Lecturer

Qazi Zuhair

Ilma University
PERSONALITY

 The word Personality is derived by Latin word Persona which means Mask
 Personality is a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a
person that uniquely influences their environment , cognitions, emotions,
motivations and behaviors in various situations.
TYPES OF PERSONALITY
 Recently psychologists have attempted to study personality in their own ways
 They have formulated various theories to explain personality
These are divided into two types.
 Types
 Traits theories
 Both these theories focus on people’s personal characteristics
 However, type theorist and trait theorists differ in few ways
TYPE THEORIES
 Type theorists have explained personality on the basis of physique and
temperament. Temperament refers to emotional aspect of the personality like
changes in mood, tensions, excitement etc. A “Type” is a simply a class of
individuals said to share a common collection of characteristics.
 Jung’s Classification
 Kretschmer’s Classification
 Sheldon’s Classification
 Friedman’s & Rosenman’s Classification
JUNG’S CLASSIFICATION
JUNG’S CLASSIFICATION

 CG Jung has Classified personality on the basis of sociability character as

introverts and extroverts.
 Introverts are described as people who share characteristics such as shyness,
social withdrawal, and tendency to talk less. Because of these characteristics
these people appear to be self centered, unable to adjust easily in social
situations. They are not easily suggestible. They are future oriented, very
sensible and rigid in ideas.
JUNG’S CLASSIFICATION

 Extraverts share a tendency to be outgoing, friendly , talkative, and social in

nature. They prefer social contracts, generous, sportive and courageous. They
are happy-go-lucky persons and show interest in present reality then future.
They express their feelings openly . Take decisions quickly and act upon
quickly. They are not affected easily by difficulties.
 Ambiverts: There are only few people who are pure introverts or pure
extraverts. The remaining majority of people possess both the qualities of
introverts and extroverts.
KRETSCHMER’S CLASSIFICATION

 From his studies on mental patients, he found that certain body types are
associated with particular types of mental disorders. He has classified
personalities into four types:
 Pyknic type: These are people who are short and having around body. They
will have personality traits of extroverts. These people are more prone to
suffer from mental disorder called MDP
 Asthenic type/Leptosomatic: these people will have a slender or slim body.
They will have the personality traits of introverts. These people are more
prone to suffer from serious mental disorder called Schizophrenia.
KRETSCHMER’S CLASSIFICATION

 Athletic type: These people will have strong body. They are more energetic
and aggressive. They will be strong enough, determined, adventurous and
balanced. They are comparable with ambiverts. They are more prone to suffer
from MDP.
 Dysplastic type: These people will have proportionate body and do not belong
to any belong to any of the three types mentioned above. This disproportion is
due to hormonal imbalanced . Their behavior and personality are also
imbalanced.
SHELDON’S CLASSIFICATION
 He has divided people into three types:
 Endimorphic: These people will have soft, at and round body, having
predominance of abdominal region. They are sociable and relaxed (can be
compared to pyknic type)
 Ectomorphic: these are the people who are tall, thin and flat chested, having
skin, bones and neural structure predominantly. They are shy, reserved and
self-conscious (can be compared with asthenic/Leptosomatic type).
 Mesomorphic: these people are well built with heavy and strong muscles
appear predominantly. They are physical active, noisy, adventurous by nature
(can be compared to athletic type).
FRIEDMAN’S & ROSENMAN’S
CLASSIFICATION
 Type A and type B personality theory describes two contrasting personality
types
 Type A: The theory describes type A individuals as rude, ambitious , rigidly
organized, highly status-conscious , sensitive , impatient, anxious, proactive,
and concerned with time management. People with type A personality are
often high-achieving “workaholics”. They push themselves with deadlines,
and hate both delays and ambivalence.
 Type A behavior is expressed through three major symptoms: 1. free floating
hospitality/ unfriendliness, which can be triggered by even minor incidents: 2.
time urgency and impatience 3. a competitive drive
FRIEDMAN’S & ROSENMAN’S
CLASSIFICATION
 Type B personality , are noted to live at lower stress levels. They typically
work steadily , and may enjoy achievements.
 When faced with competition, they may focus less on winning or losing than
their type A counterparts, and more on enjoying the game regardless of
winning or losing.
 Type B individuals are sometimes attracted to careers of creativity: writer,
consular, therapist, actor or actress.
 However, network and computer systems managers, professors, and judges are
more likely to be type B individuals as well. Their personal character may
enjoy exploring ideas and concepts. They are often reflective, and think of the
“outer and inner world”.
 In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to
the study of human personality.
 Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can
be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thoughts and emotions.
 According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable overtime, differ across
individuals (e.g some people are outgoing whereas others are shy), and
influence behavior.
 Traits are characteristic ways of behaving, such as extraversion-introversion:
an individual may fall along any point in the continue and where they fall
determines how they will respond in various contexts.

