There is continual debate about what personality is and how it can be measured and there are as many theories as there are the people who conduct research into the concept. However, for practical purposes it is considered that personality is assumed to be an underlying predisposition to behave in a particular way. Most researchers consider that personality is consistent and stable and develops gradually over time. Some recent research suggests that our personality forms by the age of three and although some elements are inherited it takes shape daily over the early years up to the mid teens.

An interesting aspect to the personality/behaviour debate is that although behaviour is linked to personality it is considered to be separate from it. This is explained by the fact that a person may have an underlying predisposition for close personal relationships, however, due to what would be considered socially acceptable behaviour the person may appear quite reserved when interacting with others. In another case they may have a strong disposition to always be right yet when interacting with others may be much more subtle in the way this is done even to the point of appearing to accept a contrary view.

The question that is often asked is "what is going on that makes a person behave in a way that can be quite different from their personality".
The answer offered is that every person has an underlying personality which could be considered the base of an iceberg and this is where beliefs, values, emotions and life experiences are housed. Above the waterline is the part of the iceberg that can be considered to be the person's observable behaviour.

Somewhere inbetween exists a complex matrix of various personal, social, and environmental factors that act in ways to moderate and control the underlying personality to produce what the person considers to be behaviour appropriate to the s ituation and people involved. This clearly suggests that people can modify their behaviour to meet the needs of all involved in an interaction if they want to.

However, for some people it is very difficult as their learned preferences are so strong that the same behaviour will emerge in almost every situation. If they are very agreeable it is unlikely that they will employ behaviour that is disagreeable except maybe on very few occasions and the same could apply to those who seek public recognition for what they do to be willing to remain in the background for a length of time.

An interesting aspect of this debate is the degree by which a person is able to actually modify their behaviour or whether their behaviour is predetermined from birth as they have limited control over what emerges. In most Western societies the former position would prevail whereas in some other cultures a more fatalistic position would be the norm. The challenge that we face irrespective of our culture is in finding ways to describe personality so that we can begin to understand how it influences observable behaviour.

How do we Describe Personality?
There has been research carried out almost since the beginning of human existence into attempting to describe personality, however, contemporary views of personality tend to fall into two main schools of thinking - the type or the trait theory. We briefly explain the differences as follows:

Type Theory: is very popular in business and the Public Sector as this offers a packaged way of describing personality that makes sense to a lot of people. The approach is largely based on Jung's theoretical concepts of 'preferences' which holds the view that people tend to be at either end of a scale with limited chance of being neutral. An example of this is that people tended to be labelled either Introverted or Extroverted but not Ambiverts. Most of the current approaches based on Jung's theories, (e.g. Keirsey and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator) follow this line. Individuals are therefore classified into 'types' based on their responses to a questionnaire. The output tends to be a generic description for each of the types that can provide some important insights into a range of personality characteristics associated with each type. Although one advantage is in the simplicity of the process and its outputs, a perceived disadvantage is in the loss of detail that would enable effective differentiation to be made of people in each type. This means that you could have two people that emerge with the same type who demonstrate a significantly different personality from one another. This potential weakness does not appear to dampen confidence in the type theory as it remains very popular in many areas of organisational and personal development.

Trait Theory: This tends to have been the 'happy hunting ground' of the theoretical psychologists who have been wedded to a 'trait' approach for many years. The general view of the trait theory supporters is that personality is made up of a limited number of characteristics or 'traits' which can be used to differentiate one person from another. A major difference in perspective between the Type and Trait models is the belief that a person can have any amount of a particular trait. This underscores that a person can just as easily be an Ambivert as they can be an Introvert or Extravert. Therefore a person can be in the middle of any of the 'Traits' and does not need to be at one extreme or other. These views tend to be supported by the statistical data (scores are normally distributed) and is usually intuitively acceptable as well as most of us accept that some people are genuinely neither one extreme nor the other in a 'trait'.

More on Trait Theory: The outcome of a significant amount of research has been the development of sound behavioural analysis based on trait theory initiated by the work of Eysenck (1947) who developed a two-factor model. This was soon added to many other researchers including Cattell's 16 PF model (1946). However, in 1963, W.T. Norman found that a general model that described five major factors could be used to cut through the mountain of different traits in a way that would be useful for people wanting to compare the outcomes of different personalities. Norman identified five factors using a statistical analysis of the way in which personality test items and scales could be grouped together. The five factors model has become a focus for the work of many more researchers with increasing acceptance of the model and although the labels given by each author tended to have differences there was something of a consensus that the five factors could be described as:

• Will - was considered to include independence, sociability, self-sufficiency, and autonomy.
• Energy - includes extraversion, assertiveness, and social awareness.
• Conscience - covered such factors as control, stability, dependence, conformity, and conventionality
• Affection - includes factors such as even tempered, trust, openness, and security.
• Neuroticism - included emotionality, adjustment, anxiety, sensitivity, and emotional stability.
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• Extraversion
• Emotional Stability
• Openness to Change
• Sociability
• Conscientiousness
  

Below the iceberg factors can tell a lot of the actions and attitudes a person may adopt in a range of situations. This information can be extremely useful for an individual to better understand what is triggering the behaviour they use to help them differentiate what happens to produce very positive behaviour from those occasions it emerges as less positive behaviour.

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