1. TOPIC 4
PERSONALITY

2. SUBTOPIC
Definition of Personality
Factors effecting personality
Personality types
Personality Traits
Traits Theories of Personality
Development of Personality
Personality Disorders

3. LEARNING
OUTCOMES
At the end of this lecture, students will be able to:
• Define personality
• Explain personality traits
• Describe important trait theories of personality
• Explain development of personality
• List and describe common personality disorders.

4. IMPORTANCE TO UNDERSTAND
PERSONALITY
TO UNDERSTAND A
PERSON’S
MOTIVATIONS
TO UNDERSTAND
OTHERS BETTER
FOR SELF
DEVELOPMENT
TO BECOME
EXCEPTIONAL
LEADERS
TO HELP
OTHERS GROW

5. PERSONALITY
Definition: sum total of all the ways of acting, thinking, and
feeling that are typical for that person and make that person
different from other individual.
As psychological concept, definition of personality emphasis
on two things; differences and typical.
i. Differences: each unique pattern of typical ways of acting,
thinking, and feeling sets him/her apart from each other
person.
ii. Typical: individual’s personality is composed of all
relatively unchanging psychological characteristics that are
typical for that person.
Ms Bainun Dali

6. FACTORS
THAT
INFLUENCE
PERSONALITY
Personality can be affected by three
factors; hereditary, experience and
culture.
1. Hereditary. Researchers proofed the
connection between hereditary and
someone’s personality through a
research on an identical twins.
Findings shows that both identical
twins still have similar personality
even when they were growing in a
different environment.
Ms Bainun Dali

7. FACTORS
THAT
INFLUENCE
PERSONALITY
2. Experience. Personality can be influence by someone’s
experience with parents, childhood friends, relatives,
and others. Early childhood experience plays an
important role in shaping someone’s personality.
• Early emotional relationship. Mother influence a
child’s emotion the most since they spends more
time with the children. A mother is a model to their
children.
• Breastfeeding or formula feeding. Most mother
chose to breastfeeding their children as they
believe it can create a warm, friendly and
affectionate relationship with their children.
Psychologist however, the children’s personality is
depends on how warmth the mother feeds the
child regardless whether it breastfeeding or
formula feeding.
Ms Bainun Dali

8. FACTORS
THAT
INFLUENCE
PERSONALITY
• Routine child care practice. The way on how parents
teach the routine including potty training affect the
formation of the baby’s personality. Parents that are
responsible, consistent and understanding will form a
positive attitude and confidence of the child, which leads
to formation of a balance and adaptive personality.
• Messed up parents and their kids. Messy households are
more likely to produce unhappy children which then
affects the child’s personality development.
• Autocratic versus democratic family. Some psychologist
believe that the way the children are raised, either
autocratically (parents use their power to give
instructions and children only receive instructions) or
democratically (children are given freedom to make a
choice with guidance) will influence the development of
the children’s personality.
Ms Bainun Dali

9. FACTORS
THAT
INFLUENCE
PERSONALITY
3. Culture. All human beings live in a society, an interacting
group of people and each society has a distinctive culture, a
body of stored knowledge, characteristic way of thinking,
feeling attitudes, goals, ideals and value system. Culture
regulates our lives and influences the development of
personality at every turn, primarily by prescribing and
limiting what he will be required to acquire for the
development of his personality. Such culture expects and
trains its members to behave in the ways that are
acceptable to the group. Each culture has its own concepts,
needs and specific techniques of child rearing as well as a
set of expectations regarding patterns of approved
behavior.
Ms Bainun Dali

10. TYPE
OF
PERSONALITY
This personality types are proposed by
Friedman and Rosenman (1959), where
individuals can be categorized into two
types; Type A and Type B personality.
This type of personality concerns how
people respond to stress.
Ms Bainun Dali

