We all know we had a personality and even want to improve personality or develop our personality. Also, in our talks the word personality comes regularly. We talk about our own personality and others personality. So, what is personality? It is the uniqueness within a human being. That is the way by which two human being become different.
Personality has been derived from the Latin word “persona” which means “mask” used by the actors to change their appearance. In this article we are looking in brief about personality. We first look into some of the definitions of personality, different components of personality, then moves to factors affecting personality and last traits of personality (Big Five).
Some Definitions
Many definitions are available for personality as per different psychologists. Once personality is that makes him different from other persons, which is his uniqueness. It may be his character, feeling, behavior, thoughts, etc. Also, it is the characteristic pattern that helps to explain a person’s behavior.
Here we are going to show some definitions for personality given by great psychologists.
Raymond B. Cattell, defined personality as “That which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a given situation”.
Gordon W. Allport, defines personality as “The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought”.
According to Funder, “Personality refers to individuals’ characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms — hidden or not — behind those patterns”.
According to Randy Larsen and David Buss, “personality is a stable, organized collection of psychological traits and mechanisms in the human being that influences his or her interactions with and modifications to the psychological, social and physical environment surrounding them. “
Components of Personality
From the definitions of personality given above, we can classify the components of personality as follows:
1. Personality is stable (consistent): That is personality does not change from time to time. People act in the same way.
2. Personality influences behaviors and actions: Personality influences our behavior and actions in an environment.
3. Personality has multiple expressions, properties and mechanisms: Personality of a person consists of different components and characteristics. Personality is displayed in more than just a behavior.
4. Personality is ever present: Personality is that which is always with you and make you behave as you.
Factors Affecting Personality
There are many factors that can affect the personality of a person. The factors can be mainly divided into two Individual factors and Environmental or Social factors that affect personality. A detail list of different factors that affect personality are there in out article “Factors Affecting Personality Development”.
Traits of Personality: Big Five Theory
According to psychologists, there are five major traits of personality. These are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. These big five can be remember using the term OCEAN. Each specified the first letter of the traits. Big Five are five big sets of words (including their opposites) which contain pretty much all of the words we might use to describe personality.