Course: Personality Development (UR-521) LECTURE # 1 Teacher: Dr. M.

Junaid Nadvi

WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
Personality is somebody's set of characteristics. It is the totality or whole of somebody's attitudes,
interests, behavioral patterns, emotional responses, social roles, and other individual traits that endure
over long periods of time. Personality are characteristics making somebody appealing. They are the
distinctive or very noticeable characteristics that make somebody socially appealing. Personality is
somebody regarded as characterizing traits (behaviors). It means that somebody regarded as
exemplifying particular character qualities. Personality is qualities of an unusual person. They make
distinctive and unusual person. Personality means distinguishing characteristics of a person emerged in
different situations. Personality is a person of importance, prominence, renown, or notoriety (ill
repute). 1 Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and
behaviour. The study of personality focuses on understanding individual differences in particular
personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability.2

DEFINITION OF PERSONALITY
Personality has many definitions in general opinions or in a psychologist’s options, but personality
word’s origin is from Latin word ‘personare’ whose meaning is ‘to speak through’. The word
‘personality’ is a broad term. It combines in itself the characteristics and qualities which give him a
distinct identity. These things distinguish him from others. Thus, personality development is not an
overnight task. It requires enough time and efforts to groom and shape personality. However, personality
development is the outcome of so many factors which include will-power, confidence, concentration,
memory, and smile, humour, to name a few. Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual
reacts and interacts with others. Or personality is generally defined as the deeply ingrained and relatively
enduring patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour. In fact, when one refers to personality, it generally
implies to all what is unique about an individual, the characteristics that make one stand out in a crowd.
Personality is the sum of individual’s psychological traits, characteristics, motives, habits, attitudes,
beliefs and outlooks. Personality is defined as the characteristic set of behaviors, cognitions (thoughts),
and emotional patterns that evolve from biological and environmental factors. While there is no
generally agreed upon definition of personality, most theories focus on motivation and psychological
interactions with one's environment. Attribute-based personality theories, such as those defined
by Raymond Cattell define personality as the traits that predict a person's behavior. On the other hand,
more behaviorally based approaches define personality through learning and habits. Nevertheless, most
theories view personality as relatively stable. The study of the psychology of personality,
called personality psychology, attempts to explain the tendencies that motivate differences in behavior.
Many approaches have been taken on to study personality, including biological, rational, learning and
quality-based theories, as well as psychodynamic, and humanistic approaches. Personality psychology
is divided among the first theorists, with a few influential theories being assumed by Sigmund
Freud, Alfred Adler, Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers.3

TYPES OF PERSONALITY
1. Openness: appreciation for a variety of experiences.
2. Conscientiousness: planning ahead rather than being unplanned.
3. Extraversion: being sociable, energetic and talkative.
4. Agreeableness: being kind, sympathetic and happy to help.4
• Class-Room Discussion.

1 14th century. Via French < late Latin personalitas < Latin personalis>; Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation; also see: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personality [14-9-2018]
2 www.apa.org/topics/personality/ (Personality - American Psychological Association). [15-9-2018]
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality [15-9-2018]
4 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/personalitl; https://www.123test.com/big-five-personality-theory/ [15-9-2018]