Characteristics Of Individual Personality

When we talk about individual personality, we are talking about a blend of traits that makes a person unique. It can be defined as the dynamic composition of an individual including systems- psychological and physical- that represents his or her behaviour and thought. According to idiographic theorists, each has a unique mental organization and that some characteristics are only possessed by only one person. Due to this uniqueness in traits, it becomes hard to compare one person with another. There are several theories that have been developed to explain personality. Some of these include Psychoanalytic theories, Behaviourist theories, Social cognitive theories and Humanistic theories. This paper will use two of these approaches (Behaviourist

This is due to the difference in their traits, for example, some individual is more sociable in the presence of many people than others. However, it familiar that different individuals portray significant similarity when placed under certain situations. Behaviourist theories suggest that one’s personality is developed depending on the external stimuli surrounding him ("Situation versus Personality Debate," 2017). According to B.F Skinner, the main difference between individual behaviour come as a result of our experiences. He says that different learn these traits either directly through a reward or punishment causing a reinforcement of a good or bad behaviour in a person or indirectly through observation and modelling. Following this suggestion, individual behaviour can be understood by the way he reacts to the surrounding or present situation. For instance, if an individual is placed in a playground or a battlefield it is expected that they will be more aggressive than usual. Even for the submissive individuals, they become aggressive when put in an unusual situation. This shows that one’s personality can help in understanding one’s

As opposed to forced behaviour, this approach focuses on personal subjective experiences. Each can actively decide how to act irrespective of the situation he or she is under. According to this theory, every individual is alone in the world, until they find a meaning or purpose of their life. Through identification of ones meaning, an individual can now know his or her personality. Unlike behaviourist where reinforcement is required to develop behaviour traits which will form one’s character, in humanistic, an individual develops his personality through self-actualization.

Rogers, a humanistic theorist tend to oppose behaviouristic theory. In his article, stated that the human and other organism has one goal which is to attain self-actualization. Every individual should be trying to find his meaning in the world. According to him, a typical individual is one who is in the process of attaining self-actualization. About personality, an individual should be free thinkers who trust their feeling, not the environment. He says the only reason people exist is to satisfy the need of