Personality Traits

Introducing Personality  

One of the most important factors determining your happiness and success in life is your personality. Your personality is a combination of characteristics that makes you what you are. Understanding the qualities of personality is one of the important factors in life. To have a successful career in life, to lead a healthy and disease free life, and to guide your children wisely to choose an appropriate career are some of the instances where personality plays an important role. Therefore, in order to have a successful life and career, you need to understand your personality, various personality types, and personality traits. This information will help you develop your personality and build a sound career for yourself.
 Personalities are complex in nature because the same person may react differently in different situations. Though researchers have classified different personality traits, it is not easy to identify anybody with a particular personality trait. Human beings are born with certain genetically inherent personality traits. He/she inherits these characteristics from his/her forefathers, both paternal as well as maternal. While some of these characteristics are dominant, others are dormant. However, this makes classification of personalities difficult.
 A person can be a combination of characteristics, thereby making it difficult to categorize him/her in any particular personality type. Despite the difficulties, researchers have analysed and categorized personality traits. After numerous studies, they have classified personalities according to their dominant characteristics.


Defining Personality What do you mean by personality? Is it only the external appearance of a person or something more? What defines a personality?
A famous psychologist, Raymond Cattell, expresses personality as something that enables us to predict a person’s behavior in a given situation. Accordingly, an individual’s personality includes physical features, intelligence, and emotional and social qualities. The sum total of these decides the behaviour of a person to a particular stimulus under a given set of circumstances. The term, personality, can be looked at in two ways.
The first view stands for the effect the person has on those with whom he interacts and how others perceive the person.
 

The other views look at personality in terms of attributes possessed by a person that can be described objectively. Accordingly, a personality can be described as honest, serious, or humorous.  Therefore, the term personality has many definitions and there is room for differences in scope as well as understanding of the definition. The various definitions take into account the inner characteristics of an individual, such as level of motivation, perceptions, feelings, reactions, attitudes, values, and prejudices, which form the basis of a person’s behaviour. In other words, rather than simply assessing an individual’s external behaviour and comparing it with other members in his/her group, personality reflects the real person and what sets him/her apart from other individuals.

Types of Personality

 After extensive research, behavioural scientists have identified a variety of personalities. An individual’s personality obviously is not constant under different circumstances. Researchers broadly classify personality types based on general behaviour patterns, under the following popular heads:

Perfectionists:
Perfectionists look for perfection in whatever they do. They are disciplined, principled, and idealistic. They work hard to live up to their own high targets and expect others to follow. They are highly responsible and dedicated to their work and make excellent employees. However, they are easily disappointed because they set high goals for themselves and on failing to meet these goals they become tense, anxious, and dejected.

Helpers: Helpers are concerned about others and sensitive to others’ needs. They are easy to get along and share your problems with. They are sensitive to others’ feelings, fun loving, and usually have a good sense of humour. However, they may have a low self-esteem and tend to overdo things for others.

Achievers: Achievers love nothing better than achieving their goal. Therefore, they are generally energetic, self-assured, and goal-oriented. They appreciate honest but non-judgmental feedback. They like a peaceful and harmonious environment. They are also optimistic, friendly, and provide well for their family. However, they cannot tolerate inefficiency and may lose their temper when they come across inefficient individuals.

Romantics: Romantics are warm and sensitive people and love to be complimented. They are creative, intuitive, and have a good sense of humour. They like to maintain friendly relations with everyone and do not like to think ill of others. They trust others easily and are disillusioned if that trust is broken. Romantics tend to feel emptiness and despair when they are misunderstood, which hurts and frustrates them.

 Observers: Observers are usually introverts, curious, and analytical. They like to be left alone and consequently dislike any intrusion on their privacy. One of their greatest qualities is that they remain calm even during a crisis. With their insight, keen observation, and analytical skills they are often able to predict correct outcomes even in complex situations. They may get overly disturbed when such anticipated outcomes do not result.

Questioners: Questioners are responsible, trustworthy, and loyal. They value their family and friends a great deal. Depending on the situation, they can be either shy and supportive or outspoken and assertive. Questioners often face difficulties when asked to cope with differing pressures. In addition to having a fear of failure, they are usually quite self-critical if they do not live up to their own expectations.

 Adventurers: Adventurers like to live an interesting and thrilling life. They are fun-loving people who are often gregarious. They love to party and entertain. They are optimistic and are not easily troubled. They love to take risks and to tackle problems head-on.

  Asserters: Asserters are direct, straightforward, and confident people, who are known for their assertive behaviour. They prefer to be independent and self- reliant. They also like to take up challenges directly. Asserters are courageous, generally honest, and protective of those around them. However, they lack tact.

