 ‘Personality’ often appears in our day

day-to-day discussion
 PERSONA –MASK: LATIN- Roman theatre for changing their facial makemake-up.
 Person wearing the mask may enact a character but need not possess same quality
 Lay man’s view : physical appearance or Superficial impression…..
impression…..Not correct
 Personality refers to our characteristic ways of responding to people and situations
situations.
 The way in which we respond to different situations
 We use many describing words to explain one’s character

Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterize an individual’s behaviour
across different situations over a period of time.

 Personality characteristics of a person is mostly consistent but not always

 There is a Consistency in behaviour, thought and emotion of an individual across situations and across time
period.
 Situational variations in behaviour do occur as the
they help individuals
iduals in adapting to their environmental
circumstances.
CHARACTERSTICS OF PERSONALITY

It has both physical and psychological components.

Its expression in terms of behaviour

It is fairly unique in a given individual.

Dynamic-Adapt
Adapt to situational demands(internal or external)

Once Personality is understood ,It becomes predictable so

behaviours can be modified and altered or handled well
 Personality-related Terms

 Temperament:: Biologically based characteristic way of reacting.

 Trait: Stable, persistent and specific way of behaving.
 Disposition: Tendency of a person to react to a given situation in a particular way.
 Character: The overall pattern of regularly occurring behaviour.
 Habit: Over learned modes of behaving.
 Values: Goals and ideals that are considered important and worthwhile to achieve

MAJOR APPROACHES IN STUDY OF PERSONALITY

 Psychologists tremendous interest in studying ,,personality –nature and origin

 differences among people
 Why is it that some people react differently in a given situation than others do?
 Are these differences stable all through one’s life
life, or are they just short lived and situation-specific?”
situation

Many approaches were developed based on different models of Human behaviour

 Type theories: The type method tries to uunderstand human personality by looking at broad patterns in
observable behavioural traits of people
people.

1.Type theory –Hippocrates

 The Greek physician Hippocrates -typology

typology of personality -based on fluid or humour.
 He classified people into four types - sanguine( blood), phlegmatic( phlegm), melancholic(
melancholic black bile) and
choleric( yellow bile)

Type theory by
Hippocrates

Sanguine-Blood- Phlegmatic-
cheerful phlegm- calm
optimistic inactive

Choleric -yellow Melancholic-

bile-irritable black bile-sad
restless hopeless

2.Indian version of Dosha based type theory

theory-Charaka Samhita- Ayurveda-3 humours-VATTA,
VATTA, PITTA, KAPHA-
KAPHA
TRIDOSHA
 Each refers to temperament of a person

 Based on Typology of character or personality we also have TRIGUNAS-SATTVA

SATTVA ,RAJAS,TAMAS

DOSHAS TRIGUNA

VATTA SATTVA

PITTA RAJAS

KAPHA TAMAS
 All the three gunas are present in each and every person in different degrees. The dominance of one
or the other guna may lead to a particular type of behaviour.
 3.Type Theory by Sheldon
 Based on Body build and temperament
Ectomorph
• thin ,long,fragile
• Brainy ,artistic and introvert
Endomorph
• fat ,soft ,round
• relaxed and social
Mesomorph
• Srong ,muscular
• Courageous,energetic
4.Jung’s Typology
 Carl Jung
 personality theory based on psychological characteristics
 Extrovert and introvert

Extrovert-
Ambivert-
Ambivert socially
oriented,fun
mix of loving,optimi
both stic,realistic
approach

Intovert-Self
centered,Dogmatic,
Conservative,few
friends,shy

5.TYPE A & TYPE B personalities

 Friedman And Rosenman have classified individuals into Type-A and Type-B
B personalities.
personalities
 Main understanding on Behaviour and psychosocial risk factors
Type A Type B Type C Type D

