Chapter 2- Self and Personality

Self and Personality –can be referred as the characteristics in which we define our
existence.

These characteristics are usually acquired from our experiences and they show up in
our behaviour.

These characteristics make people different from each other. Hence they behave
differently in similar situations.

Also same people behave almost similarly in different situations.

Hence it is safe to say that Different people have different personalities in

different situations.

Self- Totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas , thoughts and feelings

with regard to her/himself developed since the beginning( childhood days).

These experiences and ideas define the existence of an individual both at

personal and social level.

Parents, friends, teachers n other significant people around ourselves.

Self can be defined under two type of identities:

Personal Identity– Personal aspects: eg Name, personal qualities (honest,

hardworking), potential, capabilities (singer, dancer), beliefs (believer in God).

Social Identity- These are those aspects that link a person with society or a cultural
group.

Eg- religion( Hindu, sikh), North Indian or a South Indian

Cognitive and Behavioural aspects of Self

I Self- Esteem- The personal value and worth judgement by a person about
her/himself is termed as Self-esteem.

1. High Self-esteem- Those who think highly of themselves, more accepted by

others. Are generally happier, more confident, usually perform better at
school/work.
2. Low Self-esteem- Those who feel less accepted and valued by others. Are
generally anxious, depressed and may develop antisocial behaviour.

Studies show children develop self-esteem by the age of 6-7 years in four
areas:

1. Academic competence, 2. Social competence, 3. physical/athletic

competence and 4. Physical appearance.
II Self-efficacy- Notion of Self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory.
It is the extent to which people believe that they can control their life and the
outcomes themselves. Their conviction in themselves.

High Self-efficacy – A strong self of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence

and even construct and circumstances of their own life.

III Self-regulation- is the ability to organize and monitor our own behaviour.

High self-regulation– are people who are able to change their behaviour according
to the demands of the external environment.

Will power– Resistance to situational pressures and control over ourselves.

Self-control– Learning to delay or defer the gratification of needs is called self-

control.

Psychological techniques of self-control:

1. Observation of own behaviour

2. Self- instructions- to instruct oneself on do something
3. Self- reinforcement- Rewarding behaviours that have pleasant outcome.

Culture and Self:

Several aspects of Self are linked to the characteristics and features of the culture in
which an individual lives.

e.g Distinction between Indian and Western cultures.

Western culture:

1. In this culture the Individual ( self) and the cultural group are two different
identities
2. The boundaries between self and group are clearly defined.
3. Individual members of the group maintain their individuality.
4. Western culture is Individualistic.

Diagram:

Indian Culture:

1. Self is not separated from one’s own group

2. They both ( self & group) remain in state of harmonious co-existence.
3. Lot of dependency and no clear boundaries.
4. Indian culture is Collectivistic.

Concept of Personality
Literary definition- This word is derived from Latin word-Persona, which
means mask used by actors in Roman theatre to perform their roles.

Layperson’s definition– Personality represents external or physical appearance.

They often mistake the superficial features for a person s overall personality.

Eg. We often assume that Good looking person also has a charming personality.

Psychology definition: Personality refers to our characteristic ways of responding

to individuals and situations. Personality refers to unique and relatively stable
qualities that characterise an individual’s behaviour across different situations over a
period of time.

People can easily describe the way in which they respond to various situations. Eg-
Shy, sensitive, quiet, warm, nervous..)

Overall:

Personality is characterised by following features:

1. It consists of both physical to psychological components

2. Expression of personality in form of behaviour is unique for each individual
3. It’s main features do not easily change with time
4. Though some features may change due to internal or external situational
demands, making personality also adaptive to situations.

Some similar meaning words/terms to Personality which are often used as

synonyms but differ in meaning:

Temperament: Biologically based characteristic way of reacting

Traits: Stable, persistent and specific way of behaving, in most situations.

Disposition: Tendency of a person to react to a specific situation

Character: The description based on overall pattern of regularly

occurring behaviour

Habits: Over learned modes of behaving, become involuntary

reactions/actions.

