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The term personality comes from Latin word Persona means mask. In the olden days actors used to wear masks to depict a particular type of personality. Thus the word personality refers to particular characteristics or qualities displayed by an individual by an individual.

Definitions:
Woodworth in his definition considers personality to be an overall organization of ones traits. According to Allport, personality refers to customs and habits as revealed in the environment. McDougall explains personality in terms of instincts and modification of instincts. Freud tends to explain personality in terms of the unconscious mind and its manifestations. Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics

possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations.

Personality psychology is concerned with enduring patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion in individuals, commonly referred to as personality. Theories of personality vary across different psychological schools and orientations. They carry different assumptions about such issues as the role of the unconscious and the importance of childhood experience. According to Freud, personality is based on the dynamic interactions of the id, ego, and super-ego. Trait theorists, in contrast, attempt to analyze personality in terms of a discrete number of key traits by the statistical method of factor analysis. The number of proposed traits has varied widely. An early model proposed by Hans Eysenck suggested that there are three traits that comprise human personality: extraversionintroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Raymond Cattell proposed a theory of 16 personality factors. The "Big Five," or Five Factor Model, proposed by Lewis Goldberg, currently has strong support among trait theorists.

 Perspectives of human personality:

1. 2. 3. 4. Psychoanalytical Theory Trait Theory Humanistic Theory Behavioural/Social Learning Theory

1. Psychoanalytical Theory: (Freud)

Psychoanalytic theories explain human behaviour in terms of the interaction of various components of personality. Sigmund Freud was the founder of this school. Freud drew on the physics of his day (thermodynamics) to coin the term psychodynamics. Based on the idea of converting heat into mechanical energy, he proposed psychic energy could be converted into behavior. Freud's theory places central importance on dynamic, unconscious psychological conflicts. Freud divides human personality into three significant components: I. II. III. Id Ego Super ego

I. Id:
Id consists of all those impulses or desires which are primitive & mostly biological biased & it operates on immediate gratification. II. Ego: Ego acts on a reality principle & it checks whether desire or impulse is realistically possible or not.

III. Super ego:

Super ego acts like a morality check & allows only those impulses which are morality right & restricting those which are morally not allow.

2. Trait Theory: (Allport, Cattell, Esyneck):

According to the trait theory, personality is a combination of various traits which area group together. These traits tend to be genetically based or enquire. Trait refers to all those characteristics which are present in an individual on a permit base.

Gordon Allport:
Gordon Allport delineated different kinds of traits, which he also called

dispositions. Central traits are basic to an individual's personality, while secondary traits are more peripheral. Common traits are those recognized within a culture and thus may vary from culture to culture. Cardinal traits are those by which an individual may be strongly recognized.

Raymond Cattell:

Raymond Cattells research propagated a two-tiered personality structure with sixteen "primary factors" (16 Personality Factors) and five "secondary factors."

Hans Eysenck:
Hans Eysenck believed just three traitsextraversion,

neuroticism and psychoticismwere sufficient to describe human personality. Differences between Cattell and Eysenck emerged due to preferences for different forms of factor analysis, with Cattell using oblique, Eysenck orthogonal, rotation to analyze the factors that emerged when personality questionnaires were subjected to statistical analysis. Today, the Big Five factors have the weight of a considerable amount of empirical research behind them, building on the work of Cattell and others.

Lewis Goldberg:

Lewis Goldberg proposed a five-dimension personality model, nick named the "Big Five Personality Trait Model":

 Big Five Personality Trait Model:

According to Big Five Model, human personality traits area reduced to five basic factors. I. Extraversion II. Agreeable III. Emotional Stability IV. Openness to experience V. Conscientiousness I. Extraversion: The tendency to be sociable, fun-loving, and affectionate vs. retiring, somber, and reserved.

II. Agreeable:
His tendency to be softhearted, trusting, and helpful vs. ruthless, suspicious, and uncooperative.

III. Emotional Stability:

The tendency to be calm, secure, and self-satisfied vs. anxious, insecure, and self-pitying.

