Brad

A. INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY

All people, including you and me, have a personality, and every person each has a unique personality. It is what makes us the person we are. Our personalities control our behaviour, thoughts, emotions and even our unconscious feelings. It makes it possible to predict how a person will act or react under different situations.

WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

It is the deeply fixed, consistent, distinctive and characteristic patterns of our thoughts, feelings and behaviour that define a person's own style of interacting with the physical and social environment. It is the tendency to behave in a certain way under different circumstances and across time.

*DIFFERENT THEORIES OF PERSONALITY*

Trait theories

According Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American psychiatric association, personality traits are "enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts." Theorists generally assume a) traits are relatively stable over time, b) traits differ among individuals (for instance, some people are outgoing while others are reserved), and c) traits influence behavior.

Genetics of Personality

Personality genetics is a scientific field that examines the relationship between personality and genetics. Interest in the field is also driven by molecular genetics and evolutionary ideas about personality.

Most studies on personality genetics rely on twin studies, which compare identical and fraternal twins. Twin studies consistently indicate moderate genetic influence—heritability estimates for most traits are about 40% and are not influenced by the environmental factors shared by twins. The estimated heritabilities for the personality measures were much lower than those obtained in studies of identical and fraternal twins, which suggests that twin studies have exaggerated the degree of genetic variation in personality.

Behavior genetics...