Personality

The term ‘personality’ has been derived from the Latin term ‘persona’ OF which means to ‘speak through’. The Latin word denotes the masks worn by ancient Greece and Rome. Therefore a very common meaning of the term personality is the role which the person (actor) displays to the public. Personality is a very frequently used word but still there is no consensus about its meaning. There is a great deal of controversy about the meaning of the word personality.

A few definitions of personality are as given as:

According to Gordon Allport, “Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment.”

According to Floyd L. Ruch, “Personality includes external appearance and behaviour, inner awareness of self as a permanent organizing force and the particular pattern or organisation of measurable traits, both inner and outer.”

According to Fred Luthans, “Personality means how a person affects others and how he understands and views himself as well as the pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interaction.”

According to Salvatore Maddi, “Personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behaviour (thoughts, feelings and actions) of people that have continuity in time and that may not be easily understood as the sole result of the social and biological pressures of the moment.”

In Psychology, personality is interpreted in different ways by different theorists. For example Carl Rogers views personality in terms of self, an organised, permanent, subjectively perceived entity which is at the heart of all our experiences. Freud describes the structure of personality as composed of three elements the id, ego and super ego. In addition the social learning aspects of personality are also emphasized by some theorists