Psychology Personality Psychology Personality, a Term Rooted

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Personality Psychology

Personality, a term rooted from the Latin word "persona" means 'mask'. According to Allport (1937), personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to the environment. It also refers to the characteristic set of views, feelings and behaviors constantly reflected in an individual's conduct over time (Flanagan C., 2004). These characteristics are relatively stable, implying that a certain human being generally behaves in a typical manner. Further elaborated by Allport (1937), there are two ways to study personality, namely, the 'nomothetic' and the 'idiographic'. The former of the two studies personality by contriving general laws that can be applied to different people, such as the traits of 'self-actualization' or 'extraversion'. The latter of the two approaches to study personality uses all the unique attributes of a certain individual to understand personality.

There are three methods to study personality which are clinical, correlational and experimental. In the clinical approach, attention is given to a profound level of understanding to individuals or a small group of individuals (Carducci B., 2006). There are three further methods in the clinical approach, namely, case study, individual interview and the analysis of personal documents. The case study approach involves a thorough and comprehensive report of the individual's history and current situation. The author further elaborates this method by including family history, educational background of the individual, previous history of emotional turbulences, medical history, etc. In individual interviews, the interviewer collects detailed information pertaining to the individual with the help of oral questions. This method of conversation always has a purpose and is non-experimental in design. The same author uses another source to define what a personal document is. As Allport (1961) posits, a personal document is 'any freely written or spoken record that intentionally or unintentionally yields information regarding the structure and dynamics of the author's life.'

The correlational approach, on the other hand, is a contrast as it investigates the extent to which any two variables maybe correlated with each other. A scatter plot is used to illustrate the relationship between variables.

The experimental approach entails three basic elements, which are, intervention, observation and control. The basic purpose is to investigate how systematic intervention of one variable induces change observed in another variable. Intervention observes, systematically, the independent variable as it is believed to cause a change in the second variable. Observation, on the other hand, is directly observing the change in the second variable caused by the first variable. Experimental control refers to the extent to which researchers can limit the probability that other explanations may account for the results obtained. This maybe controlled by randomly assigning subjects, by standardizing procedures or by using a control group.

Evaluation of the three methods to study personality:

Carducci (2006) mentions the limitations and strengths of all three approaches in his book 'The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research and Applications'. The clinical approach is effective because it takes into account an in depth understanding of the individual or individuals concerned. It also studies the developmental changes in the individual over time. Lastly, it also investigates extreme and rare events that take place in the individual's life. Despite these strengths, certain limitations of the clinical approach include the issue of generalization, which means that their sample group might not be true for a population. Also, several kinds of biases can emerge such as the researcher bias and the subject bias.

For the correlational approach, the strength is the fact that it explores relationships and takes into account the relationship with other variables, to determine the strongest correlation and the best research potential. It also takes into account the ethical considerations pertaining to experimental purposes. Its limitations include firstly, the third variable problem where solely two variables are taken into account. However, this can be minimized by including or considering third variables. Furthermore, while this approach assesses the correlation of variables, it doesn't take into account the cause and effect of the same variables.