PERSONALITY

1.0. Introduction
The term personality comes from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means masks
that used by actors on the stage. However, in the modern times, the use of
the term means the real individual and not the disguised one.

Personality covers the whole nature of an individual and is, therefore, difficult
to define. Psychology does not regard personality as a passive entity, but as
that dynamic character of the individual which finds expression through his or
her conduct and activities. This means that psychology does not into what
personality is, but what it does.

Woodworth defines personality as the total quality of an individual’s behavior.

It is also regarded as the combination of characteristics or qualities that form
an individual's distinctive character. It should be noted that personality is not
a mere aggregate, but it is the unity or integration of manifold manifestations
like pleasure, love, hate, activity, inactivity, and hope-despair of an individual.

It follows from the definitions above that a personality is how a person thinks,
feels, and behaves. This influences how the person interacts with their
environment. Personality is generally stable, although it can be influenced by
environmental factors. An individual's personality causes them to react to
certain scenarios and people.

2.0. Theories of personality

Personality theories have been used throughout history to address what
makes up the personality of an individual. They study how an individual
develops their personality and can be utilized in studying personality
disorders. These theories address whether personality is a biological trait or
one that is developed through a person's interaction with their environment.
Furthermore, personality theories address the origins of personality as well as
the traits that define a personality. These theories look to understand why
people develop different character traits and respond to external and internal
stimuli differently.

There are three main categories of personality theories namely:

psychoanalytic; humanistic; and trait theories.

2.1. Psycho-analytic Theory

Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytical approach for the
understanding of personality and its development. The basic ideas in Freud’s
concept of personality formation and structure grew directly out of his
experience in the treatment of his neurotic patients. He recognized that many
of the attitudes and feelings expressed by his patients could not come from
the consciousness and, therefore, must reside in the levels below
consciousness.

Freud observed that the verbal production of many of his patients would come
from the unconscious. He divided mental activity into three levels: conscious,
pre-conscious; and unconscious. The conscious includes the overt thinking.
The pre-conscious memories can be recalled with some difficulty. The
unconscious contains the attitudes, feelings and ideas that are not subject to
voluntary control.

According to Freud, personality is formed on the basis of conflict. Conflicts

may be evoked between pleasure seeking and reality, love and hate and
passivity and activity. Growth towards maturity is dependent on the
individual’s success in resolving these conflicts.

Freud describes three principal stages in the psychosexual development of the

individual. These include the oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital stages.

He explained that the structure of personality has 3 components namely the

id, ego and superego.

2.2. The Humanistic Theory of Personality

The humanistic personality theory was developed by Katherine Cook Briggs
and Isabel Briggs Myers, a mother and daughter. Humanistic personality
theory highlights the importance of self-growth to develop healthy personality
traits. The researchers developed the test to understand the differences in
personalities.
They developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a questionnaire created in
1975 to help people understand their personality type. This test is used in
clinical settings as well as research settings and has been translated into thirty
languages.
These test results split the individuals into 16 different personality groups. The
goal is to place these people into careers where they are happiest and to
provide them with a better understanding of themselves.
The test helps the individual understand four components of personality:
 1. Introversion or extraversion refers to whether the person receives
gratification from an outside stimulus, extraversion, or internal stimulus,
introversion.

2. Sensing or intuition refers to if the person pays more attention to hands-

on experiences, sensing, or imaginative scenarios, intuition.

3. Thinking or feeling measures if a person makes decisions based on facts,

thinking, or emotion, feelings.

4. Judging or perceiving measures if a person prefers structure, judging,

or if they are more adaptable, perceiving.

2.3. Trait Theory of Personality

Traits are defined as relatively permanent and relatively consistent general
behavioral patterns that an individual exhibits in many situations. These
patterns are said to be the basic units of one’s personality that can be
discovered through observing one’s behavior in a variety of situations. For
example, is a person behaves honestly in several situations, after having
generalizations may be labeled as honest and honesty becomes a behavior
trait of his personality.

What can be noted above is that the trait personality theory emphasizes the
characteristics of the personality and is less concerned with the development
of the personality. This theory concentrates on the descriptive terms used to
detail an individual. This theory believes that these descriptive terms, such as
happy, outgoing, and angry, make up a personality.

