2015-08-21
249
A personality trait is what we usually call a characteristic way in which an individual perceives feels, believes, or acts. When we casually describe someone, we are likely to use trait terms: he is, for example, somewhat of an introvert, a pretty nervous person, strongly attached to his family, frequently depressed, and intelligent. He has a good sense of humor, fond of languages, very fond of good food, not at all fond of exercise, and a little obsessive. You see, we have just given you ten traits that actually go a long way towards describing him (subject).
Personality is a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior (thoughts, feelings and actions) of people that have continuity in time. An important aspect of our personality is that each theory of personality is based on the assumption that we are each unique. We each have a certain amount of aggression, malice, humor, virtue, happiness, poise, and so forth. However, the unique combination that defines you is identifiable. Despite the powers of prediction gained from knowledge of your heredity, your past experiences, and your current environment, there is still enough that is unique about your response capabilities as to warrant the study of your personality. Major contributing factors to personality are heredity and environment, which includes culture, family, social and situational conditions.
Psychologists, especially “Personologists”, are very interested in character and personality traits. They are especially interested in finding which traits are broad and possibly genetically based, as opposed to ones that are rather peculiar and can change easily. Over the years, we have had a number of theories that attempt to describe the key traits of human beings. We have selected several of them that are most credible, relevant to Kazakhstan, widely accepted and practical.