Values: Goals and ideals that are considered important and worthwhile to achieve.

Benefits of understanding diverse personalities:

Different Approaches to study Personalities and behaviours:

 Type approach
 Trait Approach
 Interactional Approach
 Psychodynamic approach
 Behaviour approach
 Cultural Approach
 Humanistic approach

Type Approach: This approach attempts to comprehend and segregate people into
groups by examining and based on their broad patterns in observed behaviours.

So each pattern type refers to a group of people who have similarity of their
behavioural characteristics that match with the pattern that set denotes.

Greek physician Hippocrates had proposed a typology of personality based on

fluid/humour: Sanguine, Phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric.

Charak Samhita famous treatise on Ayurveda classifies as- Vata,

pitta and kapha based on 3 humoural elements- Tridosha

Typology of personality based on trigunas:

Sattva- Cleanliness, Truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment and discipline.

Rajas- Intensive activity, desire for sense gratification, dissatisfaction, envy.

Tamas– Anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, feeling of helplessness.

Sheldon theory: based on body type and temperament

Endomorphic- Fat, soft and round. Relaxed and sociable.

Mesomorphic- Strong muscular, rectangular body and energetic and courageous by

temperament

Ectomorphic- Thin, long, fragile by body type and creative, brainy and introvert by
temperament.

Jung theory- Introverts, Extroverts

Friedman & Rosenman- Type A & Type B

Type A- Possess high motivation, lack patience, fall short of time, in a great hurry,
always feel burdened with work, cant slow down.

Type B- Absence of category of Type A

Type C- Unassertive, cooperative, patient

Type D- Proneness of depression.

Trait Approach: This type groups people as per specific set of traits. For eg
Shyness is a trait, so people can be rated in terms of degree of presence or absence
of that trait in individuals as Less, More, Not shy at all against that. Friendliness can
be another trait and many others.

1. Traits are relatively stable over time

2. They are generally consistent across situations
3. Their strengths and combinations vary across individuals leading

All of the above lead to individual differences in personality.

Gordon Allport’s Trait theory: As per Allport, Traits are the intervening variables
between situations which stimulate and person’s response to them.

1. Cardinal traits: They are highly pervasive and generalized and indicate
the goals around which an individual’s life revolves. g. Mahatma Gandhi’s
non-violence – Gandhian trait

and Hitler’s Nazism – Hitlerian trait

1. Central traits: These are less pervasive, still much generalized dispositions.
E.g. warm, sincere , diligent

We often use these traits for writing a job recommendation or in our resume.

1. Secondary traits: These are least generalized Commonly found in various

people, cannot be made the basis for differentiating personalities of people.
E.g. likes mangoes, prefer ethnic clothes, likes black dresses.

Cattell theory: Trait based personality factors- He developed a test called sixteen
personality factor questionnaire.

1. Source traits: Stable and are considered as building block of personality.

2. Surface traits: They result out of the interaction of source traits.

Eysenck’s Theory: Based on biological and genetically governed, Personality could

be reduced into two broad dimensions– (However, in his later work Eysenck
introduced 3rd dimension also).

1. Neuroticism Vs Emotional stability: If refers to the degree of control people

have on their feelings. People who score high on the neuroticism are anxious,
moody, touchy, restless, distressed, irritable, emotional unstable. The
opposite /low scores are calm, emotionally stable.
2. Extraversion Vs Introversion: Extraversion refers to people who are
outgoing, active, gregarious, impulsive, thrill seeking and introversion refers to
people passive, quiet, cautious and reserved.
 3. Psychoticism Vs sociability: Person scoring high on psychoticism tends to
be hostile, egocentric, anti-social. The opposite are friendly and sociable.

Five Factor Model of Personality:

Paul Costa and Robert McCrae have examined all possible personality traits. They
indicated set of Big five factors, which are useful and consistent in analysing
personality traits across cultures, languages, hence most promising empirical
approach to study personality.