11. TYPE
OF
PERSONALITY
Type A Personality.
• Characterized by constant feeling of
working against the clock and a strong
sense of competitiveness.
• Type A people are highly competitive,
self – critical.
• Generally experience higher level
stress, hate failure and find it difficult
to stop working, even when they have
achieved their goals.
Ms Bainun Dali

12. TYPE
OF
PERSONALITY
Type B Personality.
• Characterized by relaxed, patient and
easy-going nature.
• Type B people work steadily, enjoying
achievement, but do not tend to
become stress when goals are not
achieved.
• Type B tend to be more tolerant of
others, more reflective, experience
lower levels of anxiety and display
higher level of imagination and
creativity.
Ms Bainun Dali

13. PERSONALITY
DEVELOPMENT
Ms Bainun Dali

14. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Human life consists of definite stages of growth, and each stage is
marked by distinctive psychology.
1. Infancy
• The infant is hardly social creature
• Rapid physical and mental growth
• Totally dependent on mother (caregiver)
• Enjoys simple tricks and game
2. Pre-school child
• Considerable growth of brain
• Feeds himself, speaks, wants to assume responsibilities
• Begins to mix with other small children

15. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Human life consists of definite stages of growth, and each stage is
marked by distinctive psychology.
3. School age
• Usually starts at age of 5
• The child is active all the time
• By the age of 8 years, mental powers are fully developed; brain size almost
same as adults
• The child begin to reason
• Gradual detachment from the family; greater attachment to playmates and
friends
• Begins to form groups.

16. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Human life consists of definite stages of growth, and each stage is
marked by distinctive psychology.
4. Adolescence
• “teenage”
• Turbulent period – adventure, love, romance
• Strive for independence
• Dislike parental authority
• Fully aware of social values and norms
• Rapid physical growth
5. Adults
• Mature and more balanced
• Physical and mental characteristics are fully developed

17. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Human life consists of definite stages of growth, and each
stage is marked by distinctive psychology.
6. Old age
• Gradual process marked by decline in physical strength and
acuity of sense organ
• Marked by psychological changes such as impaired memory,
rigidity of outlook, irritability, bitterness, inner withdrawal and
social maladjustment.

18. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Human life consists of definite stages of growth, and each
stage is marked by distinctive psychology.
6. Old age
• Gradual process marked by decline in physical strength and
acuity of sense organ
• Marked by psychological changes such as impaired memory,
rigidity of outlook, irritability, bitterness, inner withdrawal and
social maladjustment.

19. PERSONALITY
TRAITS

20. PERSONALITY
TRAITS
Ms Bainun Dali
defined as an individual’s psychological
makeup, comprising attitudes, values,
beliefs, experiences, and behaviors

21. PERSONALITY
TRAIT THEORY
Personality trait theories focus on measuring, identifying
and describing individual differences in personality in
term of traits.
Ms Bainun Dali

22. THE MYERS- BRIGGS TYPE
INDICATOR (MBTI)
• A personality test that taps four characteristics and
classifies people into 1 to 16 personality types.
• Personality types:
• Extrovert vs introvert
• Sensing vs intuitive
• Thinking vs feeling
• Judging vs perceiving

23. ALLPORT’S PERSONALITY
THEORY
Allport (1937, 1961) believed that the most important traits were those
motivational traits related to our values. Allport tell us that the best way to
understand people and predict how they will behave in the future is to find
out what they value – the things that they will strive to attain. Allport
believed that traits could be ranked in terms of their importance. The three
levels are:
Traits that dominate an
individual’s whole life, often to
the point that the person
becomes known specifically for
these traits. Allport suggested
that cardinal traits are rare and
tend to develop later in life.
These are the general
characteristics that form the
basic foundations of
personality. Terms like
intelligent, honest, shy, anxious
are considered central traits
These are the traits that are
sometimes related to attitudes
or preferences and often
appear only in certain situations
or under specific
circumstances. Example
impatient while waiting in traffic.
CARDINAL TRAITS CENTRAL TRAITS SECONDARY TRAITS

