Difference between personality and temperament

1. What is Personality
Dr. Sushma Rathee
Assistant Clinical Psychologist , PGIMER, Chandigarh
Email: sushmaratheecp@gmail.com

2. Defining Some Terms
 Personality = Psychologists define personality as the
reasonably stable patterns of emotions, thoughts, and
behavior that distinguish one person from another.
 Temperament = Hereditary aspects of personality, including
sensitivity, moods, irritability, and adaptability
 Personality Trait = Stable qualities that a person shows in
most situations
 Personality Type = People who have several traits in
common

3. Temperament
 Temperament can be defined as a set of behavioral
characteristics that seems to be inborn and generally
persist throughout life.
 Temperament describes individual differences, which are:
 Biologically based,
 Evident early in life,
 Characteristic of an individual in many situations and
over time.
 Thus Temperament is simply a way of describing how a
baby/person react and responds to environment.

4. Temperament Theory
 The temperament theory is an ancient system devised for
understanding human nature and thereby improving the human
condition.
 The theory divides people according to various personality
characteristics that appear to make up their basic temperament.
 Some people attempt to distinguish between a person’s
temperament and his personality by saying that temperament
traits are inborn while personality traits are the result of
nature and nurture.

5. Cont….
 Thomas and Chess’s contribution to research on child
temperament is best introduced by looking at reasons that
motivated the illustrious couple to devote their professional
lives to the study of child temperament.
 They defined temperament “as a general term referring to
the ‘how’ of behavior.” It differs from ability, which is
concerned with the “what” and “how well” of behaving, and
from motivation, which accounts for “why” a person does
what he is doing.

6. Cont…..
 Thomas and Chess identified nine dimensions of temperament
based on their own clinical expertise and on their research with
children and families. These are….
1. Activity Level
2. Rhythmicity
3. Approach/Withdrawal
4. Adaptability
5. Quality of Mood
6. Intensity
7. Sensitivity
8. Distractibility
9. Persistence

7. Cont….
 Thomas and Chess also describe three styles of temperament
that influence parent-child relationships and family life.
These nine characteristics are reflected in the three major
temperament styles.
 1. “Flexible” children are typically adaptable, mild or
moderate in activity and intensity, positive in mood and
interested in new experiences.
 2. “Feisty” children tend to be intense, low in adaptability and
negative in mood.
 3. “Fearful” children are upset by change, are
characteristically reluctant and withdrawing in new situations,
and shy with new people, although given time they adapt
slowly and well.

8. Personality
 In everyday life we use the term “personality” to refer to physical
or outward appearance of a person encountered in some
situation. Thus, when we see someone and find him or her
“attractive” we say that the person has charming or impressive
personality.
 The term personality is derived from the word persona- the
mask used in make-up by actors in the Roman theatre.
 In that setting the mask led the audience to expect a consistent
pattern of behaviour from the person enacting a particular role.

9. Definition of personality
 Personality is a dynamic organisation, within the person, of
those psychophysical systems that determine his unique
adjustment to the environment .
Allport, 1961
 More or less stable, internal factors . . . make one person’s
behaviour consistent from one time to another, and different
from the behaviour other people would manifest in
comparable situations.
Child, 1968
 Personality is generally defined as individual unique and
relatively stable pattern of behaviour, thoughts and emotion.
Baron,1992

10. Characteristics of Personality:
 Unique in each individual,
 Persistent qualities of an individual,
 A dynamic orientation of organism to environment,
 It is greatly influenced by social interactions,
 A unique organisation of persistent dynamic and social
predisposition.

11. Role of Genetic, Family and
CUlture

12. Foundations of Personality
1. Physiological structure of the organism:
The physiological structure is deeply influenced by
certain internal as well as external agencies.
 Heredity as well as social environment influence the
development of the physiological structure.
 Heredity contributes to intelligence and mental traits.
These factors do influence the development of
personality, because they have a place in the society.

13. 2. Psychic structure of the organism
 The Psychic structure consists of (a) attitudes (b) traits, (c)
sentiments (d) feelings and emotions (e) values and ideals.
 The attitudes influence the psychic structure and latter on,
physiological structures.
 Traits are inherent as well as the acquired qualities of an
individual.
 Sentiments and emotions play a very vital role in the
development of the personality. Human behaviour is very
much influenced by sentiments and emotions.

