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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper No. 5: Personality Theories

Module No and Title Module No. 1: Introduction to the study of Personality

Module Tag PSY_P5_M1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
3. Defining Personality
4. Historical Antecedents in the study of personality
4.1 Plato
4.2 Aristotle
4.3 Descartes
4.4 Machiavelli

5. Domains in the study of Personality

5.1 Dispositional
5.2 Psychodynamic
5.3 Humanistic-Existential
5.4 Behavioural and Social-Cognitive
5.5 Biological
5.6 Socio-cultural

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6. Questions challenging the personality theorist

6.1 Nature or Nurture?
6.2 Past, Present or Future?
6.3 Uniqueness or Universality?
6.4 Motive Underlying Human Behaviour?
6.5 Unconscious or Conscious Determinants?
6.6 Freely Chosen or Determined?
6.7 Concept of Self?
6.8 Internally or Externally Controlled?
6.9 Relation between Mind and Body?
6.10 View of Human Nature?
6.11 Consistency of Human Behaviour?
6.12 Optimism or Pessimism?
7. Summary

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Understand the concept of personality and its defining characteristics.

 Know the historical antecedents of personality psychology.
 Identify the determinants of personality.
 Evaluate and analyse the concerns and positions of different personality theorists.

2. Introduction
Curiosity in personality is as long-standing as civilization: earliest philosophers and poets
frequently wondered about why personages were inimitable & why they were unlike the others in
many ways. People have often relied on the disciplines of Astrology, Palmistry, Tarot Cards
among others to get insights into themselves and significant others. It can be said that
classification has been and continues to be an innate need among humans.

Personality psychology seeks solutions to various questions. In what manner do humans contrast?
In what states and to what extent do they fluctuate? Why are their differences and on what
dimensions? How stable are these human differences? Is it possible to measure them?

Personality psychology was a laggard amongst the several disciplines in psychology. It was a
well-established subject of discussion in the public domain before being embraced as a matter of
study. Practicing personality psychology has been innate to human kind. In seeking the best
companion for us, we judge the personality to see compatibility. HR executives analyse the
applicant’s personality during a job interview. On listening to political speeches, we rate
politicians’ personality along with their political acumen. Likewise, on describing a physician as
a “good doctor,” we often base our judgement on his professional persona than on medical
knowledge. Such instances exemplify the omnipresence of informal personality assessment in all
human interactions. While the study of personality is captivating and significant, personality as
such is difficult to pinpoint.

Personality is something people believe understand. Most people think they have achieved some
expertise in this domain and they believe that they know or understand other people. We attempt
to foretell behaviour, deduce conversations & make interpretations about actions of others. If
someone affronts us, acts eccentrically, or seems overly benevolent, we will speedily attempt to
comprehend their motives. Additionally, we habitually cull out inferences about people in terms
of personality traits possessed. Being self-proclaimed competent judges of personality, we make
use of our expertise in personality assessment on an everyday basis; yet, most of us would be
unable to explicate precisely the way we cull out our suppositions about others.

We tend to be confident in asserting our appraisals and ranking others’ personalities. It is

uncommon to discover someone who admits not being a good judge of people and does not
comprehend the behaviours of others. But in reality, we often overconfident about our skills and

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are incorrect in assessments of others. We feel that we are

personality “experts”. Moreover, once we gauge someone
else’s personal characteristics, we tend to deduce their consequent actions through the lens of our
preliminary assessment, making it problematic to see our own inaccuracies and biases.

3. Defining Personality
The word personality comes from the Latin expression persona meaning mask. Personality is
then conceptualized as one’s public self, that facet of ourselves we handpick to demonstrate to the
world. This definition also implies that significant aspects of a person remain obscured. Other
descriptions of personality range from the prevalent conception that personality allows an
individual to be socially effective (a person may be regarded as a great personality, an awful
personality, or no personality at all), to very technical definitions involving mathematical
formulations. Therefore, numerous definitions of personality exist. Every theory of personality
then can be seen as an endeavour to define personality and these descriptions vary significantly
from one another. However, there are at least two basic concepts in defining personality:

 Individuality –Those facets differentiating one person from everybody else. It is both
representative of and inimitable to a certain person.
 Consistency – Perseveres over time and across situations. It constitutes durable, habitual
elements of behaviour, consequently affords permanence and soundness to an
individual’s behaviour.
Thus the conception of personality is used to illuminate behavioural modifications between
persons and to understand the behavioural stability within each individual.

