Question

Biological and emotional determinants of personality development

Answer 1

The term ‘personality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ which means a mask. According to K. Young, “Personality is a …. patterned body of habits, traits, attitudes and ideas of an individual, as these are organised externally into roles and statuses, and as they relate internally to motivation, goals, and various aspects of selfhood.” G. W. Allport defined it as “a person’s pattern of habits, attitudes, and traits which determine his adjustment to his environment.”Personality, as we understand it, says MacIver, “is all that an individual is and has experienced so far as this “all” can be comprehended as unity.” According to Lundberg and others, “The term personality refers to the habits, attitudes, and other social traits that are characteristic of a given individual’s behaviour.” By personality Ogburn means “the integration of the socio psychological behaviour of the human being, represented by habits of action and feeling, attitudes and opinions.” Davis regards personality “a psychic phenomenon which is neither organic nor social but an emergent from a combination of the two.”Personality is not related to bodily structure alone. It includes both structure and dynamics