Openness to experience: Those who score high on this are imaginative, curious,
and open to ideas. Interested in cultural pursuits. Opposites are cold and rigid.

Extraversion: Socially active, assertive, outgoing, talkative and fun loving. Opposite
are shy.

Agreeableness: Helpful, cooperative, caring and nurturing. Opposite are hostile,

self-centred.

Neuroticism: People scoring high on this are highly emotionally unstable, anxious,
irritable, hypertensive. Opposites are well adjusted, calm.

Conscientiousness: Achievement oriented, dependable, responsible, prudent,

hardworking and self-controlled. Opposites are impulsive.

The Interactional Approach: This theory claims that situational characteristics play an
important role in determining our behaviour. People may behave as dependent or
independent not because of their internal trait, but because of external rewards or
threats. The compelling situations can used to observe people’s behaviour in places
like a market, a courtroom, or a place of worship.

Psychodynamic approach:

Highly popular approach to study personality, by Sigmund Freud. He used ‘Free

Association’ the technique ( a method in which a person is asked to openly share his
thoughts, feelings and ideas that comes to his/her mind) Dream and error analysis to
understand the functioning of mind and help analyse thoughts by expression.

Based on the theory of Levels of consciousness, Freud visualizes the human minds
in terms of 3 levels of consciousness:

Conscious: Thoughts, feelings, actions people are aware of.

Preconscious: The mental activity people are aware of only if they pay attention to it
closely.

Unconscious: This includes mental activity people are unaware of. These
are instinctive, animalistic drives concealed and repressed away from conscious
mind because they may lead to psychological conflicts.
Freud used therapy of Psychoanalysis to bring the repressed, unconscious materials
to consciousness.

Leading people to live more self-aware and integrated life.

According to this theory there are 3 structural elements of Personality- Id, Ego and
Superego.

Id – It is source of a person’s instinctual energy. Deals with immediate gratification of

primitive needs- sexual desires, aggressive impulses does not care for moral values,
society or any individuals. Id is energised by two instinctive forces- life
instinct & death instinct.

The life force that energises the Id is called libido, which seeks immediate
gratification.

Ego- It grows out of Id only but seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in
accordance with reality. Works by reality principle. Ego often directs the Id towards
more appropriates ways of behaving, which are socially acceptable.

Eg: A boy sees some one having an ice-cream. His Id may want him to snatch it and
eat it. But Ego guides him to ask permission and then take it, which is socially more
acceptable behaviour.

Human behaviours reflect an attempt to deal with or escape from anxiety. People
avoid anxiety by distorting reality. Freud described defence mechanism of 5 types:

Repression: Anxiety provoking behaviours or thoughts are totally dismissed by the

unconscious mind. When people repress any desire at times they totally become
unaware of that desire. E,g When someone does something which expresses that
desire in a situation, they say, ‘ I do not know why I did this.’

Projection: In projection, people attribute their own traits to others. E.g People who
have aggressive tendencies may see other people also acting aggressive towards
them. i.e projecting their own behaviour.

Denial: Person in this trait totally refuses to accept reality.

e.g. A person with AIDs refuses to accept or deny his illness.

Reaction formation: This person to defend against anxiety adopts a behaviour

totally opposite to the instinctive feeling.

e.g Many people acquire religious practices to channelize their strong sexual urges.

Rationalization: Trying to rationalize their unreasonable feelings and behaviours

making them seem reasonable and acceptable.

e.g. When a student after doing poorly in exams buys new pens to rationalize reason
of bad performance and tells himself that he will do well with these new pen.
Super Ego- Super Ego can be characterised as the moral branch of mental
functioning. Super Ego tells the Id and Ego whether gratification is ethical or not.

e.g. Extending the same example, If the child who wants ice cream, if asks his
mother for it which is socially and morally correct.

Stages of Personal Development:

Freud Approach: Freud claims that core aspects of personality are formed at an
early stage and remain stable throughout life. He has proposed a 5 stage theory.

