Personality

An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting, across time

and situations.
When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a dynamic concept describing
the growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
Types of personality
 Perfectionists
 Helpers
 Romantics
 Achievers
 Asserters
 Questioners
 Adventurers
 Observers and Peacemakers.
 Perfectionists – are realistic, conscientious and
principled
 Helpers – are warn, concerned, nurturing and
sensitive to other people’s needs
 Achievers – are energetic, optimistic, self-assured
and goal oriented
 Romantics – have sensitive feelings and are warm
and perceptive
 Observers – have a need for knowledge and are
introverted, curious, analytical and insightful
 Questioners – are responsible and trustworthy
 Adventurers – are energetic, lively and optimistic.
They want to contribute to the world.
  Asserters – are direct, self-reliant, self-confident and protective.
 Peacemakers – are receptive, good-natured and supportive. They seek union
with others and the world around them.

PERSONALITY TRAITS
Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors. Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores
high on a specific trait like Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different
situations and over time. Thus, trait psychology rests on the idea that people differ
from one another in terms of where they stand on a set of basic trait dimensions that
persist over time and across situations. The most widely used system of traits is
called the Five-Factor Model. This system includes five broad traits that can be
remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each of the major traits from the Big
Five can be divided into facets to give a more fine-grained analysis of someone's
personality. In addition, some trait theorists argue that there are other traits that
cannot be completely captured by the Five-Factor Model. Critics of the trait concept
argue that people do not act consistently from one situation to the next and that
people are very influenced by situational forces. Thus, one major debate in the field
concerns the relative power of people’s traits versus the situations in which they find
themselves as predictors of their behavior.

Personality traits types

 The big 5 personality traits are:
 Neuroticism
 Extraversion
 Openness to experience
 Agreeableness
 Conscientiousness
Neuroticism:
Tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or
depression.
Low levels of neuroticism indicate emotional stability.
High levels of neuroticism increase the likelihood of experiencing negative
emotions.
Contrasts emotional stability and even-temperedness with negative emotionality,
such as feeling anxious, nervous, sad, and tense.
Extraversion:
Characterized by positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek out
stimulation and the company of others.
Implies an energetic approach to the social and material world.
Extroverts tend to be more physically and verbally active whereas introverts are
independent, reserved, steady and like being alone.
Includes traits such as sociability, activity, assertiveness, and positive emotionality.
Openness to experience:
General appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination,
curiosity, and variety of experience.
Relates to intellect, openness to new ideas, cultural interests, educational aptitude
and creativity as well as an interest in varied sensory and cognitive experience.
Describes the breadth, depth, originality, and complexity of an individual’s mental
and experiential life.
Agreeableness:
A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and
antagonistic.
Includes traits such as altruism, tendermindedness, trust, and modesty.
Scale is linked to, nurturance, caring and emotional support versus
competitiveness, hostility, indifference, self-centeredness, spitefulness and
jealousy.
Agreeable people can be described as altruistic, gentle, kind, sympathetic and
warm.
Conscientiousness:
Tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement against
measures or outside expectations.
Describes socially prescribed impulse control that facilitates task and goal-directed
behavior,
The focused person concentrates on a limited number of goals but strives hard to
reach them,
Flexible person is more impulsive and easier to persuade from one task to another.

Personality development
Personality development is actually the development from the organized pattern of
attitudes and behaviors which makes an individual distinctive.
THINGS TO ENHANCE YOUR PERSONALITY:
Don't compare your life
Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot
control. Instead invest your energy in the positive
present moment
Don't waste your precious energy on gossip
Dream more while you are awake
Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
Give honest and sincere appreciation.
WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU:
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Be a good listener.
Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Show respect for the other person's opinions.
Never say, “You're wrong.”
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's
point of view.

