THEORIES OF

PERSONALITY
Afia Najmi
Lecturer
INTRODUCTION
 INTRODUCTION TO
PERSONALITY
 Personality = an individual’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, emotion, and behaviour

 Plus the psychological mechanisms (hidden or not) behind those patterns

 ACTIVITY
Close your eyes for a while, and look at
yourself from the inside. Visualise your inner
self and come up with a description of how you
would define yourself. When you have a few
words in mind that might describe who you
are, jot them down over a paper.
 A PEEK INSIDE YOUR
PERSONALITY
 Now take a look at your view of your personality.

 Find a partner for yourself and exchange your views about your personality.

 Have a discussion regarding whether you both agree with how you described your personality.

 Take a look at how the same person can be described as having different personality traits by
different people.
 PERSONALITY - DEFINITION
 The word personality originates from the latin word “persona”
 A pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give
both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior.
 Personality is a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a
person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations and
behaviors in various situations.
 Psychological traits such as kind, shy, mean, outgoing, dominant and so forth.
 PERSONALITY
DETERMINANTS
Personality psychologists must focus their efforts:

 Trait approach = how people differ psychologically from one

another. Focus on personality traits.
 Psychoanalytic approach = focus on unconscious mind and internal
conflict
 Biological = address physiology, inheritance, and evolution and
relate these to personality
 MORE PERSPECTIVES…
 Humanistic/phenomenological approach = focus on conscious experience,
focus on growth, spirituality, and self-fulfilment
 Behaviourist/learning – focus on science of learning, impact of rewards,
punishment
 Cognitive approach – emphasizes human thought, draws from modern
cognitive psychology
 Interactionist perspective – emphasizes that we are different in different
situations; situation and person interact
 WHAT IS THEORY
 The scientific theory is a set of related assumptions that allows scientists to
use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypothesis.
 Assumptions –set of assumptions, related, as-if, not proven facts.
 Logical deductive reasoning- used to formulate hypothesis, begin with general
theory and then arrive at a particular hypothesis.
 Testable – unless a hypothesis can be tested in some way, it is useless.
 THEORY AND ITS RELATIVES
 Philosophy – pursue wisdom through thinking and reasoning.
 Deals with ‘oughts’ and ‘should’
 Theory deals with broad sets of if-then statements. E.g. If children are brought up
in isolation then they will not develop human language etc. but this statement does
not say anything about morality of such a method of child rearing.
 Speculation –theory is closely tied to empirical data and science. Theories gives
meanings to observations , provide fertile ground for producing testable
hypotheses.
 Hypothesis – theory is narrower than philosophy but broader than hypothesis.
Hypothesis is any educated guess, or prediction, can be tested by use of scientific
method.
 Deductive reasoning-going general to specific
 Inductive reasoning- specific to general.
WHAT MAKES A THEORY
USEFUL
 Generates research
 Is falsifiable
 Organizes data
 Guides action
 Internally consistent
 METHODS OF STUDYING
PERSONALITY
CASE HISTORY METHOD:
 involves collecting background data about and making intensive observations of a single
individual in order to discover how to treat that person or to obtain information that may apply
to others.
 Intensive study of an individuals life over a long period of time.
 Used in clinical and medical settings to provide descriptions and explanations of a person’s
actions and experiences and treatment of individual problems.
 Does not typically qualify as being scientific
 Little Hans, the case of Anna’O etc.
 CORRELATIONAL METHOD:
 Involves variables. E.g. Kindness, intelligence, anxiety
 Used to determine whether variations in certain variables tend to occur together
 Any two variables are said to be correlated if variations in one correspond to some degree with
variations in the other.
 Eg. Alcoholic drinks and number of psychological complaints.
 However, it cannot indicate whether one variable determines variation in other. E.g. high
intelligence and doing well in school.
 THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD:
 The investigator actively manipulates or systematically alters certain variables and checks
their effects on other variables.
 The variables actively manipulated are called independent variables (experimental group),
others are called dependent variables.(control group).
HISTORY OF PERSONALITY
THEORIES
 Hippocrates - Humorism
Hippocrates theorized that personality traits and human
behaviours are based on four separate temperaments
associated with four fluids (“humors”) of the body:
 choleric temperament (yellow bile from the liver),

 melancholic temperament (black bile from the kidneys),

 sanguine temperament (red blood from the heart),

 phlegmatic temperament (white phlegm from the lungs)