Oral stage: Newborn’s instincts are focused on the mouth. The baby seeks pleasure
in food that reduces his hunger, thumb sucking, biting, and babbling through his
mouth.

Anal stage: It is found that around ages of 2 or 3 child learns to respond to some of
the needs of society and learns to control the bodily functions of urination and
defecation. If left to themselves, most children at this age experience pleasure by
focusing on their anal area and in moving their bowls.

Phallic stage: This stage focuses on genitals. At age of 4 to 5, children begin to

realise the difference between males and females. During this stage male
children may feel Oedipus complex, which involves love for mother and hostility
towards father. And female child experiences Electra complex wherein they are more
attached to father and see mothers as their rivals.

Latency Stage: From age of 7 to puberty, child continues to grow physically. Sexual
urges are relatively inactive.

Much of their energy is channelled in social or achievement activities.

Genital Stage: During this stage, individual develops maturity in psychosexual

development. People learn to deal with opposite gender in a socially mature way.
However, if the journey is marked thorough excessive stress or over-indulgence, it
may cause fixation to that stage or regression to an earlier stage of
development.

Post Freudian Approaches: A number of theorists developed their ideas following

Freud.

These theories are less characteristics of sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id
and the expansion of the concept of Ego. The human qualities of creativity,
competence and problem solving abilities are emphasised.

Carl Jung : Aims and aspirations: Jung worked with Freud in his early stage of
career. Later he broke away as he believed that human beings are also driven by
their aims and ambitions besides sex and aggression.
Karen Horney: She another disciple of Freud also derived her theory further from
Freudian principles. She adopted a more optimistic of human life. As per her human
beings are also driven by growth and self-actualization.

She also contributed by challenging Freud’s treatment of women as inferior. As per

her each gender has attributes to be admired by the other, neither being superior or
inferior. Women are more affected by social and cultural factors.

Psychological disorders like anxiety are caused by disturbed interpersonal

relationship during childhood. Indifferent, discouraging, excessively dominating.

Alfred Adler: Lifestyle and social interest

His basic assumption is that human behaviour is purposeful and goal

directed each one chooses and creates. Personal goals are the source of
motivation.

In Adler’s view every individual suffers from feeling of inadequacy and guilt
i.e. Inferiority complex.

Overcoming these complexes is essential for optimal personality

development.

He believed human beings are social beings and psychological qualities such as
growth and realization resulted from desire of freedom and striving for justice/truth.

Erik Erikson: Search for identity

This theory lays stress on rational, conscious, ego processes in personality

development.

Identity is granted a central place in the process. His concept of identity crisis of
adolescent age has drawn considerable attention.

Reasons for criticism of Psychodynamics theories:

These theories are strongly condemned for following reasons:

1. They are largely based on case studies and not backed by scientific

2. Small and archetypical individuals were taken as sample groups for studies
for advancing generalizations.
3. Concepts are not properly defined. And they can not be subjected to scientific
testing.
4. Freud theory has used males as prototype of all human personality
development. He overlooked female experiences and perspectives.

Behavioural Approach:
This approach does not give importance to the internal dynamics of behaviour. The
behaviourists believe in data, which they feel are definable, observable and
measurable.

The theory focuses on study of stimulus – response and reinforcements. Personality

can be best understood as a response of an individual to the environment. They see
the development as a change in response characteristics .i.e person learns new
behaviours in response to new environments and stimuli.

Cultural Approach:

This approach attempts to understand personality in relation to the features of

ecological and cultural environment. Rituals, ceremonies, religious practices, arts,
recreational activities, games and plays are the means through which people’s
personalities get projected in a culture. People develop various personality qualities
in an attempt to adapt to a culture or ecological features of groups in life.

Thus cultural approach considers personality as an adaptation of individuals

or groups to the demands of ecology or culture.

Humanistic approach: This approach is mainly built on the theories of Freud,

Carl Roger and Abraham Maslow.

Roger proposed the idea of a fully functional person. Fulfillment is the

motivational force for personality development. People try to express their
capabilities, talents and potentials to the fullest extent.