Personality assessment:
Personality assessment, the measurement of personal characteristics. Assessment
is an end result of gathering information intended to advance psychological theory
and research and to increase the probability that wise decisions will be made in
applied settings (e.g., in selecting the most promising people from a group of job
applicants). The approach taken by the specialist in personality assessment is based
on the assumption that much of the observable variability in behavior from one
person to another results from differences in the extent to which individuals
possess particular underlying personal characteristics (traits). The assessment
specialist seeks to define these traits, to measure them objectively, and to relate
them to socially significant aspects of behavior.
A distinctive feature of the scientific approach to personality measurement is the
effort, wherever possible, to describe human characteristics in quantitative terms.
How much of a trait manifests itself in an individual? How many traits are present?
Quantitative personality measurement is especially useful in comparing groups of
people as well as individuals. Do groups of people from different cultural and
economic backgrounds differ when considered in the light of their particular
personality attributes or traits? How large are the group differences?
Overt behavior is a reflection of interactions among a wide range of underlying
factors, including the bodily state of the individual and the effects of that person’s
past personal experiences. Hence, a narrowly focused approach is inadequate to
do justice to the complex human behavior that occurs under the constantly
changing set of challenges, pleasures, demands, and stresses of everyday life. The
sophisticated measurement of human personality inescapably depends on the use
of a variety of concepts to provide trait definitions and entails the application of
various methods of observation and evaluation. Personality theorists and
researchers seek to define and to understand the diversity of human traits, the many
ways people have of thinking and perceiving and learning and emoting. Such
nonmaterial human dimensions, types, and attributes are constructs—in this
case, inferences drawn from observed behavior. Widely studied personality
constructs include anxiety, hostility, emotionality, motivation, and introversion-
extroversion. Anxiety, for example, is a concept, or construct, inferred in people
from what they say, their facial expressions, and their body movements.
Personality is interactional in two senses. As indicated above, personal
characteristics can be thought of as products of interactions among underlying
psychological factors; for example, an individual may experience tension because
he or she is both shy and desirous of social success. These products, in turn,
interact with the types of situations people confront in their daily lives. A person
who is anxious about being evaluated might show debilitated performance in
evaluative situations (for example, taking tests), but function well in other
situations in which an evaluative emphasis is not present. Personality makeup can
be either an asset or a liability depending on the situation. For example, some
people approach evaluative situations with fear and foreboding, while others seem
to be motivated in a desirable direction by competitive pressures associated with
performance.

Personality constructs:
Efforts to measure personality constructs stem from a variety of sources.
Frequently they grow out of theories of personality; anxiety and repression (the
forgetting of unpleasant experiences), for example, are among the central concepts
of the theory of psychoanalysis. It is understandable that efforts would be made to
quantify one’s degree of anxiety, for example, and to use the score thus obtained in
the assessment of and in the prediction of future behavior. Among the major issues
in the study of personality measurement is the question of which of the many
personality constructs that have been quantified are basic or fundamental and
which can be expected to involve wasted effort in their measurement because they
represent poorly defined combinations of more elemental constructs; which
measurement techniques are most effective and convenient for the purpose of
assessment; and whether it is better to interview people in measuring personality,
or to ask them to say, for example, what an inkblot or a cloud in the sky reminds
them of.
Efforts to measure any given personality construct can fail as a result of
inadequacies in formulating or defining the trait to be measured and weaknesses in
the assessment methods employed. An investigator might desire to specify
quantitatively the degree to which individuals are submissive in social and
competitive situations. His effectiveness will depend on the particular theory of
submissiveness he brings to bear on the problem; on the actual procedures he
selects or devises to measure submissiveness; and on the adequacy of the research
he performs to demonstrate the usefulness of the measure. Each of these tasks must
be considered carefully in evaluating efforts to measure personality attributes.

The methods used in personality description and measurement fall into several
categories that differ with regard to the type of information gathered and the
methods by which it is obtained. While all should rely on data that come from
direct observations of human behavior if they are to have at least the semblance of
scientific value, all may vary with regard to underlying assumptions, validity, and
reliability (consistency, in this case).