What is Personality?

Why Did Personality Become a Thing?

At the foundation, we want to understand the world, and our brains are wired to make categories. There’s so many facets of personality that in order to understand, we need to group things together into similarities and differences. We actually have an extensive history of sorting and categorizing people (e.g. physical traits, culture, socioeconomic status, Harry Potter houses).

Plus, personality shows up everywhere. Pets interact with people, other animals, and their environment differently. Babies are a “raw form” of personality that continues to develop but also maintains some traits. You can have two siblings raised in the same household who are night and day! Personality is expressed through interaction with the environment → which is why it’s important!

What is Personality Anyway?

The word “personality” stems from the Latin word persona, which refers to a theatrical mask worn by performers to play roles or disguise their identities. Some theorists would say personality is a reaction – it’s a way to conceal what’s going on deep deep inside of us. Others would say it reveals what’s going on deep inside of us. We say it’s possible to be both! Britannica’s definition is complex, but let’s just say that personality is “a characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving,” and personality distinguishes one person from another.

The American Psychological Association (APA), which is our governing body for psychological practice, has a long definition you can find here. In sum, personality is the intangible and concrete pieces of YOU, which means it’s hard to study and classify…but not impossible, which is why we’re here to help guide you in your journey!

Classification of Personality

Personality is complicated! There’s no one theory that is “right,” but each theory is another way to look at the numerous facets! What are some ways we’ve classified personality over the years? Let’s start with 460-370 BC in Greece when personality was classified by your poop, by your snot, and by your blood. Seriously!

• Hippocrates coined these terms for Four Temperaments: Sanguine (Blood), Choleric (Yellow Bile), Phlegmatic (Phlegm), and Melancholy (Black Bile).
• Then we have the Enneagram from who knows when? It’s been around a long time, but the beginnings of it are still in question. It contains 9 types of personality and is very dynamic (meaning it shows personality movement!), opposed to categorical.
• Psychoanalysis/Psychodynamic conceptualizations of personality started early. In the early 1900s, Freud (1856-1939) became the big player, introducing aggression and libido influences on personality.
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1944) was based on Carl Jung’s (1921-1971) personality work.
• In 1949, Cattell developed the 16 personalities, which led to the original Big Five in 1968, then the current Big Five (OCEAN model of personality) from the 1980s onward.
• In the 1950s, cardiologists (Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman) started to organize personality characteristics based on reactions to stress, identifying Type A, B, C, and D.
• When the big book used to make mental health diagnoses (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 1 or DSM-1) was published in 1952, there was actually no good classification of personality at the disorder level. This came almost three decades later in 1980 when the DSM-III was published with research to validate disorder level functioning. We are now on the DSM-5-TR and have come a long way! However, there’s still SO MUCH to learn!

What is Disorder Level Personality?

According to the DSM-5-TR, disordered personality “is an enduring [lifetime] pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly [differs] from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive [occurs in most settings] and inflexible [rigid], has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment [even if it’s only pointed out by others!].” If something is out of whack with personality, others notice. Signs that personality is problematic include constant ruptures in relationships or in things that require socialization, like work or school. This is a sign you or a loved one need to see a professional.

Want more info? Check out How to Spot a Personality Disorder!