Main personality traits: list, characteristics, examples

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

A person's personality is multifaceted, deep and unique. For centuries, being the subject of comprehensive research for various scientific fields, it still remains not fully understood. Thanks to the accumulated and systematized knowledge, the main personality traits are highlighted. Getting to know them helps a person to better understand himself, which, in turn, allows you to make adjustments to your beliefs, self-motivation system, change your usual ways of acting to improve the quality of your life and increase your level of happiness.

Personality structure

There are a large number of different theories of human personality traits. In Russian psychology, the personality structures of such authors as Platonov K. K., Leontiev A. N., Kovalev A. G. are widely known.

In the table below, the personality structure according to A. G. Kovalev

Psychological processes of personality	Psychologicalpersonality states	Psychological properties of personality
Most dynamic	More sustainable	Most stable
Educational Emotional Volitional	Educational Emotional Volitional	Direction Abilities Temperament Character

In the works of the well-known domestic psychologist A. G. Kovalev, personality is defined as an integrative formation of mental processes, states and formed personality traits of a person.

Psychological processes

Psychological processes determine the foundation of a person's mental life, as they provide him with interaction with the environment and are responsible for the formation of his life experience. There are a lot of such processes both in consciousness and in the subconscious. They are the most dynamic and short-lived. Among them are emotional, volitional and cognitive mental processes. The last group includes perception, sensation, representation, thinking, memory, attention, imagination.

Psychological states

Psychological states are already more stable formations that are formed from psychological processes. They are relatively unchanging in time internal integral characteristics of the individual psyche. Each such state can be characterized by oneor several parameters that distinguish it from many others. Depending on what activity or what behavioral act this state provides, the dominance of certain cognitive, emotional or volitional mental processes is manifested.

Psychological properties

Mental properties or personality traits of a person are individual psychological characteristics that underlie the permanent ways of his interaction with the world. They characterize a person as a system of certain subjective attitudes towards himself, towards people around him, various groups and the world as a whole, which manifests itself in communication and interaction with them.

While the formation of common stable personality traits is just beginning, the child is characterized as a whole by his prevailing psychological conditions. For example, they talk about him as calm, balanced, shy, capricious, affective, excitable, depressive. With a change in mental states, the appearance of the child's personality also changes. Under certain conditions, one of these states may take hold and in the future manifest itself in some features of its character.

The formation of personality traits is carried out from mental processes that occur against the background of mental states. They are the most stable and stable, little subject to change and at the same time slowly accumulating mental formations. As such, A. G. Kovalev identified four main categories. The list of personality traits of a person is as follows:

• temperament;
• orientation;
• character;
• ability.

At the same time, he drew attention to a certain degree of conventionality in the allocation of these structures, since the same properties can characterize both direction and character, and influence the manifestation of abilities. However, considering these structures as relatively autonomous is very important. Indeed, in the presence of the same properties, for example, temperament, people can differ greatly from each other in direction, character and abilities.

Temperament

Temperament of a person refers to the biologically determined properties of the personality and is the foundation on which its formation takes place. It reflects the differences between people according to such criteria as emotional sensitivity, intensity and stability of emotions, pace and vigor of actions, and other dynamic characteristics. The properties of the personality, due to him, are the most stable and long-term in nature.

According to the definition of B. M.

Thus, to determine the type of temperament, two main dynamic characteristics are examined - activity and emotionality. The indicator of activity of behavior characterizes the degree of speed, swiftness, vigor or inertia and slowness. Emotionality indicatorcharacterizes emotional processes, reflecting their sign, positive or negative, and modality - fear, anger, joy, and others. The most common today is the classification proposed by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. e., distinguishing four types of temperament:

• sanguine;
• phlegmatic;
• melancholic;
• choleric.

Representatives of the sanguine type have quick but weak feelings, phlegmatic - slowly emerging and weak feelings, melancholic - slowly emerging, but strong feelings, choleric - quickly arising and strong feelings. It can also be noted that representatives of the sanguine and choleric types of temperament are characterized by fast movements, general mobility and a predisposition to a vivid external expression of feelings through facial expressions, movements and speech. For representatives of the phlegmatic and melancholic, on the contrary, slow movements and a tendency to a weak expression of feelings are characteristic. In practice, it is very rare to meet people with a pronounced pure type of temperament, more often mixed types are found when the features of two types of temperament are combined.