24. FIVE-FACTOR MODEL OF
PERSONALITY
Several independent sets of researchers discovered and
defined the five broad personality traits based on empirical,
data-driven research. This model consist of five basic traits
provide a complete description of our personality:
i. Neuroticism
ii. Extraversion
iii. Openness
iv. Agreeableness
v. Conscientiousness
Ms Bainun Dali

25. NEUROTICISM
This dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand
stress. People with positive emotional stability tend
to be calm, self-confident and secure. Those with
high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious,
depressed and insecure.
Example adjectives that describe neuroticism:
• Calm vs worrying
• At ease vs nervous
• Relaxed vs high-strung
• Secure vs insecure
• Comfortable vs self-conscious
Ms Bainun Dali

26. EXTRAVERSION
This dimension captures one’s comfort level
with relationships. Extraverts tend to be
gregarious, assertive and sociable.
Introverts tend to be reserved, timid and
quite.
Example adjectives that describe
extraversion:
• Retiring vs sociable
• Reserved vs affectionate
• Quiet vs talkative
• Loner vs joiner

27. OPENNESS
One’s range of interest and fascination with
novelty. Extremely open people are creative,
curious and artistically sensitive. Those that
are at the end of openness category are
conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
Example adjectives that describe openness:
• Conventional vs original
• Down to earth vs imaginative
• Uncreative vs creative

28. AGREEABLENESS
This dimension refers to an individual’s
tendency to suppress his own interests for
the sake of the group. Highly agreeable
people are co-operative, warm and
trusting. People with low agreeableness
are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic.
Example adjectives that describe
agreeableness:
• Irritable vs good-nature
• Ruthless vs soft hearted
• Selfish vs selfless
• Vengeful vs forgiving

29. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
This dimension is a measure of reliability. A
highly conscious person is responsible,
organized, dependable and persistent.
These who score low on this dimension are
easily distracted, disorganized and reliable.
Example adjectives that describe
conscientiousness:
• Negligent vs conscientious
• Careless vs careful
• Undependable vs reliable
• Lazy vs hardworking

30. PERSONALITY BIG
FIVE TRAITS TEST

31. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS
OF TRAIT THEORY
• Provide useful descriptions of personality and its structure
• Provided the foundation of valid and reliable personality
devices.
• Can lead people to accept and use oversimplified
classifications and descriptions
• Underestimate socio-cultural influences on behavior.
Ms Bainun Dali

32. PERSONALITY
DISORDERS
Ms Bainun Dali

33. PERSONALITY DISORDERS
Personality disorders are inflexible, maladaptive patterns of behaviour or thinking
that are associated with significant impairment of functioning.
The disorder usually surfaces during adolescence or earlier and continues
through adulthood.
Characteristics of personality disorders:
• Lack of insight, poor attention, inability to understand the consequences of
behaviour or learning from them
• Distorted self-perception (hatred or idealizing of self)
• Inability to handle healthy relationship, poor impulse control.
• Inflexible behaviour response patterns that do not allow the individual to
handle change easily.

34. PERSONALITY DISORDERS
Types of personality disorders:
1. Abusive personality. An individual who uses violent or abusive behaviour to
cope anxiety.
2. Dependent personality. An individual who is over-cooperative from a deep
fear of abandonment; cannot carry out a task alone; unable to take
responsibility.
3. Paranoid personality. Characterized by suspicion, secretiveness, distortion
of reality, oversensitivity, thinks that “others are out to get him or her”.
4. Borderline personality. Has not established self-identity; fears being alone;
experiences mood swings over short period of time; impulsiveness.
5. Antisocial personality. Has a history of difficulties with personal
relationships; does not profit from experience or punishment; has no loyalties
to any person, group or code of ethics; has a tendency to rationalize
behaviour; relies on deceit or behaviour to get his or her way.

35. THANK YOU