Personality is a set of psychological characteristics and dispositions that make each individual unique. It is a central focus of the discipline of psychology. Psychologists study personality from a variety of perspectives---the trait perspective, the biological perspective, the psychoanalytic perspective, the phenomenological perspective, the behavioral perspective and the cognitive perspective. In order to fully understand what personality is, you will need to look at it from all six perspectives.
Trait Perspective
The trait perspective on the study of personality focuses on similarities and differences among people with respect to enduring psychological characteristics such as extroversion, perfectionism and analytical thinking. Personalities are then classified based on combinations of various traits. This approach assumes that your personality traits remain stable throughout your lifetime, and that your particular combination of personality traits differs significantly from those of other individuals.
Biological Perspective
The biological perspective on personality focuses on genetic differences among individuals and the influence of these genetic factors on personality. Genetic contributions to personality can be tested by comparing identical twins raised by the same parents with identical twins raised by different parents, thereby isolating genetic influences from environmental influences. This approach makes use of the sciences of neuropsychology and evolutionary biology.
Psychoanalytic Perspective
The psychoanalytic perspective, pioneered by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, focuses on the effect of the unconscious mind on human behavior. Its advantage over other approaches is that it can more easily account for irrational responses and contradictory personality traits. Although this approach is similar to the biological perspective, it relies more on therapy than neurobiology to gather information.
Phenomenological Perspective
The phenomenological perspective focuses on subjective conscious experience, as opposed to the unconscious focus of the psychoanalytic perspective. It assumes that people are basically good and that they are drawn to personal growth. This perspective focuses on providing an ideal environment for the ascendancy of the individual personality to the "higher self." It is associated with the work of 19th century psychologist Abraham Maslow.
Behavioral Perspective
The behavioral approach, like the phenomenological approach, focuses on environmental rather than genetic influences on personality. It assumes that personality traits are formed as you learn from your interaction with your environment. It differs from the phenomenological approach in that it places less emphasis on individual autonomy and subjective experience, and more emphasis on examining the effect of your environment upon your personality, especially social influences.
Cognitive Perspective
The cognitive perspective assumes that your personality is the way it is because of what you think, the way you process information and the way you regulate your own thinking patterns. Like the phenomenological approach, it optimistically emphasizes individual autonomy rather than genetic or environmental determinism. The two main strengths of the cognitive perspective are that it can make liberal use of analogies with computer technology and that it is quite easily combined with all five of the foregoing perspectives---it is possible, for example, to study personality from a cognitive behavioral perspective.
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