Personality: What is it and how does it reveal itself?

We often hear the word ‘personality’ in our conversations. Usually it is used to describe a person. Sometimes the descriptions involving the word are favourable (e.g., “She has a warm personality”) and sometimes they are unfavourable (e.g., “He has an aggressive personality”). There are psychological tests which attempt to measure a person’s personality. There are personality disorders. There was even a hit song called ‘Personality’.

That personality has become such a pervasive term reflects the research indicating that we regularly think of ourselves and those with whom we interact in terms of personality. In the following sections, I will define personality and discuss how we tend to be influenced by it in different situations and over time.

What is personality?

Personality can be defined as a relatively stable way of thinking, feeling and behaving. In other words, the individual with a particular personality will tend to think, feel and behave in the same way. Stability of personality applies to two dimensions—stability across situations and stability over time.

As an example, consider someone who is described as extroverted in their personality. We would expect this person to think, feel and behave in an extroverted manner from one situation to the next. We would also expect them to think, feel and behave in an extroverted manner at one point in time and at a later point in time.

The meaning of ‘relatively stable’ in the definition of personality

Note that the definition of personality refers to a ‘relatively stable’ way of thinking, feeling and behaving rather than to a ‘totally stable’ way of thinking, feeling and behaving. This implies that, although the tendency will be for a person to think, feel and behave in the same manner across situations and over time, they will not necessarily do so.

That is, a person may think, feel and behave differently from their relatively stable way of thinking, feeling and behaving. This departure from their personality may occur on both a situational and a temporal basis. That is, may they think, feel and behave according to their personality in one situation but may not do so in another situation. They may also think, feel and behave according to their personality at one point in time but may not do so at later point in time.

Applying this notion to the example: A person described as extroverted in their personality may think, feel and behave according to their extroverted personality in one situation but may not do so in another situation. They may also think, feel and behave according to their extroverted personality at one point in time but may not do so at later point in time.

What determines whether someone will think, feel and behave according to their personality?

You may wonder what determines whether someone will think, feel and behave according to their personality across situations and over time or depart from it. First, someone will tend to think, feel and behave consistent with their personality in a given situation unless features of the situation are strong enough to lead to a departure from one’s personality.

Consider someone who may be described as calm and friendly in their personality who is in a situation in which they are experiencing significant stress, frustration and provocation. These situational factors may be strong enough to lead the person to think, feel and behave differently from their calm and friendly personality at that time. However, in most situations which are lacking the features I described, we would expect the person to think, feel and behave consistent with their calm and friendly personality.

Secondly, someone will tend to think, feel and behave consistent with their personality over time unless the person experiences events which are significant enough to lead to the person no longer doing so. Consider someone who may be described as confident in their personality at a given point in time. Then consider that they are the victims of several traumatic events. These events may be significant enough to result in the person no longer thinking, feeling and behaving in a confident manner at a later point in time.

Or consider someone who may be described as angry and aggressive in their personality at a given point in time. This person believes that their personality is having a significant negative effect on their life including their work and their relationships. As a result, they decide to enter therapy and work very hard with their therapist to address their angry and aggressive tendencies. These efforts may be significant enough to result in the person no longer thinking, feeling and behaving in an angry and aggressive manner at a later point in time.

In effect, these examples illustrate how a person’s personality—their relatively stable way of thinking, feeling and behaving—can change over time if the person experiences events which are significant enough to lead to such change.

How to take advantage of the relatively stable nature of personality

You can take advantage of your knowledge of the relatively stable nature of personality in several ways: (1) It can make it easier to interact with people—Knowing that people will tend to think, feel and behave according to their personality allows you to prepare for how to interact with them. You can focus on interacting with them according to their personality while considering whether are strong enough situational factors which may lead them to depart from their personality. The latter scenario may entail you preparing to interact with them in a different manner than you usually would;

(2) It can guide your behaviour in situations—Being aware of your own relatively stable ways of thinking, feeling and behaving can guide your behaviour in situations. Rather than having to treat every situation as a novel one in which you need to think about how to behave, you can behave consistent with your personality in the situation unless there are situational factors strong enough to lead you to determine that it would be better to behave differently from your personality.

(3) It can lead you to keep certain parts of your personality and change other parts—You may have several favourable elements of your personality which are enhancing your life. You may therefore choose to keep these aspects of your personality. On the other hand, there may also be unfavourable parts of your personality which are having a negative effect on your life. You may therefore choose to change these aspects of your personality. As my previous example illustrated, participating actively in therapy is one of the most effective ways to make changes to unfavourable parts of your personality.

May you use the concept of personality to your advantage,

-Dr. Pat