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Definition-
According to Allport (1961) personality is the “dynamic organisation within the individual of those psycho-physical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment” It means that personality “resides” within the individual and these systems are woven into an organisation.
According to political definition a person has personality only when he is charismatic, attractive and represents the masses. He should be able to present himself in an impressive manner at a public debate. His personal life should be marred with scandals. Even this definition is not acceptable for if we accept this definition then majority of political leaders should not have any personality.
This category of definitions regards personality as organic internal element of a person. It regards personality as consisting of traits which lend themselves to objective measurement.
This category includes all those concepts which lay emphasis on the description of personality. Morton Prince (1924)’s definition best represents this approach. According to him “ personality is the sum total of all biological, innate dispositions, impulses, tendencies, appetites and instincts of the individual and the acquired dispositions and tendencies acquired by experiences.
Essence of this definition lies in finding order and consistency in the behaviour of an individual across different situations. Thus personality is a pattern or organisation. For example, Cagan and Haveman define personality as the total pattern of characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that constitute the individual’s distinctive method of relating to the environment.
Personality is a system that has both psychological and physical aspects. This system is composed of interacting elements and the main elements of the system are traits, emotions, intellect, temperament, character and motives. All these elements are psychological but they are based in the neurology and endocrinology of the body.
It signifies that different elements of psychological system are independent but function in an interlocking manner and are subject to change. However this change can take place over a period of time in a gradual manner.
Since personality is a stable organisation it also has the element of consistencey. By consistency we mean that an individual behaves in the same way in different situations and behavioural consistency is found when same situation is repeated across time. Psychologists give four types of consistency.
In this type the situation and behaviour remain same. For example, a football player is asked to play match against team X and after 10 days he asked to play against the team.
When the same behaviour is repeated in two different situations. For example, a person appears for an interview before one selection board then he appears for interview for the same job before another board in the final round.
When an individual is asked to behave differently in the same situation. For example, when an actor is asked to imitate different actors.
When a person behaves differently in different situations. A person is able to behave in different situations according to the demand of the situation because he is influenced by particular type of traits.
Every person is characterised with a dynamic organisation of psychological traits that makes his adjustment. The reason for this is that experiences of every person are unique therefore their reaction to the environment is also unique.
Personality development is the natural quality of a growing organism. The path is from simple to increasingly complex factors and situations an individual has to pass by. According to Heniz Werner, at birth the mental organisation of the infant expands slowly. Through interactions with the environment, the parts of the child’s mental structure become progressively crystallised and differentiated from each other. The analytical stage is followed by synthesis or integration when the differentiated parts become functionally organised. From a diffused mass through progressive differentiation to an integrated whole is, then the course of development of personality structure.
Personality is conscious in that it develops out of our interaction with the environment. This interaction results in formation of concept of self. Self-concept means who we are and what we stand for. All the responses of a human being are oriented toward protection of the self concept.
Potential for change is another characteristic of personality. The earlier psychoanalytical view did hold personality as a rigid structure. However, modern humanistic theories have demonstrated not only the human has the capacity for reorganisation but also the conditions do foster change. Integration or organisation is the quality of the human personality, that is it occurs to human beings naturally and normally. It is the normal development outcome of personality structure. Disorganisation, that is, the isolation of the functions of the individual parts from the total system, is a pathological condition (Goldstein) of a psychological disorder.
Traits are relatively permanent characteristics of personality which compel an individual to behave consistently across different situations. People can be compared by measuring these traits.
Some of the important traits are
(a) Introversion-extraversion;
(b) Neuroticismstability
(c) Psychoticism
It is a bipolar trait. People with predominance of introversion are self-centered. Such people are idealistic, imaginative, shy and secluded. Predominance of thoughtfulness steers them in the world of brooding, fantasy and daydreaming. These people take considerable time in reaching decision and are worried about the future. Such people are theoretical and often are philosophers, poets, scientist and professors. Extroverts are more inclined to social activities. They are gregarious and social by nature. Such people are realistic, practical, talkative, and active. They show more interest in leadership. However, very few people are completely extrovert or introvert. Majority of the people fall in between that is, they exhibit some degree of introversion and some degree of extroversion in their behaviour and hence are called Ambiverts.
This too is a bipolar dimension. People high on neuroticism exhibit particular traits and behavioural tendencies. They show lack of emotional control and will power with an added characteristic of slowness in thought process and activity. Even small things perturb them. People with high neuroticism are high on suggestibility and low on sociability. However, such people are also characterised by increased emotional impulsiveness. Contrary to neuroticism, people high on stability are cool and do not get easilybn disturbed or perturbed by conflicting issues. They are able to keep themselves under control even in most difficult circumstances. They can detach themselves and think over the problem in a balanced manner so as to arrive at a right decision. This quality of them makes them realistic and problem solution oriented.
