Answer:
The person's personality
Explanation:
Almost every day we describe and assess the personalities of the people around us. "She has such a great personality," you might say about a friend. "He gets his personality from his dad," you might say about your rambunctious son. While we spend a lot of time talking about personality, many people are not quite sure exactly how and what personality psychology is really all about.
Whether we realize it or not, these daily musings on how and why people behave as they do are similar to what personality psychologists do. While our informal assessments of personality tend to focus more on individuals, personality psychologists instead use conceptions of personality that can apply to everyone. Personality research has led to the development of a number of theories that help explain how and why certain personality traits develop.
Let's take a closer look at exactly what psychologists mean when they talk about personality, how they study human personality and some of the key theories of personality.
Definitions
While there are many theories of personality, the first step is to understand exactly what is meant by the term personality. The word personality itself stems from the Latin word persona, which referred to a theatrical mask worn by performers in order to either project different roles or disguise their identities.
A brief definition is that personality is made up of the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique. In addition to this, personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life.
How would you define personality? The following are just a few of the definitions that have been put forth by some different psychologists:
"Personality refers to individuals' characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, together with the psychological mechanisms -- hidden or not -- behind those patterns." -Funder, 2001
"Although no single definition is acceptable to all personality theorists, we can say that personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behavior." -Feist and Feist, 2009
While there are many different definitions of personality, most focus on the pattern of behaviors and characteristics that can help predict and explain a person's behavior. Explanations for personality can focus on a variety of influences, ranging from genetic explanations for personality traits to the role of the environment and experience in shaping an individual's personality.
