PERSONALITY

Personality can be defined as the relatively stable and enduring aspects of an individual which distinguish him/her from other people,making them unique but which at the same time permit a comparison between individuals.

                Our distinctive patterns of thoughts, emotions and behavior not only define our personal style,but they also influence our interactions with others. Consequently we classify people as high or low on various personality characteristics such as sociability, emotional stability, impulsiveness, conscientious. We are all aware that the influence of other people, individually and in groups,is diversified and multifaceted. People help us and hurt us, cooperate with us and compete against us. In shaping the personality,genetic and environmental influences are inter-wined from the moment of birth . As a result different individuals exposed to the same environment experience it, interpret it, and react to it differently. For instance,an anxious ,insecure person will react to people and events around him or her in a different way than another person who is self-confident, emotionally mature and socially polished. Personality researches focus their attention on understanding how the interactions between psychological,behavioural and biological processes influence the course of personality development over the lifespan. Besides,there are several other questions that personality theorist try to explore.

           The psychoanalytic approach emphasize three central ideas,that is,the significance of childhood experiences as determinants of adult personality;the influence of unconscious proceses on every day behavior;and the sign of unconscious conflict that underlie human behavior. Sigmund Fruend was the founder of the psychoanalytic theory developed about a century ago. Despite it's limitations as a scientific theory the psychoanalytic approach still represents the most comprehensive and intellectual theory of personality.