People with this trait show lack of concentration power and weak memory. They are also characterised with insensitivity. They are more worried for themselves than for others. Element of cruelty and sensation seeking marks their behaviour and they are unable to protect themselves from danger and dangerous situations.
Locus of control refers to internal or external control over reinforcement resulting from operating response upon the environment. In fact it is the development of a generalised expectancy within the individual as to how he receives reinforcement. People with internal locus of control think that skill coupled with hard work, foresightedness and feeling of responsibility can change their fate and bring reinforcement. While people high on external locus of control think that reinforcement is not in their control that is, they can not influence the outcome of happenings. Whatever happens is ascribed to luck and coincidence.
This relates to differences in information processing. Field dependent person is directly influenced by the stimuli and events in his environment because he accepts all these information in a non-selective manner while field independent person selects information coming from the environment on the basis of internal cues coming from within.
Psychologists widely believe that for a person to engage in some particular behaviour the presence of motivation is a must. This dimension of personality includes all those motivational activities which while directing a person towards the target, give rise to specific patterns of behaviour. Motivational dimension include the following:
It refers to motivation which impels a person to work in a manner that ensures success in that work. People with high achievement motivation are characterised by the following aspects: l Liking for tasks that have high probability of success. L
Accomplish those tasks on which comparison is possible.
Tasks that reflect personal characteristics are more liked by people high on achievement motivation.
Success on a given task makes achievement oriented people raise their aspiration level.
Such people like to work in situations where they have control over outcome so that they can determine whether success would be coming or not.
Achievement motivation reflects gender differences. Usually girls are less achievement oriented as compared to boys.
Presence of achievement motivation in a person depends on independence training. For example, children of parents who allow and motivate their offspring to do things for themselves are more achievement oriented as compared to children of parents who are over indulgent with their offsprings
This refers to the tendency of a person that impels the individual to establish his or her influence and suzranity over others. Such people are able to make others act according to their directions through threat or pleading. following are the characteristics of high power motive people:
l Such persons whether he is playing a game or is in real war with other person tries his best to eliminate the opponent.
l Person with high power motivation are often intolerant of low socio economic strata persons. Such people treat others on the basis of power scale so that those less powerful are considered inhuman while those above them in the power scale are attributed all qualities. Thus high power motivation people are quite aggressive and impulsive toward low social status people.
l Such people are found of collecting antiques and expensive things which they readily show to cast impression on others.
Human beings are social animal. They like to live with members of their own species. People high on affiliation are gregarious and liberal. Affiliation has two dimensions, first positive dimension, it is reflected in hope for affiliation and, second negative dimension which is reflected in fear of rejection. Like achievement motivation individual differences are found in affiliation motive.
It controls those behaviours which we undertake to secure praise and approval of significant others. When active this motive makes us seek social approval for our thoughts and responses.
Temperament is the third main dimension of personality. It refers to the sum total of the emotional and affective tendencies of the person. Sensitivity, irritability, nervousness, pleasantness are some of the adjective used to describe temperament. Temperament is believed to be the innate quality of person that means it is present at the time of birth.
By character we mean moral excellences. As a dimension of personality character signifies the morality or immorality in the person. It is the learned aspect of personality and is acquired through process of socialisation. It is also known as conscience. In a way it is similar to Freud’s superego and represents the do’ s and don’ts. Violation of conscience arises pangs of guilt in the individual.
Heredity is just like the blue print of our personality which defines the broad limits of personality within which our personality will take shape. Hereditary factors include the following:
(i) Physique and physical health
(ii) Endocrine system
(iii) Nervous system
By physical structure we mean height, color, constitution, composition of body etc. Generally, a person with good physical structure and constitution enjoys good health. Traits of physical structure are largely received in inheritance.
Mendel (an Austrian Saint) through his experiments on pie nuts proved that children inherit the average of the physical traits of their parents. For example, If the father is tall and mother is of short height, the children in all probability gain average height of both parents.
Our glandular system affects our personality and behaviour a great deal. It is well known that the many glands in our system regulate varied types of activities that are going on within our bodily system . However the question arises as to how are these glands which regulate our system affect our personality.
Glands are of two types — endocrine glands and exocrine glands. Of these, the more important one is the endocrine glands. While secretions of exocrine glands go out of our body, the endocrinal secretions are released directly to our blood stream. Following are some of main endocrine glands: (i) Pituitary gland (ii) Adrenal gland (iii) Thyroid gland (iv) Pancreas and (v) Sex gland.
Psychologists usually believe that a person with more complex and developed nervous system has greater level of intellectual capabilities, and is considered more able to adjust with different situations. Such individuals are viewed favourably by others and are praised for their personality traits. Development of nervous system determines a person’s actual accomplishment in the society and his social status in the society. For example, any maldevelopment in hippocampus leads to deficits in short term memory in that the person is unable to process information from short term to long term memory
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