This personality theory focuses on the differences between individuals that

formulate their personalities. The combination of these traits or descriptive
terms works together to create the entire personality.
The character traits this theory focuses on are called the Big Five Personality
Dimensions:
1. Openness measures a person's adaptability, abstract thinking, and
creativity.

2. Conscientiousness focuses on an individual's ability to meet goals, pay

attention to details, and prepare for tasks.
 3. Extraversion measures if a person is excitable, easy to talk to, assertive,
and conversational.

4. Agreeableness measures the person's trust, empathy, affection, and

kindness with others.

5. Neuroticism focuses on whether a person is moody, stressed, sad,

depressed, or is dramatic.

3.0. Assessment of Personality

Personality is assessed using seven (7) major methods namely observation;
situational tests; questionnaire; personality inventory; rating scale; interview;
and projective techniques.

3.1. Observation
Observation is the most popular method that is used to study the behavior
pattern of an individual in an actual life situation. The key determinant in the
use of observations is the kind of personality trait or characteristic that the
observer wants to assess. The observation can be done in two ways. First, the
observer does not hide himself or herself, but becomes more or less a part of
the group under observation. Secondly, the observer may choose not to be
part of the group and takes a position at a place where his or her presence is
least disturbing to the group, but from where they can observe in detail, the
behavior of the person under observation.

In order to get a clear idea, the observer may use a tape recorder, camera,
telescope etc. To obtain reliable results, the observation can be repeated in
the same situation number of times or the subject may be observed by several
observers and the results may be combined.

3.2. Situational tests

In situational tests, the situation can be artificially created in which the
individual is expected to perform tasks related to the personality trait under
testing. For example, to test the honesty of an individual, some situations can
be created and the reaction of the individual being assessed can be evaluated
in terms of honesty or dishonesty. Does an individual pick up a k100 note and
put it in his pocket?

3.3. Questionnaire
A questionnaire is an instrument for securing answers to questions by using a
form which the respondent fills in himself or herself. In collecting the
information from the subject about the personality characteristics, a form
consisting of a series of printed or written questions is used. The subject
responds to these questions in the space provided in the form under the
columns ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘cannot say’ and many more. These answers are then
evaluated and used for personality assessment.

It is the most popular method and quite useful in collecting quantitative and
qualitative information.

3.4. Personality Inventory

It resembles the questionnaire in so many aspects especially administration,
scoring and interpretation. However, there are two major differences.

First, the questionnaire is a general instrument and can be used for collecting
all kinds of information (not only connected to personality traits or behavior
of an individual). A personality inventory, on the other hand, is specially
designed to seek answers about the person and their personality.

Second, the questions in the questionnaire are generally addressable to the

second person such as:

‘Do you often feel lonely’? Yes No

On the other hand, the personality inventory contains questions that are
usually addressed to the first person, such as:

‘I often feel lonely’ Yes No

The best known personality inventory is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality

Inventory (MMPI). The questions included in this inventory are such that their
answers are known to indicate certain specific personality traits. It consists of
550 items. Some of the items include the following:

▪ I sweat very easily even on cold days

▪ There is something wrong with my sex organs
▪ I have never been in love with anyone
▪ I like to talk about sex
Each item is printed on a separate card. The subject reads the questions and
then, according to the category of their response, whether ‘yes’, ‘no’ or
‘doubtful’, puts them at three places. With the help of these responses,
evaluation, in terms of the important personality traits can be obtained.

Limitations of the Questionnaire and Personality Inventory

i. It is difficult to get the responses to all the questions

 ii. The subject may give selected responses rather than the genuine ones,
that is, they may hide their weaknesses.
iii. The subject may be ignorant of certain traits or qualities that they may
possess.

3.5. Rating scale

The rating scale is used to know from others, where an individual stands, in
terms of some personality traits. Usually, with the help of this technique, we
try to have some specific idea about some of the personality traits of an
individual (whom we do not know well), from the person who knows them
very well. It reflects the impression that the subject has made on the person
who rates them.

