Determinants of Personality
Determinants of Personality: The word ‘personality’ comes from the Latin word ‘persona,’ which literally means a mask. “Personality is a patterned body of habits, characteristics, attitudes, and beliefs of a person, as they are organised outwardly into roles and statuses, and as they connect inwardly to motivation, objectives, and other elements of selfhood,” according to K. Young. “A person’s pattern of habits, attitudes, and qualities that govern his adaptability to his environment,” according to G. W. Allport.
Personality is defined by Robert E. Park and Earnest W. Burgess as “the total and arrangement of those attributes that determine the individual’s position in the group.” It is “the typical arrangement of the individual’s habits, attitudes, values, emotional qualities…. which lends consistency to the individual’s behaviour,” according to Herbert A. Bloch.
“Personality is the total of a person’s values (the objects of his striving, such as ideas, status, power, and sex) plus his non-physical features (his habitual methods of behaving and responding),” says Arnold W. Green. Personality encompasses the “structured aggregate of psychological processes and status related to the individual,” according to Linton.
“Personality is the collection of habits, attitudes, and behaviours that come from socialisation and describe us in our connections with others,” Anderson and Parker write. “Personality may be described as the most distinctive integration of an individual’s structural patterns of behaviour, interests, attitudes, skills, talents, and aptitudes,” according to N.L. Munn.
“Personality is the sum total of all the biological natural dispositions, impulses, inclinations, and instincts of the person, as well as the learned disposition and tendencies gained through experience,” according to Morton Prince. “Personality is the entirety of an individual’s behaviour with a certain inclination system interacting with a succession of conditions,” says Young.
“Personality reflects those structural and dynamic features of an individual or persons as they express themselves in distinctive reactions to events,” writes Lawrence A. Pewin in a working definition of personality.
Determinants of Personality
Personality is determined by a combination of elements rather than a single one. Some are psychological, while others are physical, biological, or inherited. When it comes to personality determinants, I’ve developed a list of the most significant elements. Determinants of Personality are :-
Heredity
The elements that were determined at conception are referred to as heredity.
Physical size, face beauty, sex, temperament, muscular composition and reflexes, energy level, and biological rhythms are all considered inherited features from one’s parents. The heredity approach claims that the chemical structure of the genes, which are found in the chromosomes, is the ultimate explanation for an individual’s personality.
Animal studies have shown that both physical and psychological qualities may be passed down across generations. However, human research is insufficient to support this viewpoint. Psychologists and geneticists, on the other hand, acknowledge that genetics has a significant effect in one’s personality.
Brain
The second biological approach focuses on the brain’s function in personality development. Despite making some promising advances, psychologists have been unable to demonstrate objectively the role of the human brain in affecting personality. Electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) and split-brain psychology are two of the most current and fascinating possibilities.
Preliminary findings from electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) studies suggest that studying the brain might lead to a greater understanding of human personality and behaviour. The collaboration with ESB on human issues is just getting started.
The human brain seems to have distinct pleasure and painful zones. Given this, it’s feasible that ESB may be used to physically influence personality.
Biofeedback
Physiologists and psychologists formerly believed that some biological activities including brainwave patterns, stomach secretions, blood pressure changes, and skin temperature were beyond conscious control. Some experts now think that by using biofeedback, these automatic activities may be deliberately controlled.
Through electrical signals input from equipment linked to the body region, the person learns the intrinsic rhythm of a specific bodily process in BFT. The individual may learn to manage the body’s processing processes with the use of biofeedback. Before any conclusive conclusions can be formed about biofeedback, further study is required. However, the future implications of its possible influence might be highly fascinating.
Physical characteristics
An individual’s exterior appearance, which is an important component of their personality, is physiologically determined. The fact that a person is tall or short, fat or slim, black or white has an impact on their impact on others, which in turn has an impact on their self-concept. Physical traits, most people would agree, have at least some impact on personality. “A child’s physical traits may be connected to his attitude to the social world, to others’ expectations, and to their responses to him,” writes Paul H Mussen. These, in turn, may have an influence on the formation of one’s personality.”