The psychology behind different personalities

Personality is derived from the word ‘persona’, which means a mask. In ancient times actors used to wear masks while performing various different roles or identities on stage and masks help them to express their characters or personalities in front of the great audience. Personality refers to the unique traits or characteristics of an individual and the behaviours that distinguish a person from others.

It most commonly includes values, beliefs, emotional patterns, interests, traits, behaviour, drives, abilities and the thinking process of an individual that determines the person as a whole and how they act or intend to behave in personal and social settings in front of others. Examples of personality includes “She is gorgeous” or someone saying “you have a really Charming personality”.

The Dynamic Nature of Personality

Personalities gives an idea of an individual to others and helps others to recognize the person and their nature. Personalities also helps in predicting how a particular person is going to react or respond, generally in problematic situations or at times of stress. Personality of an individual is like a design plan of them.

Personality influences the way a person thinks or perceives other things and interact with others around. It can also change over time and develops, as the person grows further. Personality is like a work under progress and the formation of ones personality is highly dependable on the persons one surrounds themselves with. In other words, one’s company contributes largely in determining the formation of personality.

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It is also seen to be true that people moulds their personalities according to the situations they are in or the people they are present with. For example, everyone has different personalities at home, office, market, school or colleges and it does changes when present with friends, family, colleague or cousins.

Personality tests and their advantages to know an individual’s personality better

There are various personality tests such as Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory, HEXACO personality inventory, Caddell’s 16 PF personality questionnaire and Enneagram typology that helps to distinguish between different personalities and to be able to determine one’s own personality, by answering lists of questions asked while taking particular personality tests. These personality tests are often taken in offline mode, but can be taken online too.

It helps people to know about themselves and which career should they opt for or is most appropriate for them based on their unique as well as the universal traits of personality. Personality tests help determining the impact of traits on an individual’s health and so makes them aware how frequently they have to visit to doctor for a check-up.

Personality: the mirror of an individual

It works like a mirror to an individual that reflects ones behaviour and characteristics, it helps them determine their qualities and traits as well as forms an image of oneself in front of others to percieve. Different personality helps us relate to the other persons and even to our inner world. After the development period of childhood, there are certain specific traits in an individual that remains stable throughout their lifetime, which later are characterised as traits. Traits represents a person and helps in the formation of different personalities within human beings.

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Gordon Allport bought into consideration two major ways for studying personalities. These are nomothetic and idiographic. Nomothetic psychology focuses on the general traits and laws that can be applied to majority of different people. It includes self-actualization or traits of extraversion. Idiographic psychology, on the other hand, understands the unique aspects of a particular person. There are various personality type considering the major population instead of focussing on an individual as in case of personality.

Personality groups and their types

Personality type comprises a list of traits and characteristics commonly found in a group. These fall within three main groups: Introverts, Extroverts, and Ambiverts.

1. Introverts are shy, reserved individuals who like and prefer their own company rather than being around so many people. Even when they are present in a large group of people, they need time to recharge themselves later on. Introverts spend most of their time enjoying by themselves and are keen observers who often reflects upon their inner self. Introverts don’t talk much but they are indeed great listeners who listen to other people with great enthusiasm attentively. They don’t like to socialize with strangers or other people who they are not close with and generally avoids being the centre of attraction. They think deeply before speaking and are most present in their mind. Introverts are more of an independent creature who doesn’t seek for help, but values friend ship or any other relationships. It is also known as introversion.
2. Extroverts, on the other hand, are good at socializing and doesn’t even hesitate being around people. They likes to be the center if attraction and wants everyone to pay attention to them. They communicate very well and are party goers as they enjoy being in large social gatherings or events, and unlike introverts, extroverts don’t need time to recharge themselves after socially being present somewhere. Extroverts are talking as if they tend to think out loud and can talk effectively with strangers as well. Extroverts doesn’t face much problem making friends or talking to anyone and so have a large social network of people. It is also known as Extroversion.
3. Ambiverts are those who comes in between the category of introverts and Extroverts. However, being categorized as introverts doesn’t mean that a person is supposed to be introverted all the time. Introverts even shows the qualities of Extroverts like talking too much when present near their closed ones.

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Here, the four types of personalities are:

• Introversion(I) to Extroversion(E)
• Sensing(S) to intuition(I)
• Thinking(T) to feeling(F)
• Judging(J) to percieving(P)

Philosophical assumptions that lead to the formation of different personality, its theories and types

The study of different personalities is not a purely empirical discipline as arts, science and philosophy have their own equal contributions to it. Many ideas conceptualized and explained by personality theorists first arise from their basic philosophical assumptions which includes:

• Freedom vs. Determinism: Here the question arises whether humans could themselves control their behaviour and understands the reason behind it, or if there is some other kind of force that governs and controls one’s behaviour.
• Nature vs. Nurture: Earlier, people believed that biological factors or genetics solely determine personalities. However, now it comes under consideration that environment and biology together plays a crucial role in determining the traits or personality of an individual.
• Uniqueness vs. Universality: With this question arises the doubt of unique and universal traits present in an individual. Unique characteristics or traits are those which are only present in individual person and that unique trait is what sets them apart from the majority. However, universal traits are present within a large group of the population.
• Active vs. Reactive: This question explores whether humans act or initiates the responses on their own or if they wait for some external stimuli to which they could react accordingly. Traditionally, the belief was that humans are passive creatures responding to the environment. However, recent suggestions propose that humans are actively participating organisms.
• Optimistic vs. Pessimistic: Theories differ in believing that humans are responsible in changing their own personalities. The theorists who put emphasis mainly on learning are optimistic than pessimistic.

These are some of the philosophical assumptions which lead to the formation of various different types of personalities that provide everyone a sense of being. Different personalities are like a road map for individuals that helps others to get to know about them as well as to feel connected or related to others in some way or another.