Concept of Personality

Concept of Personality

• The literal meaning of personality is derived from the Latin word persona, the mask used by actors in the Roman theatre for changing their facial make-up.
• Personality refers to our characteristic ways of responding to individuals and situations.
• Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterise an individual’s behaviour across different situations over a period of time.
• Consistency in behaviour, thought and emotion of an individual across situations and across time periods characterises her/his personality.
• However, situational variations in behaviour do occur as they help individuals in adapting to their environmental circumstances.
• Once we are able to characterise someone’s personality, we can predict how that person will probably behave in a variety of circumstances.
• An understanding of personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and acceptable ways.

Characteristics of Personality

• It has both physical and psychological components.
• Its expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique in a given individual.
• Its main features do not easily change with time.
• 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.