Nature of Personality

Personality Related Quotes

“A person going into right direction makes himself

a new person; thinking rightly and working

rightly, he gets a new personality.” – Shankaracharya

“Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst for power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother, I come, in Thy warm bosom, floating where so ever Thou takest me, in the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland, I come - a spectator, no more an actor.”- Swami Vivekananda

Personality and Gita

Bhagwad Gita: 16.1,2,3

श्री भगवानुवाच:
अभयं सत्त्वसंशुद्धिर्ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थितिः।
दानं दमश्च यज्ञश्च स्वाध्यायस्तप आर्जवम्॥ [16-1]

अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम्।
दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम्॥ [16-2]

तेजः क्षमा धृतिः शौचमद्रोहो नातिमानिता।
भवन्ति संपदं दैवीमभिजातस्य भारत॥ [16-3]

            The Lord said: Fearlessness, purification of one's existence, cultivation of spiritual knowledge, charity, self-control, performance of sacrifice, study of the Vedas, austerity and simplicity; nonviolence, truthfulness, freedom from anger; renunciation, tranquillity, aversion to fault finding, compassion and freedom from covetousness; gentleness, modesty and steady determination; vigour, forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, freedom from envy and the passion for honour-these transcendental qualities, O son of Bharata, belong to godly men endowed with divine nature.

Personality: From Indian Perspective

     Charak Samhita, on the basis of three humoural elements (tridosha) classifies people into vata, pitta and kapha. These are three types of temperament, called prakriti (basic nature) of a person. It also explains typology of personality based on the trigunas, i.e. sattva, rajas, and tamas.

Meaning and brief Introduction

       Every individual is unique and similar at the same time. To understand these two contrasting views psychologists study ‘Personality’ which is a pattern of behaviour that remains relatively stable over time. Personality has been derived from Latin word ‘Persona’ which means ‘Mask’. The mask was used by Roman actors to change their facial make-up to play the role in accordance with the characteristics of the mask. In reality it doesn’t mean that the person enacting the role necessarily possessed those qualities. Similar is the case with personality, what is seen externally of an individual cannot be said as her/his personality. Then what is Personality? It is a psychological construct that encompasses consistency in behaviour, thought and emotions across situations. Psychologists put in large amount of efforts and research to understand this construct and tried to define it. 

Definition

           Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterise an individual’s behaviour across different situations over a period of time (NCERT, XII).

            It is the unique and relatively stable ways in which people think, feel, and behave (Ciccarelli and Meyer, 2016). 

            Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.

In essence it is the sum total of all traits.

Nature of Personality

            To understand the concept and nature of personality we need to look at some characteristics of personality.

1.         It has both physical and psychological components.

2.         Its expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique in a given individual.

3.         Its main features do not easily change with time.

4.         It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due to internal or external situational demands. Thus, personality is adaptive to situations.

            Designating an individual with particular ‘Personality’ type helps in predicting her or his behaviour. Though situational factors affect the manifestation of behaviour yet consistency is found in human behaviour. To address the questions related to the nature of personality various following approaches has been proposed: -

1.         Trait Approach,

2.         Type Approach,

3.         Interactional,

5.         Behavioural,

6.         Humanistic, &

7.         Cultural Approach.

1.         Trait Approach – This approach tends to characterise personality on the basis of specific psychological attributes, basic components or building blocks of personality, which are stable over time and have varied strengths in different individuals.

2.         Type Approach – This approach attempts to comprehend personality by examining certain broad patterns in the observed behavioural characteristics of individuals.

3.         Interactional Approach – It holds that situational factors play decisive role in manifestation of human behaviour.

4.         Psychodynamic Approach – It uses free association (a method in which a person is asked to openly share all the thoughts, feelings and ideas that come to her/his mind), dream analysis, and analysis of errors to understand the internal functioning of the mind.

5.         Behavioural Approach – This approach focuses on learning of stimulus-response connections and their reinforcement. According to it, personality can be best understood as the response of an individual to the environment.

6.   Humanistic Approach – The humanistic approach emphasizes the significance of positive aspects of life such as self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-awareness, own responsibility of their life and self-actualization etc.

7.         Cultural Approach – The cultural approach considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or groups to the demands of their ecology and culture.

Some Common Personality Related Terms   

To understand personality it is necessary to know concepts that are closely related  to personality.

(i)        Temperament – Biologically based characteristic way of reacting.

(ii)       Trait – Stable, persistent and specific way of behaving.

(iii)      Disposition – Tendency of a person to react to a situation in a specific way.

(iv)      Character – The overall pattern of regularly occurring behaviour.

(v)       Habit – Over learned modes of behaving.

(vi)      Values – Goals and ideals that are considered important and worthwhile to achieve.

References:

1.  NCERT,  (2013). XI Psychology Text book.

2. https://www.azquotes.com/author/15121-Swami_Vivekananda/tag/personality.

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