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Personality
"Personality" is a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences
their environment, cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations.
 "personality" from the Latin persona, means mask.
Types/Theories of Personality
Two types. Both these theories of personality focus on people’s personal characteristics.
I. Types theories
II. Traits theories.
I. Type Theories
Type theorists have explained personality on the basis of physique and temperament. Temperament refers to
emotional aspect of the personality like changes in mood, tensions, excitement, etc. A ‘type’ is simply a class
of individuals said to share a common collection of characteristics.
1. Jung’s Classification
2. Kretschmer’s Classification
3. Sheldon’s Classification
4. Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification
1. Jung’s Classification
 Introverts - these people appear to be self-centered, unable to adjust easily in social situations. They
are future oriented, very sensible and rigid in ideas.
 Extraverts - show interest in present reality than future. They express their feelings openly. Take
decisions quickly and act upon quickly. They are not affected easily by difficulties.
 Ambiverts: There are only few people who are pure introverts or pure extraverts. The remaining
majority of people possess both the qualities of introverts and extraverts.
2. Kretschmer’s Classification
 Pyknic type: These are people who are short and having round body. They will have personality traits
of extroverts. These people are more prone to suffer from a mental disorder called MDP.
 Asthenic type/Leptosomatic: These people will have a slender or slim body. They will have the
personality traits of introverts. These people are more prone to suffer from a serious mental disorder
called Schizophrenia.
 Athletic type: These people will have strong body. They are more energetic and aggressive. They are
comparable with ambiverts. They are more prone to suffer from MDP.
 Dysplastic type: These people will have un- proportionate body and do not belong to any of the three
types mentioned above. This disproportion is due to hormonal imbalance. Their behaviour and
personality are also imbalanced.
3. Sheldon’s Classification
 Endomorphic: These people will have soft, fat and
round body, having predominance of abdominal
region. They are sociable and relaxed (can be
compared to pyknic type).
 Ectomorphic: These are the people who are tall,
thin and flat chested, having the skin, bones and
neural structure predominantly. They are shy,
reserved and self-conscious (can be compared with
asthenic/Leptosomatic type).
 Mesomorphic: These people are well built with heavy and strong muscles appear predominantly. They
are physically active, noisy, adventurous by nature (can be compared to athletic type).

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4. Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification
 Type A: Type A individuals as rude, ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status- conscious, sensitive,
impatient, anxious, proactive, and concerned with time management. People with Type A personalities
are often high-achieving "workaholics." Type A behavior is expressed through three major symptoms
o free-floating hostility/unfriendliness, which can be triggered by even minor incidents
o time urgency and impatience
o a competitive drive.
 Type B personality, are noted to live at lower stress levels. They typically work steadily, and may
enjoy achievement. Type B individuals are sometimes attracted to careers of creativity: writer,
counsellor, therapist, actor or actress. However, network and computer systems managers, professors,
and judges are more likely to be Type B individuals as well.
II. Trait Theories
Also called dispositional theory. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which
can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion.
1. Allport Trait Theory
 Cardinal traits: They stand at the top of the hierarchy and are considered to be an individual's ruling
passions. Cardinal traits often develop later in life and serve to shape almost all aspects of an
individual's purpose, behaviour, and attitudes. Eg Mother Teresa, Adolph Hitler.
 Central traits come next in the hierarchy. These are general characteristics found in varying degrees in
every person such as loyalty, kindness, friendliness, wildness, etc. They are the basic building blocks
that shape most of our behaviour.
 Secondary traits exist at the bottom of the hierarchy and are not quite as obvious. They are plentiful
but are only present under specific circumstances; they include things like preferences and attitudes.
For example, a friendly person gets angry when people try to tickle him.
2. Cattell’s Trait Theories
 Common Traits: the traits found widely distributed in general population like honesty, aggression, and
cooperation.
 Unique traits: unique to a person as temperamental traits, emotional reactions.
 Surface traits: to be recognized by our manifestation of behaviour like curiosity, dependability,
tactfulness.
 Source traits: underlying structures or sources that determine one’s behaviour such as dominance,
submission, emotionality etc.
Catell began to obtain a complete list of human traits and he formed a list of 17000 traits. On the second step
he managed to form some specific groups which he called as surface traits. 35 nos. The analysis of surface
traits: he found that some are overlapping and made a list of traits called source traits. 15nos. Eg. Academic
Performance of a student is predictable by analysing two traits such as Intelligence and Reading Habits.
III. Type cum Trait Theories
This has both the characteristics features of type approach as well as trait approach.
1. H.J Eysenck
 At the lowest level we have specific responses. For example blushing / red face in a particular situation.
 At the second level we have habitual responses. We react in similar fashion when the same situation
reoccurs. Eg. Not easily picking up the friendships, hesitant to talk to strangers etc.
 At the third level we have organization of habitual acts into traits. In the given example the habitual
responses give rise to a trait called shyness.
 At the fourth level we have the organization of these traits into a general type. A type is defined as a
group of correlated traits. In the given example repeated shyness make the person introvert.

