

In humanistic psychology it is emphasized people have free will and they play an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons as opposed to forced, definitive factors that determine behaviour. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were proponents of this view, which is based on the "phenomenal field" theory of Combs and Snygg (1949) [Combs, Arthur W., and Snygg, Donald. " : A New Frame of Reference for Psychology". New York, Harper and Brothers. [http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/snygg&combs.html Article on Snygg and Combs' Phenomenological Field Theory] ] .

# Acceptance/Spontaneity - they accept their surroundings and what cannot be changed.


Biopsychological theories

Around the 1990s, neuroscience entered the domain of personality psychology. Whereas previous efforts for identifying personality differences relied upon simple, direct, human observation, neuroscience introduced powerful brain analysis tools like Electroencephalography (EEG), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to this study. One of the founders of this area of brain research is Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/ Davidson's research lab] has focused on the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala in manifesting human personality. In particular, this research has looked at hemispheric asymmetry of activity in these regions. Neuropsychological studies have illustrated how hemispheric asymmetry can affect an individual's personality (particularly in social settings) for individuals who have NLD (non-verbal learning disorder) which is marked by the impairment of nonverbal information controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain. Progress will arise in the areas of gross motor skills, inability to organize visual-spatial relations, or adapt to novel social situations. Frequently, a person with NLD is unable to interpret non-verbal cues, and therefore experiences difficulty interacting with peers in socially normative ways. An integrative, biopsychosocial approach to personality and psychopathology, linking brain and environmental factors to specific types of activity is the hypostatic model of personality, created by Codrin Stefan Tapu (Tapu, 2001).

Personality tests


Examples of personality tests include:
* Holland Codes
* Rorschach test
* Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
* Morrisby Profile
* Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
* Enneagram Type Indicator
* Thematic Apperception Test
* Kelly's Repertory Grid

Critics have pointed to the Forer effect to suggest some of these appear to be more accurate and discriminating than they really are.



* Abramson, L. , Seligman, M.E.P. & Teasdale,J. (1978). Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and reformulation. "Journal of Abnormal Psychology", "87", 49-74.
* Allport, G. W. (1937). "Personality: A psychological interpretation." New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
* Baron, J. (1982). Intelligence and Personality. In R. Sternberg (Ed.). "Handbook of Intelligence". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Bradberry, T. (2007). "The Personality Code." New York: Putnam.
* Engler, Barbara (2006). "Personality Theories". Houghton Mifflin.
* Hjelle, L. & Ziegler, D. (1992). Personality: Basic Assumptions, Research and Applications.New York: McGraw Hill
* Ryckman, R. (2004). "Theories of Personality". Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
* Tapu, C.S. (2001). "Hypostatic Personality: Psychopathology of Doing and Being Made". Ploiesti: Premier.

ee also

*Big Five personality traits
*Career development
*Clinical psychology
*Dissociative identity disorder
*Educational psychology
*Holland Codes
*Individual differences
*Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
*Personality disorder
*Trait theory
*Type A personality
*Will (philosophy)

External links

* [http://www.handwritinginstitute.com Personality analysis through handwriting]
* [http://www.vega.org.uk/video/programme/11 Freeview Video 'Predicting Personality' by the Vega Science Trust and the BBC/OU]
* [http://www.personality-project.org Northwestern University-led collaboration between personality psychologists worldwide to "attempt to bring information about current personality theory and research to the readers of the World Wide Web"]
* [http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/perscontents.html Personality Theories]
* [http://www.thepersonalitysystem.org A contemporary approach to the field of personality psychology]
* [http://www.personality-project.org The personality project]
* [http://www.psychometriclab.com Trait Emotional Intelligence: EI as personality]
* [http://www.wilderdom.com/personality/personality.html Personality: Theory & Perspectives - Individual Differences]
* [http://www.louisville.edu/~rfbett01/bbthesis.htm Thesis on the interpersonal theory of personality]
* [http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/snygg&combs.html Snygg & Combs' phenomenal field psychology]
* [http://allpsych.com/personalitysynopsis/horney.html Karen Horney: Personality and gender]
* [http://psych.eiu.edu/spencer/Existential.html Existential psychology]
* [http://inside.salve.edu/walsh/allport_2.html Gordon Allport's personality definitions]
* [http://wynja.com/personality/buddhistpsych.html Buddhist psychology]
* [http://hrnt.jhu.edu/cmp/HollandTypes.cfm Holland's Types]
* [http://www.hollandcodes.com/holland_occupational_codes.html Holland Career Model]
* [http://ipip.ori.org Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool website]
* [http://www.panarchy.org/kluckhohn/personality.1953.html Henry A. Murray and Clyde Kluckhohn, Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture (1953)]
* [http://www.biopsychology.healthspace.eu Personalities and biopsychology]
* [http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Personality_psychology Personality psychology at The Psychology Wiki]

Further reading

*Mischel, W. (1999). "Introduction to Personality". Sixth edition. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace.
*Bradberry, T. (2007). "The Personality Code". New York, New York: Putnam.
*Buss, D.M., & Greiling, H.(1999). Adaptive Individual Differences. Journal of Personality, 67, 209-243.

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