What is personality?
Personality psychology as an empirical science was established already in the 1930s. Since then, many definitions of personality have been created.
Personality is commonly called character. It refers to internally stable and consistent traits maintained throughout life, through which individuals behave in a specific way. It is our personality that makes us unique. Knowing a person’s character, we are able to predict their behavior in a given situation.
Personality is one of the key concepts in psychology. The systems explaining the functioning of the mind and our behaviors, created since the time of Sigmund Freud, are called personality theories. Below we present 4 of them.
Psychoanalytic theory of personality
The psychoanalytic theory of personality was initiated by Sigmund Freud. According to him, personality is created from three structures:
- ID – the most primitive structure whose goal is to satisfy basic needs; it is an unconscious structure
- EGO – its goal is to ensure safety and assess the situation in terms of real actions
- SUPEREGO – its goal is to inhibit ID impulses; behavior consistent with moral principles, striving for perfection; a significant part of it is unconscious.
Psychoanalysis was supposed to help patients solve their own internal conflicts by analyzing unconscious thoughts and feelings. Freud also emphasized the influence of childhood experiences on personality.
Eysenck's Theory
Hans Eysenck’s theory of personality, developed in the 1950s and 60s, is one of the factor theories of personality. According to this theory, personality consists of three factors:
- neuroticism (tendency to experience negative emotions, e.g., anxiety);
- extraversion (tendency to be sociable, seeking external stimulation);
- psychoticism (traits related to atypical thinking, e.g., impulsivity, creativity).
According to Eysenck, each of us can find our personality traits in these dimensions. However, this theory was criticized for its simplicity.
Big Five
Although many researchers still use Eysenck’s theory, the 5-factor model created by Paul T. Costa and Robert McCrae, known as the Big Five, is definitely more popular. They added openness and conscientiousness to the three factors mentioned by Eysenck.
- Extraversion – extroverted people are sociable, warm, and talkative. They show optimism, are active and cheerful. People with a low intensity of extraversion are shy, in social contacts they are not as dominant, and they prefer to stay alone.
- Neuroticism – people with a high intensity of neuroticism feel anxiety more strongly, they get discouraged and break down easily in difficult situations. They may have low self-esteem and may cope with stress less frequently.
- Agreeableness – people with high agreeableness are willing to help others, modest, affectionate, honest. In contrast, people with low agreeableness are egocentric, cold in contacts, skeptical.
- Openness – people with high openness to experience are creative, curious, unconventional, willing to question authorities. People with low openness to experiences rather have conservative views, value tradition, and do not like changes.
- Conscientiousness – people with high conscientiousness are motivated to act, dutiful, meticulous, punctual. A high intensity of this trait is also associated with a tendency to workaholism and perfectionism. In contrast, people with low conscientiousness are rather unmeticulous, spontaneous, have low motivation to act, and do not have specific goals.
MBTI
MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) is a concept developed by I. Myers and S. Briggs, based on a diagnostic tool they created. It is based on C. Jung’s theory of personality types. Jung distinguished eight basic types:
- Extraversion (E) vs Introversion (I)
- Sensing (S) vs Intuition (N)
- Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
- Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P).
By combining these types, MBTI creates 16 possible combinations that constitute separate personality types. Due to free access, it is a popular test among internet users, but it faces criticism in the scientific community. It mainly refers to the lack of scientific evidence for its validity and too low reliability. It happens that we can get different results in a short period of time. Despite many flaws and criticism, the test also has advantages. Thanks to it, we can increase our self-awareness, get to know our strengths and weaknesses, and leaders can use it as a help in managing teams.
