Prof. Aida Mohey
Head of Community Medicine department
Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University
aida_mohey@yahoo.com

The sum total of ways in which an
individual reacts and interacts with
others.
Personality is a pattern of stable states
and characteristics of a person that
influences his or her behavior toward
goal achievement

Personality
● Individual differences in behavior
● Consistency across different
situations

•Personality is like fingerprints.
•It emphasizes how we are unique,
special and are different from each
other.
•Our personalities can be very
complicated and many-sided.
•A person’s personality should be seen
as on-going development process.

A relatively stable set of
characteristics that influences
an individual’s behavior

PERSONALITY TRAITS
• A personality trait is a permanent
personality characteristic that lasts over
time and across different situations
• Trait theories of personality focus on
measuring, identifying and describing
individual differences in personality in
terms of traits
• Focus is on what is different-not what
is the same
• Can be used to predict behaviour based
on traits

• Enduring characteristics that
describe an individual’s behavior.
PERSONALITY TRAITS

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI)
A personality test that taps four
characteristics and classifies
people into 1 of 16 personality
types.
1.Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
2.Sensing vs. Intuitive (S or I)
3.Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F)
4.Perceiving vs Judging (P or J)

Myers
-
Briggs
Sixtee
n
Primar
y
Traits

Type A people have the following
characteristics:
• Highly competitive.
• Workaholic.
• Highly organized.
• Ambitious
• Impatient
• Highly aware of time management, dislike wasting time
• Goal-oriented
• Tendency to multi-task
• Experience stress when faced with delays or other challenges
that affect success

Type B people have the following
characteristics:
• Flexibility.
• Even-tempered.
• Relaxed attitude.
• Adaptability to change.
• Laid-back.
• A tendency to procrastinate.
• Patience.
• Low-stress levels.

•According to the theory of Meyer
Friedman and Ray Rosenman, Type
A people are more likely to get heart
disease, because of their high-
stress lifestyle, than other Type B
people.
•The former always want to win, while
the latter is more focused on the
journey and not the destination.

Personality Types
1. are always
moving, walking, and eating
rapidly
2. feel impatient with the rate at
which most events take place;
3. strive to think or do two or
more things at once;
4. cannot cope with leisure time;
5. are obsessed with
numbers, measuring their
success in terms of how many
or how much of everything
they acquire.
TYPE A TYPE B
1. never suffer from a sense of
time urgency with its
accompanying impatience;
2. feel no need to display or
discuss either their
achievements or
accomplishments;
3. play for fun and relaxation,
rather than to exhibit their
superiority at any cost;
4. can relax without guilt.

Proactive Personality:
Identifies
opportunities, shows
initiative, takes action, and
perseveres until meaningful
change occurs.
Creates positive change in
the environment, regardless
or even in spite of
constraints or obstacles.

4–
12
Extroversion
This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability,
talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional
expressiveness.
Sociable, gregarious, and assertive
I love excitement and am a cheerful person
Big Five Personality Traits
 Agreeableness
• This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism,
kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors. Good-natured, cooperative,
and trusting.
• People find me warm and generous and selfless
Conscientiousness
Common features of this dimension include high levels of
thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed
behaviors
Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.
People find me reliable and I keep my house clean

Emotional Stability
Individuals high in this trait tend to experience
emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness,
irritability, and sadness.
calm, self-confident, secure (positive)
versus nervous, depressed, and insecure
(negative).
am very moody I often feel sad and down
Openness to Experience
This trait features characteristics such as
imagination and insight, and those high in this trait
also tend to have a broad range of interests.
I am a very curious person & enjoychallenges
Imaginativeness, artistic, sensitivity, and intellectualism.

Main assumptions of theories
• One: that personality traits are relatively stable and
therefore predictable over time
• Two: Personality traits are relatively stable across
different situations
• Three: trait theories take into account that personality
consists of a number of different traits, and that some
people have ‘more’ or ‘less’ of each trait than others
• Four: some traits are more closely interrelated
than other traits and tend to occur together

• Personality traits are described on a
continuum – showing either end of the
trait.
• I.e. Confidence continuum

Strengths and Limitations of trait theories
• Provide useful descriptions of personality
and its structure
• Provided the foundation of valid and
reliable personality devices
• Can lead people to accept and use
oversimplified classifications and
descriptions
• Underestimate socio-cultural influences
on behaviour