He observed that each person has a concept of True self and an Ideal self about
him. Correspondence between the two leads to a happier and contented person in
congruence with himself.

When there is discrepancy and these two spheres don’t overlap each other at all it
leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

As per Roger’s principle people have a tendency to maximize self concept through
self actualization. And personality development is a journey towards that.

Who is a Healthy Person? As per humanistic approach.

The Humanistic theory suggests that no one can be a healthy person by mere
adjusting to the society.

It involves following characteristics:

1. Awareness of self , one’s feelings and their limits and accept themselves.
2. Experience Here and Now. Mindfulness.
3. Don’t so much live in the past and dwell in the future through anxious
expectations and distorted defences.

Personality Assessment:
A formal process aimed at understanding personality of an individual with minimum
error and maximum accuracy is termed as personality assessment.

Uses of Personality Assessment:

1. Helps understand how an individual is likely to behave in a given situation.

2. Accurate assessment is also useful for diagnosis, training, placement,
counselling

Techniques:

 Psychometric tests
 Self- report measures
 Projective techniques
 Behavioural Analysis

Self Report: Method to assess a person by asking him/her about himself/herself.

These are structured measures in which subjects are made to objectively report
verbal responses using a rating scale.

1. Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)- developed for

psychiatric diagnosis but later applied to variety of psychopathology-
hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria masculinity, femininity. True/false
questions
2. Eyesenck Personality Questionnaire – (EPQ)

Tests 2 dimensions of personality- Introverted / Extraverted and Emotionally

stable/unstable.

Later Eyesenck added 3rd dimension to this theory psychoticism ( lack of feelings for
other). Such people have a tough manner of interaction, tendency to defy social
conventions.

1. Cattell- Sixteen personality factor questionnaire – (16PF). The tests provides

with declarative statements and the subjects respond to the specific situation
by choosing from a set of given alternatives.

Uses of Self-report test:

1. Career guidance, vocational exploration and occupational testing for

students/adults.
2. To assess specific dimensions of personality type ( e.g. authoritarianism,
locus of control, optimism)

Limitations of Self-report tests:

1. Social desirability: this is a tendency on part of a student to endorse/select

responses basis socially desirable behaviour.
 2. Acquiescence: It is a tendency of the subject of saying Yes to items
irrespective of the content, which makes it less reliable for an effective
outcome.
3. Hesitant to open: This being a direct method where assessment is based on
the information directly obtained from the subject, hence he knows that he is
been assessed for personality and gets self-conscious and hesitates to share
his private feelings.

Hence these tests should be performed under careful supervision of an expert or a

trained person.

Projective Technique:

This technique is an indirect method, used to uncover and assess the large part of
the behaviour which is governed by unconscious motives, as direct ( self-report)
methods cannot assess this.

Methods include: Reporting association with stimuli- words, inkblots, story writing
around pictures, some require sentence completion, expression through drawings.

Features of this technique:

1. The stimuli are relatively or fully unstructured and poorly defined.

2. The subject is not told about the purpose of assessment and method of
scoring and interpretation.
3. The person is informed that there is no correct or incorrect answer.
4. Each response is considered to reveal a significant aspect of personality.
5. Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and sometime subjective.

Examples of Projective tests:

1. Rorschach Inkblot Test:

This test was developed by Harmann Rorschach. The tests consists of 10 inkblots (
5 black and white, 2 red and remaining of pastel colours) printed in the centre of a
cardboard of 7” to 10”.

1st Phase- Performance proper: Subjects are shown the cards and are asked to tell
what they see in each.

2nd Phase- Inquiry: A detailed report of responses is prepared by asking the subject
to tell on where, how and on what basis was a particular response made.

Use of the test requires extensive training to make fine judgement and interpretation.

