Personality is what makes a person unique. Personality is a combination of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Without personality people would be void of emotion and everyone would be walking around like robots. This paper is going to define personality, and examine theoretical approaches used in studying personality. This paper will also analyze factors that may influence an individual's personality development.
Defining Personality.
There is no single definition for the term personality. The word is actually born from a Latin word (persona). The meaning of the word persona is a mask, like a mask worn in plays by Roman actors. (Feist & Feist, 2009). This is because a person is capable of wearking many masks. There are many faces to every person, much as there are many traits to every personality. Basically, a person's self-schema's, or the way they believe they are is the way they will let others see them, or the mask they will wear.
Personalities, however are much more than masks people put on, or even self-schema's in which they believe. Personalities are made up of a person's thoughts and feelings. People have a lot of different traits (the way they act) that when all put together make up their personality. "Personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior" (Feist & Feist, 2009).
Examining Theoretical Approaches in Studying Personality.
There are many theoretical approaches when it comes to studying personality. In fact, theories are almost as numerable as the theorists who study personality. In psychology a theory is defined as " a set of related assumptions that allow scientists to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypothesizes" (Feist & Feist, 2009). Scientists or theorists develop theories so that they can gain further knowledge. The reason there are so many theories is that everyone views things from their own point of view.