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He described four types based on these aspects such as introversion, extroversion, Neuroticism (negative
emotions), Psychoticism (aggressive IPR and anger). This explain the structure and integration of our
personality.
IV. Developmental Theories
1. Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalytic theory of personality
 The id, the most primitive of the three structures, is concerned with instant gratification of basic
physical needs and urges.
 The superego is concerned with social rules and morals—similar to what many people call their
"conscience" or their "moral compass." It develops as a child learns what their culture considers right
and wrong.
 The ego is the rational, pragmatic part of our personality. It is less primitive than the id and is partly
conscious and partly unconscious. It's what Freud considered to be the "self," and its job is to balance
the demands of the id and superego in the practical context of reality.
Psychosexual theory of development
 Five basic stages, each with a different focus: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. with each
psychosexual stage directly related to a different physical center of pleasure.
2. Adler's Personality Theory
Adler called his theory Individual Psychology because he believed that people were unique and that no theory
created to be applied to all people. Adler's drive for human behavior is the need to overcome the feelings of
inferiority. Inferiority is a feeling that humans feel since they are born. It is humans drive to overcome
inferiority and become superior which causes humans to act.
 His theory also contains the effects of the order of the family. only child will get pampered which will
cause the child to feel inferior when left to do things on their own. firstborn get all the attention at first
but then goes towards the middle child. Now the firstborn feels neglected and inferior and develops to
reserved and conservative. The middle child will be competitive and constantly try to beat the firstborn.
The youngest child will be pampered and will feel inferior when left to do things by themselves.
Adler also had 4 different psychological types that described people based off of their energy levels.
 Ruling Type: This type refers to those who will push others in order to gain superiority. They have a
lot of energy which causes them to push others out of their way.
 Learning Type: They are sensitive and build a shell around themselves. They are dependent on others
to help them with life difficulties. When overwhelmed they develop phobias, obsessions, anxiety, etc.
 Avoiding Type: These people are people who survive by avoiding life. They have the lowest energy
levels. They usually become psychotic, living in their own worlds.
 Socially Useful Type: This is a healthy person. They have the right amount of energy and take interest
in others.
3. Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers agreed with the main assumptions of Abraham Maslow. But added that for persons to "grow",
they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance
(being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood). There are
two basic systems underlying his personality ie, the organism and the self. The organism is the individual’s
entire frame of reference. It represents the totality of experiences ie conscious and unconscious. The self is
the accepted awareness part of experience.
4. Learning Theories
 Dollard and Miller the Freud’s concept of pleasure seeking is substituted with principle of
reinforcement, concept of ego, learnt skills and drive, etc. It says that personality is learnt. Humans are

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impelled by drives both conditioned and unconditioned. Reinforcements give birth to motives and new
learning or behavioural processes. Personality is also acquired in the same way as learning. Habit
formation is important in personality development. Change is always possible by learning.
 Bandura & Waletr’s - This theory emphasizes that what one represents through his personality is
very much acquired through a process of continuous structuring and restructuring of his experiences
through social learning. Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways.
Psychometric assessment of personality
1. Observation
2. situational tests.
3. questionnaire.
4. personality inventory.
5. rating scale.
6. Interview
7. projective techniques.
1. Observation
the things that we observe confirm the person's self- report, and some times the person's overt behaviour
appears to be at odds with what he or she says. Observational procedures may be either informal or formal.
Informal observations are primarily qualitative.
2. Situational tests.
The situation is artificially created in which an individual is expected to perform acts related to the personality
traits under testing. Eg. Testing honesty,Testing temptation to copy.
3. Questionnaire.
A group of questions are made related to personality characteristics may be printed or written. These answers
are evaluated for personality assessment.
4. Personality inventory.
It resembles questionnaire in so many aspects like administration, scoring, interpretation, etc. The difference
can be seen in two ways.
 Firstly the questionnaire is the general device and can be used for collecting all kinds of information.
 Secondly all the questions are framed with first person not second person (as per language).
The best example for personality inventory is Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). It
consists of 550 questions and each question is printed on a card.
5. Rating scale
A rating scale is a procedure in which the observer is asked to make judgments that place the person
somewhere along a dimension. Rating scales provide abstract descriptions of a person's behaviour rather than
a specific record of exactly what the person has done. Usually the degrees are indicated by numbers 1 to 3, 1
to 5 or 1 to 7
6. Interview
The interview is most commonly used procedure in psychological assessment
7. Projective techniques
These are methods to understand the covert or unconscious behaviour which is more significant. These
techniques are based on the concept of projection. In this indefinite and unstructured stimuli like vague
pictures, ink blots, incomplete sentences are provided to the subject and he is asked to structure them in any
way he likes. In doing so he unconsciously projects his own desires, hopes, fears, repressed wishes, etc are
reveals in terms of clues. The common ones are the following;;;;
 Rorschach ink-blot test - in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed
using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. It has been employed to detect