4. Historical Antecedents in the Study of Personality

The study of personality has a lengthy past with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Machiavelli
among several other scholars exploring human personality and providing compelling insights into
the human psyche. Modern theorists to a great magnitude reverberate notions documented by
these earlier thinkers.

4.1 Plato (427–347 BCE)

Plato conceptualized the soul as the seat of personality. In his celebrated discourse, The Republic
(c. 390 BCE), he held the soul as consisting of 3 elementary forces controlling human behaviour:
appetite, emotion and reason. Reason assumed the utmost importance and powerful but emotion
and appetite are held as the “lower passions” and reason keeps the more primitive forces of
appetite and emotion at bay.

4.2 Aristotle (384–322 BCE)

Aristotle referred to the seat of personality as the psyche, a product of biological processes. His
portrayal of the psyche makes him the first biological psychologist. Psyche included a set of
faculties placed in a hierarchy of importance. a) nutritive faculty—organism’s basic drives to
meet its bodily needs, found in plants, animals & people, b) perceptual – aspect of mind that

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interprets sensory data, present in animals and people and c)

intellectual which is unique to human beings.

4.3 Descartes (1596–1650)

French philosopher Descartes regarded human personality as the product of the collaboration of
divine and primal forces. Essential force behind human personality is the immortal soul—
untainted, flawless, and incorporeal. He wanted to explain how spiritual being worked together
with physical form. His study of a bodily dissection made him think he had solved this mind-
body problem when he observed a minor body in the seeming centre of the brain recognized as
the pineal gland or pineal body by the Greco-Roman physician Claudius Galen (c. 130–c. 200
CE) as its contour reminded him of a pine cone. Descartes (1649) reached the deduction that this
cone-shaped endocrine gland is the point of contact between soul and body. The philosophical
position that 2 materials—matter & spirit, or brain & mind—exist independently of each other
but while interacting called the Cartesian dualism became a popular view in Christian West after
17th century as it “explained” the presence of human free will and consciousness in an otherwise
mechanical world.

4.4 Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Niccolò Machiavelli, a political thinker and Florentine diplomat, theorized that personality is best
understood in a social context. In the Machiavellian worldview, people are fundamentally
egotistical, avaricious, unthankful, and rancorous. Further, 2 primary forces define human
character, i) virtù (almost untranslatable Italian term), best described as a combination of
decisiveness, courage and confidence; ii) fortuna (Latin word for luck). Powerful leaders are
made by a good dose of virtù and fortuna. Machiavelli (1546/1935) cautioned that leaders who
acting out of kindness and a faith in the essential goodness of humanity will every time fail (“nice
guys finish last.”)

Major philosophers from ancient Greece and Rome through the Enlightenment did propose some
form of personality theory, and their ideas served as the groundwork of theories set forth by
modern psychologists.

5. Domains in the study of Personality

5.1 Dispositional Domain

Numerous personality theorists consider that what separates individuals from each other are the
traits and the needs they possess. Some traits are estimated to be learned (e.g., dietary
preferences) while others are genetically determined (e.g., one’s emotional makeup). Some exert
an influential impact in one’s life (e.g., intellect), and others have only a minor influence (e.g.,
fashion preferences). Traits an individual has continue to be fairly constant throughout one’s life
and, therefore, his behaviour will tend to remain consistent across time and comparable situations.
The theories of Allport, Cattell, Murray and the Big Five emphasize the significance of traits and
needs in their elucidations of personality.

5.2 Psychodynamic Domain

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The psychodynamic domain originated with the work of

Sigmund Freud and dominated thinking about personality,
mental disorders and psychotherapy for the first half of the 20th century. It highlights unconscious
processes, early childhood experiences, and interpersonal relationships explaining facets of
human behaviour. This viewpoint contends that as the definitive roots of behaviour are
unconscious and normally having origins in childhood, the pursuit for them is difficult. Intricate
apparatuses are required in the quest like, free association, analysis of dream symbol & memory
lapses and hypnosis. In this perspective, what typifies unconscious mind can manifest itself in
consciousness in many ways, one cannot actually comprehend about a person by studying the
conscious. If one embraces this view, then one does not ask the person why she acts in a certain
manner as the real causes are usually unknown to the person. One must somehow get underneath
the random displays of the unconscious mind to the unconscious mind itself to understand
personality. One must get underneath a person’s mask. The theories of Freud, Jung, and Horney
underscore unconscious mechanisms in their investigation of personality