Based on Hippocratic medicine, it was believed that the

four humors were to be in balanced proportions with regard
to amount and strength of each humor for a body to be
healthy, and for the personality to be balanced.
 Sanguine (Blood)
 The personality type of Sanguine is described
primarily as being enthusiastic, active, and
social.
 Sanguines tend to be more extroverted and
enjoy being part of a crowd;
 they find that being social, outgoing, and
charismatic is easy to accomplish.
 Individuals with this personality have a hard
time doing nothing and engage in more risk
seeking behaviour.
 Choleric ( Yellow Bile)
 Choleric individuals also tend to be
more extroverted.
 They are described as being
independent, decisive, and goal
oriented.
 They enjoy being in charge of a group
since they have many leadership
qualities as well as ambition.
 Choleric personalities also have a
logical and fact-based outlook on the
world.
 Melancholic (Black Bile)
 These individuals tend to be analytical, detail
oriented, and are deep thinkers and feelers.
 They are introverted and try to avoid being
singled out in a crowd.
 A melancholic personality leads to self-reliant
individuals, who are thoughtful, reserved, and
often anxious.
 They often strive for perfection within
themselves and their surroundings, which leads
to tidy and detail oriented behaviour
 Phlegmatic (Phlegm)
 A phlegmatic individual tends to
be relaxed, peaceful, quiet, and
easy-going.
 They are sympathetic and care
about others, yet try to hide their
emotions.
 Phlegmatic individuals also are
good at generalizing ideas or
problems to the world and making
compromises.
 Though modern medical science does not define a fixed
relationship between internal secretions and personality, some
psychological personality type systems use categories similar to the
Greek temperaments.
 ERNST KRETSCHMAR

 Ernst’ Kretschmer is a German psychologist who initiated scientific investigations and attempted to
correlate physique and characteristics. He classified individuals into four types, namely pyknic, asthenic,
athletic and dysplastic. From his study of mental patients he found that certain body types are associated
with some particular types of mental disorders.
 a. Pyknic body type:
 Such individuals are short, rounded and associated with manic depression, have the personality traits of
extroverts.
 b. Asthenic body type:
 Such individuals are siege and have the personality traits of extroverts. They are associated with
schizophrenia.
 c. Athletic body type:
 Such individuals have strong body built, they are energetic and aggressive, strong, determined,
adventurous and balanced. They are normally associated with manic depressive psychosis.
 d. Dysplastic body types:
 Such individuals have un-proportionate body parts and do not belong to any of the three types mentioned
above (this disproportion is due to hormonal imbalance). Just as the body is un-proportionate, their
behaviour and personality are also imbalanced.
 Each of these body types was associated by Kretschmar with certain personality traits and, in a more
extreme form, mental disorders.
 He wrote that there is only a weak relation between Schizophrenics and pyknic body type on the one
hand, and between Circulars (with the tendency to circular type of manic-depressive psychosis) and
asthenics and athletics, on the other.
 Among the schizophrenics also the asthenico–athletic types are very prevalent. Kretschmar believed
that pyknic persons were friendly, interpersonally dependent, and gregarious.
 In a more extreme version of these traits, this would mean for example that the obese are
predisposed toward manic-depressive illness. Thin types were associated with introversion and
timidity. This was seen as a milder form of the negative symptoms exhibited by withdrawn
schizophrenics. However, the idea of the association of body types with personality traits is no
longer influential in personality psychology.
 Though this classification of personality based on the body type has attracted the attention of many
psychologists, the theory has been rejected since it was based on mental patients.
 WILLIAM HERBERT SHELDON
In the 1940's, William Herbert Sheldon associated body types with human
temperament types. He claimed that a body type could be linked with the
personality of that person. He split up these body/personality types into three
categories called somatotypes. 

He says that Endomorphs with a large bone

structure tend to have an outgoing and more relaxed
personality while a more muscular body-typed
person is more active and aggressive (Mesomorph).
A slim or scrawny person (Ectomorph) with thin
muscles is usually characterized as quiet or fragile.
THANKYOU!