African American Personality

What is personality? How does it relate to Blacks? These are just a few of the questions that might surface when researching human personality. According to Webster's Dictionary, personality is the "totality of qualities and traits, as of character or behavior that are peculiar to a specific person." Personality is characterized by the collective character, behavioral, temperamental, emotional, and mental traits of a person. While personality relates to all persons, when studying Black personality, one must take into consideration the experiences of the African community as a whole.

When discussing personality one must understand the differences between personality and black personality. While it may be difficult to find an all-encompassing definition, personality refers to a person's unique and relatively stable pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions. According to an excerpt presented in Psychological Principals and the Black Experience, "the personality represents the compromise between inner drives and needs, and the controls that limit and regulate their expression... Personality functions to maintain stable, reciprocal relationships between the person and his environment." Meaning that personality is made up of distinct characteristics that helps a person manage their day to day experiences under ordinary circumstances (Houston, 1990). There are many different theories on how one develops his or her personality. These theories include, the psychoanalytic theory which attempts to explain personality based on unconscious mental forces; the humanistic theory, which is the idea that all people are good and that they are striving for self-fulfillment; the social cognitive approach which states that people develo...

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...ys. Mental liberation lies in Blacks discovering a way to define themselves, speak for themselves, and name themselves. Blacks must believe in the value and belief in their divine nature. Blacks must understand that they are not free until the find spiritual, mental and physical liberation (Parham, White, Ajamu, 2000).

While there are many theories that define personality Blacks must understand that while the various measures of personality are negative, Africans Americans as a community need to identify with the basic sources from which black personality is derived, the African ancestors (Houston, 1990). Although the westernized society may feel that Blacks are inferior, it is important to understand that they are not liberated until they shed the ideas of mainstream society. Freedoms gates are half ajar, we must pry them fully open (Mary McLeod Bethune, 1955).