Peacemakers: Peacemakers are cordial and peace-loving people. They dislike confrontations and like to live in a harmonious environment. When given sufficient time to complete their work and allowed to work at their own pace, they prove to be efficient. Since they are very caring and concerned about others, they can be very good mediators and facilitators. However, they can be hyper sensitive to criticism.

Personality Traits

The word trait refers to an individual’s consistent pattern of behaviour that distinguishes him/her from others. Though every individual has a mixture of attributes, the dominant attribute as defined in degree and over a period of time refers to his/her particular personality trait. Introversion, intelligence, anxiety, aggressiveness, prejudice, musical aptitude, aptitude, sensitivity, seriousness, and friendliness are all examples of personality traits. The traits that people possess and the degree to which they possess them are part of their personality.

Developmental View of Personality

 In the developmental view, the decisive role of childhood in shaping the basic character structure of the person is emphasized. Freud, an early theorist, observed that the personality development is governed by the need for satisfying wants through transactions with the external world. This external world also poses danger and insecurity to the individuals due to which the individual is filled with fear and anxiety.
Anxiety warns a person of impending danger and motivates him/her to do something about it. When anxiety cannot be coped with rationale methods, an individual has to fall back on defence mechanisms. When under pressure because of extreme anxiety, you are sometimes forced to resort to mental strategies called defence mechanisms to relieve the pressure. It is important to note that the mechanisms reduce mental anxiety.

 Defence mechanisms are common and represent self-deception. They prevent the individual from learning more effective and rational ways of overcoming frustrations.

Using Defense Mechanisms

 The salient features of the various defence mechanisms are:
  Denial: In the denial form, the individual rejects an intolerable reality by denying its existence. Denial is one of the most primitive of the defence mechanisms.
 

 Displacement: In the displacement form, unacceptable feelings or reactions about a person or a situation are transferred from their true target to another against which these feelings or reactions can more safely be vented.

Repression: In the repression form, dangerous or embarrassing thoughts and events are banned from memory. This prevents the arousal of anxiety. Repression is the most basic form of defence mechanism.

 Sublimation: In the sublimation form, unpleasant or hostile reactions that are provoked are not expressed but the energy generated is diverted into other outlets that are socially acceptable.

Compensation: In the compensation form, an individual who perceives certain deficiencies or shortcomings tries to make up or compensate for these in some other way.

Rationalization: In the rationalization form, feelings or actions that are unpleasant to the recipient are projected but are attempted to be justified by the initiator on the grounds that these are in the recipient’s best interests.

Projection: In the projection form, moral anxiety is converted into an objective fear. The individual attempts to generalize his/her own behaviour through the thought that others should also exhibit similar behaviour.

 Reaction Formation: In the reaction form, unacceptable feelings towards persons or situations are replaced with their exact opposites. For example, a person hostile towards another, would not only deny the presence of hostile feeling, but would in fact be demonstrably affectionate or considerate towards that person.


Importance of Personality Traits When defined broadly, personality is what makes a person. The secret of life is to know yourself and what you want in life. You need to identify your traits as it is going to lay the foundation for your career. Remaining focused on one’s target has a great bearing in defining a person’s character. When applying for a job, being focused means that you have to be clear that the job you are applying for is right for you.  It does not matter if you are a little unclear on your long-range goals. This is because it is quite possible to lose track and become unfocused if too much long term planning is done initially. Therefore, it is often unrealistic to think that you can perfectly plan out your career path.  Before attempting to interact with your prospective employers, you should have a clear understanding on the kind of job suitable for you. Therefore, while contacting prospective employers through letters, phone calls, or face-to-face interview, you need to convey to your employer that you have a clear focus on your career and that you have arrived at that focus carefully and thoughtfully. How can you acquire a focus on your career? For this you need to introspect and analyse your basic traits. This focus on your traits enables you to identify the kind of environment you may thrive in.  
   

The three questions that you might ask yourself to know your interest areas and skills are:
 What do I like?  
What are my strengths?
  What do I care about?
 While talking about your interests, you need to keep in mind the following points:  What kind of areas are you really interested in?
 What kind of activities you enjoy doing?
 What are your favourite hobbies, sports, academic subjects, and work activities?

Now, you can decide which interests need to be a part of your work life. Similarly for identifying your skills, consider the following three main areas:  Learned skills  Innate skills  Personality skills (such as hard-working, detail-oriented, or creative)
Decide which of the preceding skills you enjoy using. This is an important factor in defining a career focus, especially critical in obtaining a job. In addition to assessing your interests, strengths, values, and personality, style plays an important role in shaping your personality. All of you are aspiring for a bright career in your lives. But you often forget that there are certain inherent factors that decide the nature of your work. Most of you have qualities that are suitable for any job or career. Hence, based on your interest in selecting a career and developing the necessary personality traits, you can be sure of getting what you aspire.