5.3 Humanistic-Existential Domain

Such theories emphasize the significance of free will. Humans could be unnerved by situations
outside their control into some situations of life, but how they value, construe and react to those
conditions is personal choice. For instance, you might be born a poor or rich, male or a female, a
Hindu or a Muslim. You could have been raised under loving conditions or been ill-treated as a
child, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in or what experiences you have had, it is
you who gives those environments or experiences meaning. The theories of Rogers, Maslow and
May emphasize existential–humanistic considerations and suggest that it is the person is in charge
of her life; therefore, she alone is accountable for the kind of individual she becomes.

5.4 Behavioural and Social-Cognitive Domain

The behavioural domain focuses on the role of the external environment in shaping our
personalities. It contends that personality is nothing but a product of unique reward and
punishment experiences for an individual. Thus, individual differences in personality arise from
the differences in our life experiences. The difference between a successful individual and a
failed one, in view of behavioural theorists, is in the patterns of reward and punishment, not in
genes. A potent consequence of this theoretical position is that personality development can be
organised by controlling the conditions of dispensing rewards and punishments. Theoretically,
then it is likely to craft any kind of personality by scientifically controlling reward and
punishment. The theories of Skinner, Dollard and Miller stress the significance of reward in the
learning process.

Considerable interest is also shown in the study of cognitive processes within the demesne of
personality theory. Such processes decide how material from the environment is supposed,
recalled, changed, and performed upon by an individual. Theories emphasizing on the cognitive
processes are classically fascinated by self-regulated behaviour and emphasis on the significance
of self-reward or self-punishment coming from goal attainment or non-attainment, than sources
external to the person. Cognitively oriented theories are likely to underline the prominence of

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present experience and future goals in shaping behaviour and

deemphasize the position of the past. Theories of Bandura,
Mischel and Kelly highlight social-cognitive factors.

5.5 Biological Domain

The most common account of personality is frequently based on genetics. Proclamations like “He
takes after his mother,” or “She has her aunt’s ear for music,” indicate a genetic elucidation of
personality. Bouchard (1984) studied identical twins parted at birth & reared apart & consistently
found pronounced resemblance in their personalities even in absence of contact and different
rearing styles by their families. Both the twin studies and adoption studies suggest a surprising
outcome that family environmental influences have only a trivial role in development of
personality. If children reared in the same family setup have similar personality characteristics
that can be ascribed more to their common genes than to their shared family experiences.

Evolutionary psychology stressed on the role of genetics and evolved adaptations in its
elucidation of personality. All theories of personality are constructed on an inborn quality, like
physiological needs (Freud, Skinner, Dollard and Miller, and Maslow); the tendency toward self-
actualization (Jung, Horney, Rogers, and Maslow) or social interest (Adler). Thus the
interrogation is around the degree and manner of genetic influence on personality.

5.6 Socio-cultural Domain

Psychologists have long recognized culture’s impact in shaping who we are. Yet throughout
much of the 20th century, psychological research largely ignored non-Western groups. Over time,
study of diverse ethnic and cultural groups began that led to the development of the socio-cultural
perspective. This outlook inspects how the social environment and cultural learning impact our
behaviour, thoughts and feelings.

Significantly, one’s culture governs what are seen as suitable practices in justice, religion,
politics, education, childrearing, courtship, marriage etc. Cultural variables explain key individual
differences. Some theorists suggest that one’s personality can be regarded as a amalgamation of
the many roles one plays. If you were asked to fill a blank sheet of paper with the words “I am”,
you would have a rather widespread qualities’ list. For instance, male, 19 years old, a college
student, a Hindu, from Lucknow, 5 feet tall, an Indian, good-looking, an Arian, a psychology
major, and so on. Each entry has an approved role associated with it and the society has defined
the acceptable norms. Digressing from that range leads to facing some social pressure. Definitely,
what is considered normal behaviour and abnormal is largely determined by how you conduct
yourself in regard to social expectations.

6. Questions challenging the personality theorist

Personality theorists are in the distinctive position of studying the complete individual. Most
others work with one facet of humankind like old age, intelligence, perception, learning, memory,
motivation, child development, pathology etc.