IV. Openness to experience

The tendency to be imaginative, independent, and interested in variety vs. practical, conforming, and interested in routine.

V. Conscientiousness
The tendency to be organized, careful, and disciplined vs. disorganized, careless, and impulsive.

3. Humanistic Theory: ( Carl Rogers)

According to this theory, human personality is based on the drive & need towards self-actualization, individual growth & improvement. It helps in understanding the concept of self which according to this theory is the most important part of the individuals personality. In humanistic psychology it is emphasized people have free will and they play an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons as opposed to forced, definitive factors that determine behaviour. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were proponents of this view, which is based on the "phenomenal field" theory of Combs and Snygg (1949).

4. Behavioural/Social Learning Theory:

Behaviourists explain personality in terms of the effects external stimuli have on behavior. It was a radical shift away from Freudian philosophy. This school of thought was developed by B. F. Skinner who put forth a model which emphasized the mutual interaction of the person or "the organism" with its environment. Skinner believed children do bad things because the behavior obtains attention that serves as a reinforcer. For example: a child cries because the child's crying in the past has led to attention. These are the response, and consequences. The response is the child crying, and the attention that child gets is the reinforcing consequence. According to this theory, people's behavior is formed by processes such as operant conditioning. Skinner put forward a "three term contingency model" which helped promote analysis of behavior based on the "Stimulus Response - Consequence Model" in which the critical question is: "Under which circumstances or antecedent 'stimuli' does the organism engage in a particular behavior or 'response', which in turn produces a particular 'consequence'?" Richard Herrnstein extended this theory by accounting for attitudes and traits. An attitude develops as the response strength (the tendency to respond) in the presences of a group of stimuli become stable. Rather than describing conditionable traits in nonbehavioral language, response strength in a given situation accounts for the environmental portion. Herrstein also saw traits as having a large genetic or biological component as do most modern behaviorists. Ivan Pavlov is another notable influence. He is well known for his classical conditioning experiments involving dogs. These physiological studies led him to discover the foundation of behaviorism as well as classical conditioning.

Measurement of human personality:

The assessment of personality has been one of the most controversial topics among psychologists. Personality tests are universally administered almost all over the world in various fields, vocations, institutions and for the selection of recruits. In Pakistan too personality tests are used for job selection, and for the selection of army recruits there is the ISSB examination. These tests are invariably used in clinics, for diagnostic purposes. The popular methods that have been devised from time to time are follows: 1. Invertories 2. Projective technique

1. Invertories:
It consists of printed form on which numerous questions are asked. The conventional answers are in Yes or No form or True or False, or a number of alternatives are provided to each question and the subject is required to mark which particular alternative applies to him. The the questionnaire or as it is popularly known today i.e. a personality inventory is commonly known as pencil and paper test. It was introduced around 1918 in World War I and became common in World War II. The questionnaire is clearly a time saving device. It can be administered on a large number of people at the same time. It is usually designed to assess specific personality traits or in case of clinical patients, to measure their level of anxiety and stress. The questions are carefully constructed and indirectly linked with particularly personality traits. Through it is possible for an individual to fake answers but sometimes faking can be detected since the questions are indirectly related to particular personality traits. Different methods to measure human personality inventory i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi.

MMPI CPI EPPS 16PF MBTI RISB

(Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory) (California Personality Inventory) (Edwards Personality Preference Scale) (16 personality Factors) (Myerst & Briggs Type Indicator) (Rolter Incomplete Sentence Blank)

2. Projective technique:
These tests are based on the mechanism of projection. This mechanism is an unconscious tendency to ascribe ones own traits and characteristics onto other persons, objects and situations. These tests are extensively used for diagnostic purposes by clinical psychologists. The most known projective tests are:

TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) ii. CAT (children Apprecetion Test) iii. HTPT (House Tree Person Test) iv. Rorschach Inkblot Test
i.