This document provides an overview of personality and personality theories. It defines personality as individual differences in behavior and consistency across situations. It identifies key determinants of personality like brain structure, physical factors, heredity, culture, family and social groups. It describes the "Big Five" personality traits and four personality types. It also outlines several theories of personality including psychoanalytic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive theories.

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

2. •Define personality
•Understand why we need to study
personality
•Identify determinants of personality
•Describe the “Big Five” personality traits
•Describe the Four personality types
•Understand personality theories

3.  Some people are talkative, while others are quite
silent.
 Some are physically active, while others are
anxious.
 Some worry a lot, while others appear to be
unconcerned practically all of the time.
 These are adjectives that used to describe people:
"talkative," "silent," "active," or "anxious,".
 They refer to a person's personality - the distinct
ways in which people differ from one another.

5. Personality
● Individual differences in behavior
● Consistency across different
situations

7. • 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.

8. ‫الشخصية‬
‫من‬ ‫مزيج‬ ‫هي‬
‫واألحاسيس‬ ‫والعاطفة‬ ‫السلوك‬
‫تحدد‬ ‫التي‬ ‫التفكير‬ ‫وأنماط‬
،‫الفرد‬
The type of person is shown by the way he/she behave, feel, and think

9. The sum total of ways in which an
individual reacts and interacts with
others.
Relatively stable pattern of behaviors,
thoughts, motives, and emotions that
characterizes an individual.

10. How do you define personality
in one word?
•Disposition, ‫طبيعة‬
•Temperament, ‫طبع‬ hereditary aspects of personality
e.g sensitivity
•Temper, ‫المزاجية‬ ‫حالة‬
•Character, ‫شخصية‬ : Personal characteristics that have
been judged or evaluated

11. Why we need to study personality
To
understand
others
better
For
self
developmen
t
To
become
Exception
al
Leaders
To
understand
group
To
help
others
grow
To understand
our
motivations

14. 1. Brain: One of the most important factors of
personality determinant. Our personality is partly
determined by the shape of our brains. In
neurotic people prone to mood changes
and psychiatric disorders, the outer layer of the
brain is thicker and less wrinkly. Individuals with
"open" personalities linked to creativity show
an opposite pattern. The outer layer, or cortex, of
their brains is thinner and more folded in certain
regions with a greater surface area.
2. Physical factors: Physical features plays vital
role in contributing in personality development . They
involve height, color, health status, beauty
3. Heredity: determines a significant part of
individuals personality. Many children behave exactly
how their parents do. Similarly, twin siblings have a
lot of things in common

15. •Situations have a very big impact on
the behavioral expression of personality.
•Knowledge, skill and language are
acquired and represent important
modifications of the behavior.
•Learned modifications in behavior are
acquired by them through their own
personal experience, through
interaction with the environment.

16. •Cultural factors are very important
determinants of behavior of a person.
•Culture is a combination of beliefs, values,
norms and techniques for dealing with the
environment which are shared among
particular community and transmitted from
one generation to the next.
•Culture requires both acceptance and
compliance from its member.

17. Family and social groups have most significant impact on
personality development.
i) Home Environment
Children in a cold and un-stimulating home have a much
greater potential to be emotionally maladjusted than children
raised by parents in a warm, loving and stimulating
environment.
ii) Family Members
Parents and sibling (brothers and sisters) have more effect on
the personality development as compared to other members
of the family.
iii) Social Groups
Other influences arising from the social placement of the
family, as the person is exposed to agencies outside the home,
particularly the school, friend circle and other work groups.
Similarly, socio-economic factors also affect personality
development. Such as Education Occupation Residence Income Family size
Family structure

18. •Each person is a unique combination of
four personality types. They're known as
the director, the socializer, the
thinker, and the supporter.
•We refer to those types of personality as
A, B, C, and D, respectively.
•Learning how to identify people by
personality type can bring a higher level
of understanding to interpersonal
relationships and team building.

19. •Psychologists seek to measure personality through a
number of methods, the most common of which
are objective tests and projective measures.
•Objective tests: such as self-report measures, rely
on an individual's personal responses. E.g Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator
•Projective measures involve using ambiguous
stimuli to reveal inner aspects of an individual's
personality (unconscious feelings, impulses, and desires)
(highly subjective).

22. •Personality Theory: System of concepts,
assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed
to explain personality.

23. Main assumptions of theories
1
• That personality traits are relatively stable and therefore predictable
over time
2
• Personality traits are relatively stable across different situations
3
• 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
4
• Some traits are more closely interrelated than other traits and tend
to occur together (anxious, aggressive)

25. Types of Personality Theories
• Trait Theories: suggest that a person can be
described on the basis of some number of
personality traits.
• Psychoanalytic Theories: view much of mental activity
and behavior as caused by unconscious desires,
conflicts and memories that remain hidden in the
unconscious
• Humanistic Theories: Focus on private, subjective
experience and personal growth. The goal for a
humanist is to develop/promote a positive self-
concept
• Social-Cognitive Theories: Behavior is learned through
conditioning & observation. Hence, What we think
about our situation affects our behavior.

27. 1. Psychoanalytic Theories:
 The first modern theory of
personality was developed by
Sigmund Freud (1923) is known as
psychoanalytic or psychodynamic
theory of personality.
 According to Freud, our most
behavior is caused by thoughts,
ideas and wishes that are created in
unconscious part of a person’s
brain.
 These are not easily accessible to
the conscious part of the mind but
the unconscious mind
 According to him, the mind could
be divided into three parts: the id,
the ego and the superego.

28. 2. Trait Theories:
•Suggest that a person can be
described on the basis of some
number of personality traits.

29. PERSONALITY TRAITS
• A personality trait is a permanent personality
characteristic that lasts over time (for example, at
age 30, they will also tend to be talkative at age 40).
and across different situations (For example, if they
are talkative at home, they tend also to be talkative
at work).
• Shy, lazy, easy-going, confident, happy, friendly.
• There are two basic categories of traits:
• Source Traits: key dimension of personality that
underlie many other traits e.g trusting
• Surface Traits: more apparent and observable
dimension of personality Forming friendships
easily (under source trait trusting)

30. Personality
Traits
OCEAN

32. 3. Humanistic Theories:
•Focus on private, subjective experience
and personal growth. The goal for a
humanist is to develop/promote a
positive self-concept

34. 4. Social-Cognitive Theories:
•Behavior is learned through
conditioning & observation. Hence,
What we think about our situation
affects our behavior.