The task of presenting the complete image of a person is mammoth and is related to
developments in psychology as well as developments in other disciplines (e.g., neurophysiology,
sociology, biology, anthropology, medicine, computer science, and philosophy). The personality

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theorists try to amalgamate data from assorted portions of

psychology and other disciplines into comprehensible, rounded
configurations. As personality theorists have endeavoured this production over the years, they
have asked numerous questions associated to human nature & individual differences. Varied
answers exist and each personality theory addresses them openly or circuitously.

6.1 Nature or Nurture?

What is the more vital effect on personality: hereditary qualities and characteristics (genetic
endowment) or topographies of our environment (the nurturing effects of upbringing and
training)? Do the capabilities, dispositions, and predilections we become heir to govern our
personality, or are we moulded intensely by the circumstances of our life? Many theorists adopt
that view of personality being fashioned by both forces. While inheritance is seen as the prime
impact and the environment of relatively insignificant significance by some; some hold the
contrary opinion.

6.2 Past, Present or Future?

A question that ought to be asked is “How are childhood experiences associated to adult
characteristics of personality?” A linked inquiry might be “are there critical irrevocable periods of
development of personality?’ Is the potent shaper of personality, the past, present or future?
Freud, for instance, held that personality, for all intents and purposes, wholly developed by the
completion of the life’s fifth year. Keeping this in mind, it may be considered that the later
development is largely an expansion on the elementary themes developed in early years of life.
This viewpoint is referred to as historical determinism. Other theorists emphasize the
prominence of prospective goals for human behaviour. Goal-directed or future-oriented
behaviour, also referred to as teleological behaviour, plays a vital role in the theories of Bandura,
Mischel Jung & Allport. While the behaviourists like Skinner and the existential–humanists like
Rollo May lean towards ranking the present higher in their elucidations.

6.3 Uniqueness or Universality?

Is human nature inimitable or common? Each individual is exclusive as neither gene
constellations nor environmental experiences are same for anyone. But at the same time, humans
share similar brains and sensory apparatuses and a culture, suggesting similar response patterns to
various situations. Things we find creatively attractive, those that makes us giggle or yelp, our
views about the paranormal are largely culturally determined. Therefore it is imaginable to
highlight either the element of human uniqueness or the element of human commonness. Both
accents are established in personality systems. The study of a single individual or idiographic
research and theorists such as Allport, Skinner, and Kelly used the idiographic approach
accentuating matchlessness of every individual. The study of groups of persons or nomothetic
research is taken up by Cattell and Eysenck as they highlight shared qualities and traits.

6.4 Motive Underlying Human Behaviour?

All theorists hypothesize a “master” motive for human behaviour or the chief driving force
behind behaviour. Hedonism, or the propensity to strive for pleasure and evade pain was
postulated by Freud, Skinner, and Dollard and Miller. Adler talks of striving for superiority.
While Rogers, Maslow, Jung and Horney tag self-actualization, or the impulse to realize one’s
full potential. Bandura and Mischel talk of the requirement to cultivate cognitive processes real in
dealing with the world. Buss proposes the proclivity to express advanced psychological
mechanisms. May and Kelly recommend a search for meaning and the reduction of uncertainty.

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6.5 Unconscious or Conscious Determinants?

Are individuals typically mindful of what they are doing and its reasons, or do unconscious
powers impact them, driving them to perform lacking mindfulness of these essential forces? The
depth theories like of Freud, Jung centre on unconscious mind. Theories underscoring
unconscious mechanisms seeks interrogations like nature of relationship between the conscious
and unconscious minds, methods of investigating the unconscious, possibility of awareness of
unconscious motives among others. Unconscious contrivances are also central to sociocultural
theorists of personality like Adler, Horney, and Erikson and to evolutionary psychologists like
Buss. On the other hand, learning theorists like Skinner, Dollard, Miller and Bandura, trait
theorists like Mischel, Allport, Cattell and Eysenck and existential–humanistic theorists like
Kelly, Rogers, May and Maslow either refute or minimalize the significance of unconscious bases
of personality.

6.6 Freely chosen or Determined?

If all stimuli acting on a being at any certain time were identified, would it be probable to forecast
the individual’s behaviour with thorough precision? Determinists will say yes while believers in
free will would say no. Even exacting determinists recognise that extrapolations about behaviour
is probabilistic. Though most personality theorists are determinists but stressing diverse bases of
behaviour. The existential– humanists theorists are the only who discard the dogma of
determinism as they consider that behaviour is freely chosen i.e. we are rulers of our fate and
not unavoidably the sufferers of our life story, ethos, genetic matter, traits, configurations of
reward and punishment among others. Even though this facet of determinism v/s free will is more
philosophical than scientific, the positions taken on this matter outlines the manner of viewing
people and colours their conception of personality.

