Theories of Personality

WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Personality is the unique way in which each individual thinks, acts, and feels throughout life. Personality should not be confused with character, which refers to value judgments made about a person's morals or ethical behavior; nor should it be confused with temperament, the enduring characteristics with which each person is born, such as irritability or adaptability. Temperament is based in one's biology, either through genetic influences, prenatal influences, or a combination of those influences, and forms the basis upon which one's larger personality is built. Both character and temperament are vital parts of personality, however.

Personality is an area of the still relatively young field of psychology in which there are several ways in which the characteristic behavior of human beings can be explained. One reason that there is not yet one single explanation of personality that all can agree on is that personality is still difficult to measure precisely and scientifically. At present, there are four main perspectives, or viewpoints, in personality theory:

• The psychodynamic perspective had its beginnings in the work of Sigmund Freud and still exists today. It focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. This perspective is also heavily focused on biological causes of personality differences.
• The behaviorist perspective is based on the theories of learning. This approach focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior.
• The humanistic perspective first arose as a reaction against the psychoanalytic and behaviorist perspectives and focuses on the role of each person's conscious life experiences and choices in personality development.
• The trait perspective differs from the other three in its basic goals : The psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and humanistic perspectives all seek to explain the process that causes personality to form into its unique characteristics, where as trait theories are more concerned with the end result- the characteristics themselves. Although some trait theorist assume that traits are biologically determined, others make no assumption.