Temperament in no way affects the availability of abilities and talents of a person. Outstanding talents in various fields of activity can occur with the same frequency in any type of temperament. For example, such famous Russian writers as Goncharov I. A. and Krylov I. A. showed features of a phlegmatic type of temperament, Gogol I. V. and Zhukovsky V. A. -melancholic, in Herzen A. I. - sanguine, in Pushkin A. S. the features of choleric were pronounced. And the two great Russian commanders had opposite types of temperaments: Suvorov A. V. - choleric, Kutuzov M. I. - phlegmatic.

The question of what type of temperament is better is incorrect. Each of them has both its positive and its negative sides. Valuable personality traits of a sanguine person are liveliness, mobility, responsiveness, phlegmatic - calm, lack of fussiness and haste, melancholic - depth and stability of feelings, choleric - energy, passion, activity.

There is a tendency to develop unwanted personality traits:

• in a sanguine person, such as frivolity and infantilism, a tendency to spray, superficiality of feelings;
• Phlegmatic - inertia, lethargy, indifference;
• melancholic - excessive isolation, excessive shyness, a tendency to plunge headlong into their own experiences;
• choleric - sharpness, intemperance, a tendency to emotional "explosions".

Personality Orientation

The orientation of the personality acts as the leading characteristic of a person. It is understood as a set of stable motives that guide the activity of the individual and have relative independence from the actual situation. In other words, it is the main motivational core of a person. The orientation of the individual is always socially conditioned and is formed inthe process of education. Orientation - these are attitudes that have become personality traits and have found their manifestation in certain forms, each of which is based on the motives of human activity. These forms include:

• attraction;
• desire;
• interest;
• inclination;
• ideal;
• worldview;
• persuasion.

Characteristics of directional shapes

In this context, attraction is understood as such a mental state that expresses an indistinguishable, unconscious or insufficiently conscious need. As a rule, attraction is a temporary phenomenon, since the human need manifested in it either fades away or is realized and thus transformed into desire.

Desire is a need already realized by a person and an attraction to something specific. Desire, through sufficient awareness, has a motivating power. It contributes to the vision of the purpose of future actions and the construction of a detailed plan. This form of orientation manifestation is characterized by awareness, firstly, of one's needs and, secondly, of potential ways to satisfy them.

Aspiration is usually seen as a felt urge to action. It appears when the desire is combined with the will component.

The most striking and voluminous characteristic of the personality's orientation is its interests, being the most important motivating force to the knowledge of the surrounding reality. At the subjective level, interest reveals itself in a special emotional background that accompanies the process of cognition orattention to certain objects. An amazing feature of interest is that, when it is satisfied, instead of fading, it, on the contrary, causes a number of new ones, corresponding to higher levels of cognitive activity.

Tendency reflects a person's focus on a certain type of activity. At its core, it is a stable interest in the dynamics of its development that develops into a deep and stable human need to perform this or that activity. This happens when the volitional component is connected to the interest.

An ideal is a certain specific image or representation of an objective goal that a person is guided by, towards which he aspires through the realization of his inclinations.

Worldview is understood as a system of a person's subjective views on the world around him, on his place in it, on his attitude towards himself and towards other people. Here the ideals, value orientations, principles and beliefs of the individual are reflected.

Persuasion is considered the highest form of orientation and is considered as a system of motives of a person's personality, prompting him to act according to his views, principles, worldview. The concepts of motive and motivation are different from each other. The latter is broader and more capacious. A motive is a stable personal property that prompts a person from the inside to take certain actions. In shaping the orientation of the personality, the main role belongs to conscious motives, since they provide activation and direction of behavior. Their formation originates from human needs.

Character

In psychology, character is commonly understood as the totality of individual mental properties that manifest themselves in typical forms of behavior and modes of action for a given individual. The process of formation of common stable personality traits is carried out in the course of life.

The character traits do not include all of its features, but only the most significant and stable. For example, even very cheerful and optimistic people can experience feelings such as sadness or sadness, but this does not make them pessimists or whiners.

