We are all familiar with the term “personality.” We even qualify as lay “personality theorists” to a certain degree. We often use the word personality as a way to describe a person’s general disposition, or perhaps a certain quality that we appreciate, “My best friend is an adrenaline junkie”. Or “my partner is the ‘nurturing type'”. Or “he is a generally happy individual.”
That is, we use personality traits to identify each other, to create labels that we use to determine how we interact with other people, what we learn from their behaviors, and how we deal with personality conflicts.
And sometimes, our conclusions can be a bit broad: “She is a good person.” “He is such a jerk” etc. Not to say that those assessments may not have a ring of truth to them, but they can sometimes lead to oversimplifying a person’s personality. Namely, in everyday speak, we often generalize how we interpret personalities; or we even sometimes give even more detailed assessments, such as “the new manager at work seems friendly, caring, compassionate, and has good leadership and communication skills”.
All of those examples have their utility. But how do our everyday, lay approaches to personality differ from how science approaches personality?
First, of course, science is rooted in the scientific method: You make a claim / hypothesis; you employ various methods to test the claim thoroughly; you reproduce the results to ensure they they are consistently repeatable; you produce a conclusion; and, lastly, you further develop theories to support your conclusions.
In psychology, personality is defined as holistically looking at all of the consistent qualities, biological factors, environmental factors, feelings, and thoughts that comprise an individual life form (though I imagine that much of this course will focus on mammals and especially humans). Science takes this a step further by testing personality claims, drawing conclusions based on repeated observation, and forming theories based on personality types, (A few key examples: trait theory, behavior theory, social-cognitive theory.)
For instance, a study conducted in 2000 further developed links between neurotic personalities and cortisol levels in the body. Subjects who were frequently anxious, stressed, or paranoid had higher levels of cortisol. Although we haven’t started to cover the “big five” in personality traits, the point of the study was to show a clear relationship between noradrenergic function and neuroticism.
There is certainly a lot to unpack when discussing the scientific study of personality — including distinguishing personality traits versus personality types: Personality traits involve repeatable, or quantitative, patterns of behaviors, while personality types involve the qualitative differences among individuals.
Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2013). Personality: Theory and research (12th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Hennig, J. (2004). On the Psychobiology of Personality. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/research-in-personality
Fresay, J. (2019). Exploring the Many Psychology Theories of Personality. https://thriveglobal.com/stories/exploring-the-many-psychology-theories-of-personality/