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underlying though disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking
processes openly. The test consists of 10 cards on which there are ink blots. Five of them are black &
white and 5 are multi colour. They are unstructured and the shapes do not have any specific meaning.
The cards are presented to subject one at a time and he asked to say what he sees in it, or what does it
look like. Time is given to the subject. The examiner notes the responses both the descriptions and
emotional or face expressions. After the completion of the test there is a second phase where the subject
is asked to clarify his expressions or narration. The scoring is based on four components such as
location, contents, originality and determinants.
o Location: The letters such as W, D, d, s are used for it. W= observing card as a whole. D=
indicates large details. d= indicates small details. s= indicate response to white spaces.
o Contents: H= human forms, A= animal forms, etc.
o Originality: P= popular or repeated inference, O= new inferences on every card.
o Determinants: C, M, K. manner of perception such as its colour/movement and shading etc.
The results are entered into a spread sheet column. The frequency indicates the behaviour/personality
of the person. The number of Ws are greater than d or D then the person is said to be mature, intelligent.
More number on colour and human movement indicates extrovert behaviour. Dominance on shading
responses indicates anxiety and depression. Emphasis on movement indicates increased power of
imagination.
 TAT Thematic Apperception TEST - This
test consists of perception of certain pictures in
a thematic manner. It consists of 20 pictures
which portray human beings in a variety of
actual life situations. The pictures are different
for male and female. The pictures are presented
to the subject one at a time. There is no right
and wrong answer. He / She has to make up a
story for each of the pictures. The following
aspects are considered while making up the
story; What is going in the picture? What is the
reason of the said scene? What will happen in
such a situation? In making up the story the

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subject unconsciously projects so many characteristics of personality. Interpretation is based on the
following a. Hero of the story: personality of the hero. b. Theme of the story: nature of the theme c.
Style of Story: language, expressions, organisation. d. Content of the Story: interests , sentiments and
attitude. e. Test situation: whole and part
 CAT Child Apperception TEST -
It is similar to TAT. It consists of 10
cards. The cards have pictures of
animals instead of humans.
Administration is same as TAT.
Interpretation is based on Hero of
the story, theme, end of the story,
attitude towards parental figure,
family role, nature of anxieties,
punishment and crime, defence and confidence etc.
 Word association test - In this technique there are a number
of selected words. The subject is told that:- The examiner will
speak a series of words one at a time. After each word the
subject (usually 15 second are given) is to reply to each word
as possible as the first word comes to his mind. There is no
right and wrong answer. The examiner then records the reply
to wach word spoken by him. The reaction time and any unusual speech or behaviour manifestations
accompanying a given response is noted. It is believed that word association can reveal something of
a person's subconscious mind (as it shows what things they associate together).
 Sentence completion test - Sentence completion tests are a class of semi- structured projective
techniques. Sentence completion tests typically
provide respondents with beginnings of sentences,
referred to as "stems", and respondents then complete
the sentences in ways that are meaningful to them. The
responses are believed to provide indications of
attitudes, beliefs, motivations, or other mental states.
Therefore, sentence completion technique, with such
advantage, promotes the respondents to disclose their
concealed feelings.
 Projective techniques - In addition to projective techniques mentioned so far the following practices
are also used for measuring personality. Play technique. Drawing Painting etc.
Alteration in personality
Although the personality of a person considered as somewhat stable, In our day today life we consistently
change our social nature, temperament, etc. Sudden changes in the environmental set up, the anxiety, fear and
restlessness and economic pressure introduced through the illness of the person may also cause personality
change.The significant personality changes are;
Chandni Narayan
12.4.2021