6.7 Concept of Self?

Numerous theories hypothesize self as the organizing agent of personality. Self is also proposed
to be the instrument giving the individual constancy over time & situations. The systems of
Horney, Allport and Rogers depend comprehensively on the notion of self. Other theorists assert
that employing notion of self purely wards off questions we may have about the being to
enquiries of self. The self is regarded as a homunculus (a little person) inside the individual who
causes person’s actions. Opponents of the self-concept hold that it is mysterious how the ‘self’
causes a person’s actions much like the notion of ego. Skinner was extremely critical of self-
theories.

6.8 Internally or Externally Controlled?

Where is the locus of control for human behaviour located? Theorists like Eysenck, Allport,
Cattell, Rogers, Horney and Maslow emphasize on intrinsic mechanisms of traits and self-
regulatory systems or person variables. While others like Skinner, Dollard and Miller focus on
extrinsic influences like environmental stimuli and reward patterns or situation variables. But
some also underline the significance of both intrinsic and extrinsic reins like Bandura and
Mischel. Determining comparative significance of person and situation variables is a prime
concern for personality theorists.

6.9 Relation between Mind and Body?

How do physical entities like the brain, body, or behaviour impact mental makeup in the form of
the mind, thoughts, or consciousness and vice versa? One reply comes in the form of physical
monism (materialism) that no mind exists therefore what we speak of as mental states are subtle
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bodily responses. Another reply is epiphenomenalism, the

standpoint that mental events are only the offshoots of
biological responses, consequently should be overlooked in the investigation of behaviour.
Another offered elucidation is parallelism asserting that external events cause both biological &
rational events at the same time, but independently of each other. Finally, some maintain the
position of interactionism - mind effects the body and that the body effects the mind.

6.10 Consistency of Human Behaviour?

Theorists emphasizing unconscious mechanisms, traits, genetics or habits in their accounts of
personality assume that a person’s behaviour would be consistent across situations and time. For
instance, it is presumed that a person with the characteristic of dishonesty would be dishonest in
most circumstances. Similarly, a violent individual would be violent in an extensive range of
situations. By tradition, personality theorists supposed a person’s behaviour to be consistent. In
recent times, it has been seen that behaviour may not be so consistent. Mischel (1968) established
that behaviour is too inconsistent to be described in terms of entities like traits. Data submits that
persons are consistent in some ways but not in others and areas of consistency fluctuate from
person to person. Questions challenging personality theorists are ‘How consistent is human
behaviour? What establishes consistency? What accounts for separable differences in
consistency? What variables provide consistency and inconsistency?’

6.11 Optimism or Pessimism?

Are human beings essentially worthy or wicked, sympathetic or unkind, empathetic or pitiless?
Question of morality, a value judgment does not purportedly have a place in the impartial and
detached world of science. Nevertheless, several theorists dealing with this question and that has
spawned a vital body of research. For some theorists, humans are optimistic, expectant, altruistic,
humane and socially conscious. Other theorists see fewer of these qualities in humans,
independently as well as communally. At large, personality theorists believing in determinism
incline towards cynicism and pessimism (Skinner - a remarkable exception), while believers in
free choice are generally expectant.

These questions give us the scope to analyse and evaluate the theories of personality that you will
come across during the course of this paper. Each theory of personality carries a certain response
to the questions raised above.

7. Summary
 The word “personality” comes from the Latin persona, or the mask that persons present
to the external realm, but psychologists perceive personality as much more than obvious
appearances.
 Personality comprises of all those comparatively permanent qualities or features that
concentrate some stability to a person’s behaviour.
 The study of personality has been an historical and a commonplace practice. Scholars like
Plato, Aristotle have contributed significantly to the personality psychology.
 There are several domains to the study of personality with each upholding a different
view of human personality and using a separate set of methods of enquiry.
 Personality theorists address many questions like nature/nurture, temporality,
uniqueness/universality, sources of motivations, unconscious/conscious determinants,
free will/ determinism, concept of self, internal/external control, relation between mind
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and body, human nature, consistency and optimism/

pessimism regarding human behaviour.

PSYCHOLOGY Paper No. 5: Personality Theories

Module No. 1: Introduction to the study of Personality