Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index =Personality= Table of contents 1 Overview 2 A typology of personality models 3 Personality tests Overview In psychology, personality refers to the emotion, thought, and behavior patterns unique to an individual. Through the course of western thought, different theories have been put forth to explain the human personality: Sigmund Freud broke the human personality down to three significant components: the id, the ego, and the superego. Personality is shaped by the interworkings and conflicts of the three. Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Meyers alleged that the writings of Carl Jung delineated personality types. B. F. Skinner, a proponent of behaviorism, suggested that the human personality is developed through external stimuli. Albert Bandura, a social-learning theorist suggested that the forces of memory and feelings worked in conjunction with environmental influences Gordon Allport delineates three kinds of traits with varying degrees of intensity: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits. Raymond Cattell's research propagated a two-tiered personality sturucture with fifteen "primary factors" and five "secondary factors". Building on the work of Cattell and others, Lewis Goldberg proposed a five dimension personality model, nicknamed the "Big Five": Extroversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Emotional Stability Intellect Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers emphasize the basic goodness of people. Holland proposed a "RIASEC" model of personality widely used in vocational counseling. The RIASEC is a circumplex model where the six types: Realistic - Physical, hands-on, tool-oriented, masculine Investigative - Scientific, technical, methodlogical Artistic - writing, painting, singing, etc. Social - nurturing, supporting, helping, healing Enterprising - organizing, activating, motivating Conventional - clerical, detail-oriented are represented as a octagon where physically closer types are more related than distal types. A typology of personality models Modern personality models may generally be broken into three types: factorial models, typologies, and circumplexes. Factorial models posit that there are dimensions along which human personlaity differs. The main purpose of a personality model is thus to define the dimensions of personality. Factor analysis is a primary tool of theorists composing factorial models. Such models arise directly from a classical individual differences approach to the study of human personality. Goldberg's Big Five model may be the best-known exzmple of this type of theory. Typologies or type models arise naturally from some theories that posit types of people. For example, astrological signs represented a well-known, pre-scientific typological model. Typological models posit a relatively small number of modal types and possibly some interaction between the types. The Jungian typology implemented in the MBTI may best represent the typology approach. Circumplex models may resemble factorial or type models but further specify a relationship between the different types or factors. Typically, some types or factors are more related than others and can be presented on a polygon. Holand's RIASEC may be the bvest-known example of this type of theory. Correlations of personality scores should resemble a simplex form where opposing types have low correlation and close types have a high correlation. Personality tests Types of personality tests include the Rorschach test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator, and the Thematic Apperception Test. =See also= See also: Alter ego, Will (philosophy), Dissociative identity disorder. =External links= [[1] Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool website The word 'personality' is used to describe a celebrity. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.