14. Cont….
 Emotions are short – lived while sentiments are permanent.
Sentiments may be termed as permanent emotions. Feeling is
again more short-lived. It is the feeling that turns into an
emotion.
 Feeling and emotion play a vital role in the development of the
personality of an individual.
 Values and ideals also influence the development of personality
to a large extent. Almost all our behaviours are more or less
guided by values and ideas.

15. 3. Social and cultural structure.
 Every society has a culture of its own and in the
atmosphere of that socio cultural background, the
personality of individual develops in its own way. The
attitudes of an individual are largely influenced by cultural
order.
 Experience also play an important role in the formation of
personality. Man is the child of experience. The experience
are of two types, one that the infant acquires in his group,
for example family. The parents being very intimate to the
child make a deep impact of him.
 The child is fashioned in his home after his parents. He
picks up their patterns, manners and poise. The learning of
social norms form parents and other agents of socialisation
has significant formative influence on him.

16. 4 major factors that shape individual
personality development
Personality
heredity
Cultural
environment
Birth order
parents

17. Heredity
 Characteristics present at
birth.
◦ Body build
◦ Hair type
◦ Eye color
◦ Skin pigmentation
◦ Aptitudes
 A capacity to learn a
particular skill or
acquire a particular
body of knowledge.
◦ Natural talents
 Sports
 Music

18. Genetics vs. environment
Evidence for and against genetic influence
 An extensive study (Loehlin, 1992) of 24,000 twin pairs in
many different countries indicated that monozygotic twins are
much more similar than dizygotic twins on the Big Five
personality dimensions.
 Studies of genetically unrelated family members (parents and
their adopted children) show no similarity in personality traits
such as extraversion and neuroticism (Loehlin, 1992).

19.  Adoption studies show less evidence for genetic influence on
personality than do twin studies.
 It is also possible that research findings from twin studies are
partly explained by the unique circumstances of being a twin.

20. Genes in the environment
 Until researchers began to look at genetic components in
personality, psychologists had generally assumed that
familial similarities are caused by similar environments.
 However, it is a mistake to view familial environments as
shared between family members.

21.  Research in behavioural genetics has also begun to
consider the effects of genetics on the environment.
 Parenting behaviour may have a genetic influence, in terms
of the parts of the parent’s personality which are
influenced by genetic factors.
 In addition, recent research suggests that parenting
behaviour may also be influenced by genetic components
of the child’s personality.

22. Parental Characteristics
 A parents personality
directly impacts a child’s
personality
◦ Hate
◦ Anger
◦ Happiness
◦ politeness

23. Birth Order
 Personalities are influenced
by whether we have siblings:
 1st born
◦ Achievement oriented
 Middle child
◦ More affectionate but
confused
 Last child
◦ Risk takers
◦ Intellectual rebels

24. Family and Child’s Personality
 Birth Order
 Family Size: Leman, saying that "only" children who spend a
lot of time with adults are typically confident, well-spoken and
have a tendency towards perfectionism.
 Family Environment: A child who is part of a stable family
environment develops a sense of belonging, which leads to a
healthy self-esteem, confidence and individuality.

25. Cultural Environment
 Cultural environment
determines
◦ Basic types of
personalities found in
society.
 Individualistic
◦ Competitiveness
◦ Assertiveness
◦ individualism
 Collectivistic
◦ Competitiveness
◦ Family oriented
◦ Group oriented

26.  Culture makes human
being out of a biological
organism.
 It is only through his
interaction with his fellow,
the carriers of culture that
his original nature is
transformed into human
nature.
 Human acquires that
combination of acts and
thoughts which is called
personality.
 Clifford Geertz observed:
“Culture provides the link
between what men are
intrinsically capable of
becoming and what they
actually, one by one, in fact
become. Becoming human
is becoming individual, and
we become individual
under the guidance of
cultural patterns”.

27. Isolations of children
 Feral children
◦ Wild or untamed children
◦ Can children develop on
their own with no help?

28. 1938 “Anna”
 Born to unmarried woman
 Grandfather locked her in
the attic
◦ Only fed her once a day
◦ No interaction
 Found in 1938 by social
worker
◦ Could not
 Walk
 Talk
 Feed herself
 No facial expressions

29. Is your personality stable?
 Stable across different situations?
Person Variables and
Situational Variables in
Social–Cognitive Theory
According to social–cognitive
theory, person variables and
situational variables interact
to influence behavior.

30. Is your personality stable?
 Stable because of heredity?