Page 2 - Personality Development_Neat

UNIT - I

PERSONALITY

Meaning of Personality:

The term ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means a
mask. According to K. Young, “Personality is a patterned body of habits, traits, attitudes
and ideas of an individual, as these are organised externally into roles and statuses, and as
they relate internally to motivation, goals, and various aspects of selfhood.” G. W. Allport
defined it as “a person’s pattern of habits, attitudes, and traits which determine his
adjustment to his environment.”

The overall profile or combination of characteristics that capture the unique nature
of a person as that person reacts and interacts with others. It combines a set of physical
and mental characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts, and feels.

Nature of Personality

1. Personality refers to the set of traits and behaviors that characterize an individual.

It refers to the relatively stable pattern of behavior and consistent internal state &
explains an individual’s behavioral tendencies.

2. Personality has both internal (thoughts, values and genetic characteristics that is
inferred from observable behaviors) and external (observable behaviors)
elements.

3. Personality of an individual is relatively stable in nature.

4. Personality is both inherited as well as it can be shaped by the environment.

Personality Types

Type A’s are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly; feel impatient with the rate
at which most events take place; strive to think or do two or more things at once;
cannot cope with leisure time; are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success
in terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire.

Type B’s never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its accompanying
impatience; feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements or

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