TRAIT THEORIES
 Gordon Allport was one of the first modern trait theorists and he organized
these traits into a hierarchy of three levels.
 Cardinal traits: they stand at the top oft the hierarchy and known as the
individual’s ruling passions. Cardinal traits are powerful.
 Cardinal traits often develop later in life and serve to shape almost all aspects
of an individual’s purpose, behavior, and attitudes. Historical figures are often
though of in term of their cardinal taints.
 Mother Teresa is strongly associated with goodness and charity. Adolph Hitler
is associated with eveil and his name evokes the embodiment of ruthlessness.

ALLPORT TRAIT THEORY

 Central traits come next in the hierarchy. These are general characteristics found in
varying degrees in every person siuch as loyalty, kindness, friendliness, wildness
etc. They are the basic building blocks that shape most of our behavior.
 Secondary traits exist at the bottom of the hierarchy and are not quite as various or
consistent as central traits. They are plentiful but are only present under specific
circumstances: they include things like preferences and attitudes.
 These secondary traits explain why a person may at times exhibit behaviors that
seem incongruent with their usual behaviors. For example, a friendly person gets
angry when people try to tackle him: another is not an anxious person but also
always feels nervous speaking publicity.

ALLPORT TRAIT THEORY

 The most advanced theory of personality based on trait approach jas been
developed by Cattell. He has defined trait as structure of the personality
inferred fron behsvior in different situations and describes four types of traits.
 Common traits : the traits found wdely distributed in general population like
honesty, aggression and cooperation.
 Uniquetraits: unique to a person as temperamental traitsm emotional reactions.
 Surface traits: to be recognized by our manifestation of behavior like curiosity,
dependability, tactfulness.
 Source traits: underlying structures ir sources that determine one/’s behavior
such as dominance, submission, emotionality etc

CATTELL’S TRAIT THEORIES

 Cattell began to obtain a complete list of human traits and he for made a list of
17000 traits.
 On the second step he managed to form some specific groups which he called
as surface traits 35 nos
 The analysis of surface traits: he found that some are overlapping and made a
list of traits called source traits. 15 nos
 Eg academic performance of a student is predictable by analyzing two traits
such as intelligence and reading habits.

CATTELL’S TRAIT THEORIES

 This has both the characteristics features of type approach as well as trait
approach. Hence it is called as type cum trait approach
 H.J Eysenck has classified the personality by having coordination between type
and trait approach
 According to him we have four levels of behavior organization.
 At the lowest level we have specific responses. For example blushing / red face
in a particular situation.
 Athe second level we have habitual responses. We read in similar fashion when
the same situation reoccurs. Eg not easily picking up the friendship, hesitant to
talk to stranger etc

TYPE CUM TRAIT THEORIES

 At the third level we have organization of habitual acts into traits. In the given
example the habitual responses given rise to a trait called shyness.
 At the fourth level we have the organization of these traits into a general type.
A type is defined as a group of correlated traits. In the given example repeated
shyness make the person introvert.
 he described four types based on these aspects such as introversion,
extroversion, neuroticism (aggressive IPR and anger)
 This explain the structure and integration of our personality.

TYPE CUM TRAIT THEORIES

END OF PART 1