•high motivation, •Absence

Absence of •cooperative, ••worried
lack patience, qualities in Type A •unassertive and •
•irritable
•feel short of time, •stress
stress-free, patient. •
•low self confidence
be in a great hurry, •passive
passive life • suppress negative •
•negative self talk
and •cope
cope stress better emotions (e.g., •
•gloomy
•feel like being •easy
easy going anger), and
•
•fear of rejection
always burdened • compliance to
•relaxed
relaxed flexible •
•avoid social
with work. authority
•less
less focus on time situation
•prone to •prone to cancer
pressure •
•Prone to
hypertension and
coronary heart depression
disease
 TYPE Theories
Typology by Indian Ayurvedic Typology by Typology by Jung Typology by
Hippocrates Typology-Charak Sheldon Friedmann and
Samhita Rosenmann
Based on Humour Based on Based on Body Based on Based on Behaviour
–body fluid and Dosha(humoural build and Temperament and and psychosocial
temperament elements) temperament behavior implications
Sanguine Vatta Extrovert
Melancholic Pitta Ectomorphic Introvert TYPE A,B,C and D
Choleric Kapha Endomorphic Ambivert perdsonalities
phlegmatic Based on Guna( Mesomorphic
behavior)
Sattva
Rajas
Tamas

Trait theories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgCIvKxbAE
 Mainly concerned with the description or characterization of basic components of personality
 Based on traits that are comparatively stable-as a relatively enduring attribute
 Try to discover the ‘building blocks’ of personality.
 Human beings- display a wide range of variations in psychological attributes
 It is possible to club them into smaller number of personality traits based on some commonality.

Basic premises for trait theories

 Traits are relatively stable over time,
 They are generally consistent across situations, and
 Their strengths and combinations vary across individuals leading to individual differences in personality.

1.Allport’s Trait Theory

 Gordon Allport - the pioneer of trait approach.
 Individuals possess a number of traits, which are dynamic in nature.
 Traits determine behaviour in such a manner that an individual approaches different situations with similar
plans.
 The traits integrate stimuli and responses which otherwise look dissimilar.
 Words from English language to look for traits which describe a person- Lexicon approach

On the basis of his notion he claimed 3 different traits

1. Cardinal Traits- highly generalized dispositions-Life goal /objectives- Gandhian principles, Perfectionism,
Introversion etc
2. Central traits- a person’s usual ways of dealing with life- Ahimsa, Self reliance, loyal ,kind etc
3. Secondary traits- Represent an individual’s specific preferences and attitudes in particular situations-
Choice of using kadhar clothes, eating vegetarian meals
 CARDINAL TRAITS

CENTRAL TRAITS

SECONDARY
TRAITS
 He acknowledged the situational factor
 variation in traits would elicit a different response to the same situation.

2. Catell: Personality Factors: 16 PF QUESTIONAIRE

 Raymond Catell
 Common structure on which people differ from each other
 Empirically, Tried to identify the primary traits from a huge array of descriptive adjectives found in
English language
 Factor Analysis(FA)- Statistical technique
 171- list of traits after initial F.A
 46 Surface traits-in in any given situation this many characteristics can be observed and related to
behavior
 Further FA leads to 16 Source traitstraits-represent-the basic dimensions of personality

16 Source
Traits

SurfaceTraits
46

171 TRAITS
3.Eysenck’s Theory
 Personality could be reduced into 2 broad dimensions.
 These are biologically and genetically based
 2 dimensions has many specific traits-(1) Neuroticism vs. emotional stability, (2) Extraversion vs.
introversion
 In his later research Eysenck identified a third dimension called Psychoticism

 Introversion-Extroversion: At the extremes of this dimension are the introverts, people

who are calm, quite, passive and careful and the extroverts, people who are outgoing, social and active.
 Neuroticism-Stability: At the extremes of this dimension are the people who can be rated
as neurotic - moody, touchy and those who can be rated as stable – calm, careful and even tempered
 Psychoticism: A person high in this dimension is antisocial, cold, impulsive and unconcerned
whereas a person who scores low on this dimension is warm and caring towards others.
 We have Eysenck’s personality questionnaire
 Trait approach is much appreciated and utilized

Big 5 Personality:(Costa & Mc Crae)

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae
Most recent trait research, personality can be described based on set of five factors (dimensions).
Each of the big five traits represent a range between two extreme personality traits.
five factors that represent personality are : extroversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness
and conscientiousness.
Mile stone- an important theoretical development in the field of personality
the most promising empirical approach to the study of personality
Better understanding of personality -Widely used
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB1FVbo8TSs

Trait Approach

Allport’s approach Catell’s 16 PF Eysenck’s Approach Costa Mc Crae’s Big 5

Personality
1.cardinal 1.Source traits 1.Introvert-Extrovert 1.Openess
2.Central 2.Surface Traits 2.Stable-Neuroticism 2.Conscientious
3.Secondary Traits 3.Psychoticism 3.Extroversion
4.Agreeable
5.Neurotic