The three basic things involved in this technique involve the following:

i. The specific trait or traits to be rated

ii. The scale by which degree of possession or absence of the trait has to
be shown
iii. The appropriate persons or judges for rating
First of all, the traits or characteristics which have to be evaluated by the
judges are to be stated and defined clearly. Then a scale for rating work is to
be constructed. The following example illustrates how this is done:

Suppose we wish to have rating on the ‘Quality of Leadership’ of the students

of a class. We can have divisions of this quality into degrees such as very
good; good; average; poor; very poor etc. Now the arrangement of these
divisions along a line, at equal intervals, from high to low or otherwise will be
names as Rating Scale for assessing the quality of leadership. Usually, the
degrees are indicated by the number 1 to 3; 1 to 5; or 1 to 7, comprising
three points, five point, or seven points scale. The seven-point scale is the
following type:

7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Excellent Very Good Average Below Poor Very
good average poor
Thereafter, the raters, who are in a position to rate the individuals properly,
can be asked to rate and give them scores, ranging from 1 to 7, according to
the degree of leadership they possess.

Rating scales have 2 main limitations namely subjective bias and halo effect.
With regards to subjectivity, the rater may have their own likes and dislikes
of the subject and this may affect the ratings given. Under the halo effect, the
rater may rate subject (on the basis of general impression) to be more honest
or likeable than their actual potentialities.

To come round the limitations discussed above, scholars have suggested that
instead of having the rating done by one judge, several judges can be assigned
the rating work who can pool in their judgments or ratings.

3.6. Interview
An interview is a technique for getting information directly from the subject
about their personality in face-to-face contacts. With the help of the interview
technique, we get information about an individual, but personal interviews
cannot be said to be objective type of tests. However, interviews lay a scope
for appreciating an individual’s feelings and attitudes. In it is revealed how the
subject speaks on a particular topic, where the voice changes and in what
ways and where they get stuck. This means that interviews have to be
conducted by a well-trained and competent interviewer.

3.7. Projective methods

Projective methods emphasize on the observable and inner or private world
of an individual and go deeper in the unconscious behavior to dig out the
repressed feelings, wishes, desires, fears, hopes, ambitions etc. They try to
assess the total personality of an individual and not in fragments.

Projective methods aim at observing a person without giving them to

understand that they are put to a test. In the projective method, the individual
may project their personality into what they do. The following are the 2
important projective tests:

3.7.1. The Rorschach Test

This test is also called ink-blot test. The Rorschach Ink-blot test is now quite
generally accepted as a valid instrument in determining the dynamics of
personality. The test is also called culture-free because it can be applied
successfully on subjects from different cultures. The Rorschach test consists
of ten cards of blots.

Of the 10 ink –blots, five are black and grey, two are black and red and the
rest are fully colored.

The testee (subject) is shown one blot after another and is asked what it might
be or might suggest. It is tested whether:

▪ The whole or a part of the produces the reaction of the subject

▪ The dark shade, color, size or motion of the picture determines his or
her reaction
▪ The subject discovers any man, beast, the limbs or some other object
in the picture.
Reaction upon the whole block indicates subtleness of thought or theoretical
knowledge, while the same upon a part suggests compulsion neurosis.
Second, the perception of movement suggests introversion, while that of
animal shapes indicates narrow thinking. Thirdly, excessive reaction upon
color expresses the subject’s impulsiveness. Again, reaction upon color and
shape as well indicates spontaneity of emotional expression.

3.7.2. Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT)

The TAT was devised by Murray and Morgan. It entails interpretation of a
number of pictures. These pictures represent vague stories.
The subject gives vent to their mental attitude in explaining them variously.
The subject is asked to narrate a story centered around the incident portrayed
in the picture. They have to say how the incident might have taken place and
what might follow as a result thereof. The interesting part of this is that
happens to identify him or herself with one or more characters depicted in the
picture and their narration becomes a sort of autobiography. Therefore, they
express many feelings, emotions and motivations of the subject, which they
can even be reluctant to express voluntarily. An illustration of the test is given
below:
In the first picture above, a well-built youth is seen side by side with an old
woman. The personality of the interpreter is indicated by how the subject
explains the attitude of the youth to the old woman and the attitude of the old
woman to the youth.