PERSONALITY
Personality means the constitution of mental as well as the
physical health of an individual. Personality may be defined as the characteristic
pattern of behavior that determines an individual’s adjustment to the
environment or situation.
It is a fact that psychological factors of an
individual are rarely known to others. An individual’s personality is not a
superficial fact or occurrence that can be easily understood, merely on his
personal appearance. Personality is the whole aspect of an individual from
general point of view. It includes a person’s physical, psychological and
emotional aspects.
Personality has come from a Latin word ‘Persona’
meaning to speak through (mask). As in the ancient days masks were worn in
Greece and Rome by actors, while enacting plays. Thus, personality is used for
influencing others through external appearance. However, personality is not the
external appearance alone.
Personality, which makes an individual to stand
apart, is the impression of characteristic attributes. It is an aggregate of an
individual’s physical, psychological and behavioral aspects contributing to
his ‘good personality’ or no personality, according to the presence or absence
of the characteristic attributes. Some of these, which are of significant
nature, are worth mentioning.
Meaning of Personality
In order to understand the behavior of people in the organisational setting, we need to know the basic nature of personality. It is a psycho-social phenomenon, which analyses the cognitive features and presentation of individual in the society.
Personality is made up of the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior of an individual. These attributes make a person unique. Personality originates within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life. Personality exhibits distinctive qualities of a person, especially those distinguishing personal characteristics that make one socially appealing. If a person wins an election on his own, society may say that he/she has won “more on personality than on capability”.
Personality reveals distinctive traits of mind and behavior of a person. It is a pattern of collective character which includes behavioral, mental, temperamental, and emotional traits of a person that makes one socially appealing. It exhibits the quality of a person, which is visible and impresses or disturbs others.
Personality – Definitions
STEPHEN P. ROBBINS- “The sum total of ways in
which an individual reacts & interacts with others.”
GORDON ALL PORT- “The dynamic
organization with in the individual of those psycho physical system that
determine his unique adjustment to his environment.”
The term
personality has been derived from Latin word ‘persona’ which means ‘to speak
through.’
“Personality refers to the relatively stable pattern of behaviors and consistent internal states that explain a person’s behavior tendencies.” — RT Hogan.
Personality is used
in terms of influencing others through external appearance.
A careful analysis of the above definitions will observe the followings:
i. Personality may be defined as the characteristic pattern of behavior that determines an individual’s adjustment to the environment or situation.
ii. It describes how an individual affects others, how he understands himself and his pattern of internal as well as external measurable traits.
iii. It is the dynamic organisation within an individual of those psychological systems which determines his unique adjustment to the environment.