There are a lot of classifications of the main psychological personality traits. Most often in the domestic psychological literature there are two approaches. According to the first, all character traits are tied to mental processes and therefore are divided into three groups. The list of personality traits in this case is as follows:

• Volitional - independence, organization, activity, perseverance, determination and others.
• Emotional - impressionability, impulsiveness, ardor, responsiveness, indifference, inertia and others.
• Intellectual - curiosity, thoughtfulness, resourcefulness, ingenuity and others.

According to the second approach, personality traits are described based on the orientation of the personality. In the formed character, the belief system acts as the leading component, which sets the long-term, strategic direction of actions and human behavior, provides confidence in the importance and justicethe work he does, determines perseverance in achieving his goals.

Character traits that determine the attitude to activity are expressed in the sustainable interests of a person. A spineless person has no goals at all or very scattered. The superficiality and instability of their interests are often associated with a large share of imitation, with a lack of independence and integrity of a person's personality. And, on the contrary, the richness and depth of a person's interests testify to his purposefulness and perseverance.

The specific nature of the personality is manifested in situations of choice of methods of action or types of behavior. In this context, we can talk about such a character trait as the degree of motivation to achieve success. It will determine the choice of a person either in favor of actions leading to success - initiative, competitive activity, willingness to take risks, or in favor of the desire to simply avoid failure - avoidance of risks, evasion of responsibility, inactivity, lack of initiative.

All personality traits can be conditionally classified into two types - motivational and instrumental. The former, respectively, encourage and direct activity, while the latter give it a certain style. For example, when choosing the goal of an action, a motivational personality trait is manifested. However, after the goal is defined, instrumental character traits are more manifested, which determine the choice of certain ways to achieve this goal.

Character is formed gradually and can undergo transformations onthroughout a person's life. And this process can be made conscious. As the famous English writer William Makepeace Thackeray said, sow an act - you reap a habit, sow a habit - you reap a character, sow a character - and you reap a destiny.

Human abilities

According to the approach of the domestic scientist Teplov B. M., abilities are understood as such individual psychological characteristics that, on the one hand, distinguish one person from another, on the other hand, are related to the success of any one activity or numerous activities, with the third - they are not limited to the knowledge, skills and abilities already available to a person.

A person's abilities determine the degree of ease and speed of acquiring and mastering knowledge, skills and abilities. In turn, the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities provide significant assistance to the further development of abilities, and their absence, on the contrary, serves as a brake on the development of abilities. In psychology, levels of development of abilities are most often classified as follows:

• ability;
• gifted;
• talent;
• genius.

Successful performance of any activity depends not on any one, but on a combination of several abilities at once. However, the combination leading to the same result can be provided in different ways. In the absence of the necessary inclinations for the successful development of certain abilities, their deficiency can be made up bydeeper development and study of others. According to Teplov B. M., abilities cannot exist in the absence of a constant development process. A skill that is not practiced is lost over time. Only through diligence, constant exercise, systematic engagement in such complex activities as mathematics, music, artistic or technical creativity, sports, it is possible to maintain and develop the corresponding abilities in oneself.

How a great artist was not admitted to the academy

Identification in everyday practice of abilities and skills often leads to erroneous judgments and conclusions, especially in pedagogical practice. The story of how the famous artist Surikov V. I. was not accepted into the Academy of Arts at the initial stage of his development, was honored to be included in the psychological literature as an example for a better understanding of the category of "ability".

Surikov V. I.'s passion for drawing was obvious from early childhood. For some time he took lessons at the Krasnoyarsk district school. After the death of his father, due to constrained financial circumstances, a good education was not affordable for his family. The young man got into the service as a scribe in the governor's office. Somehow, his drawings caught Zamyatin P. N. - the Yenisei governor, and he saw in them the enormous artistic potential of the author. He found Surikov V. I. a patron who was ready to pay for education at the Academy of Arts. But despite this, the first attempt to enter an educational institution did notwas successful.

Educators made the mistake of failing to distinguish between lack of skill and lack of ability. Despite the fact that the outstanding abilities of the young artist appeared quite early, at that time he still had not enough drawing skills.

Within three months Surikov V. I. mastered the necessary skills and abilities and as a result was enrolled in the Academy of Arts. During his studies, he received four silver medals for his work and was awarded several cash prizes.

His example shows that you need to believe in yourself, in your dream and persistently achieve your goal.