2. The Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT): developed by Morgan and Murray.

Little more structured that the Inkblot test. It consists of 30 black and white
picture cards and 1 blank card. Each card depicts one or more people in a
variety of situations. 20 cards to 5 cards are used for performing assessment.
Method: One card is presented at a time, asking the subject to tell a story describing
the situation presented in the picture:

What led up to the situation

What is happening at the moment

What will happen in future

What are the characters thinking and feeling

A standard procedure is followed for scoring the TAT responses.

Indian adaptation done by: Uma Chaudhary.

Rozensweig’s Picture-Frustration study ( P-F Study): was developed

by Rozenweig to assess how people express aggression in a frustrating situation.

The test consists cartoon like pictures depicting situations where one person is
frustrating other.

The subject is asked to describe:

What the frustrated person will say or do?

Analysis is based on:

1. the Type and Direction of aggression ( towards onself or environment or

evading the situation).
2. It is examined whether the focus is on frustrating object or protecting the
frustrated person, or on constructive solution.

Sentence Completion Test:

This test makes use of number of incomplete sentences. The starting of the
sentence is presented and the subject has to provide an ending of the sentence. The
type of ending helps assess the unconscious attitude, motivation and conflicts.

e.g.

1. My father………………….
2. My greatest fear is……………..
3. The best thing about my mother is……………..
4. I am proud of………………

Draw-a-Person test:

In this test subject is provided with a pencil, eraser and sheet and asked to draw a
picture of a person.
After the completion of the drawing, subject is asked to draw a picture of a person of
opposite gender. Subject is asked to make a story about the person as if he/she was
a character of a movie/novel. Some examples of the interpretation as follows:

1. Omission of facial features suggests that the person tries to evade a highly
conflict-ridden interpersonal relationship.
2. Graphic emphasis on the neck suggests lack of control over impulses.
3. Disproportionately large size of the head suggests organic brain disease or
preoccupation with headaches.

Behavioural Analysis:

This analysis can provide us with a meaningful information about his/her personality.

An observer’s report contains data obtained from:

Interview

Observation

Ratings

Nomination

Situational tests

Interview:

Structured interview follows a set of very specific questions and set procedure.
This is often done to make objective comparison of persons being interviewed.

Use of rating scales add to the objectivity.

Unstructured Interview involves asking a number of questions (not specific) to

develop an impression about a person. The way a subject answers and presents
himself and answers the questions carries enough potential to reveal about his/her
personality.

Observation:

Use of Observation for a personality assessment is a sophisticated procedure

that cannot be carried out by untrained people. It requires careful training of the
observer and fairly detailed guideline to carry out analysis to use observations to
assess personality. In spite of the widespread use of this method, it has following
limitations:

1. Professional training required for collection of useful data and is quite

demanding and time consuming.
2. Maturity of the observer is a precondition. Else personal biases can alter the
assessment.
 3. Mere presence of the observer may contaminate the results.

Behavioural Ratings

Behavioural ratings are frequently used for personality assessment of individuals in

an educational or industrial settings.

Behavioural ratings are generally taken from the people who know the assesse
intimately and have interacted over a period of time. In order to use ratings the traits
should be clearly defined in terms of carefully stated behavioural anchors.

Limitations of Behavioural Rating method:

1. Raters generally display biases that colour their judgements of different traits.
For example most of are greatly influenced by a single
favourable/unfavourable trait which colours the overall judgment on all the
traits. This is called ‘Halo effect.’
2. Raters have a tendency to place individuals in the middle of the scale (middle
category bias) or in the extreme positions (called extreme response bias).

Nominations: in this method people in a group who know each other for a long
period are asked to nominate another person from the group with whom they would
like to work/play/do some activity. Then they are asked to state the reason why they
would have nominated that person.

Situational tests: A variety of situational tests have been devised for the
assessment of personality. Most commonly used test is –Situational Stress test. It
provides us information on how a person behaves under stressful conditions. In
performing this test the person is given a task under stressful environment, where
others are instructed not to provide any support and act non-cooperative. This is kind
of role playing. The subject is observed and a report is prepared. Situations can be
videotaped and observed for assessment later.