WHO ARE YOU?
Brilliant tests to take to delve into yourself...
I invite you to take these different tests to take a journey into yourself and see if the tests invite a discussion with yourself and help you on your journey to SELF-ACTUALIZATION.
Richard Kerry Thompson
Gordon Allport
Gordon Allport is considered the founder of trait theory. Trait theory is sometimes viewed as dry, inflexible, and devoid of paying attention to the rich and interesting developmental aspects of personality that so many students enjoy studying. Those same students would probably be quite surprised to learn that Allport is generally considered to have been humanistic in his approach. It was within his effort to understand the individual, however, that Allport focused on traits, psychological phenomena that allow some ability to
predict the behavior of an individual.
What Is Personality and What Are Traits?
Allport provides an interesting history of the use of the term persona, including a set of definitions written by Cicero (106-43 B.C.): as one appears to others (but not as one really is); the part one plays in life; the collection of personal qualities that ts one's career (or place in life); and distinction and dignity.
These and other definitions of persona represent a contradiction, that persona, or personality in psychological
terms, is both something vital and internal and yet also something external and false. Although psychologists came to favor definitions that emphasized an assemblage of personal qualities, Allport noted that no two psychologists could easily agree on one definition for the term personality. So Allport offered a definition of his own:
Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that de-termine his unique adjustments to his environment. (pg. 48; Allport, 1937)
Dynamic Organization: According to Allport, personality involves active organization, which is constantly
evolving and changing, and which involves motivation and self-regulation. Thus, it is dynamic, not static.
The organization also brings with it the possibility of disorganization, and the resulting abnormalities associated
with personality disorders and/or mental illness.
Psychophysical Systems: The term psychophysical is meant to remind us that personality reflects both mind and body, the total organism. The systems include habits, attitudes, sentiments, and dispositions of various kinds. Most important, however, are the traits, which may be either latent or active.
Determine: In Allport's view, personality is something and does something. Personality is not synony-mous with behavior, it underlies it, and it comes from within the individual. The systems mentioned above
can be viewed as determining tendencies.
Unique: Naturally, each adjustment by an individual is unique in time, space, and quality. However, Allport mentioned this aspect in anticipation of his later discussion of individual vs. common traits (see
below).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d0DjymKmWN5HtcFWSLLJ22mC8hvYZlWG/view
Allport also made an important distinction between individual traits and common traits. Underlying this discussion was another important topic in Allport's approach to psychology: the distinction between the idiographic and nomothetic approaches to studying psychology.
Cardinal, Central, Secondary Dispositions - Personality
A cardinal disposition is one that dominates an individual's entire life. It cannot remain hidden, and the individual will be known by it. Historically, some commonly used terms have adopted the reputation of famous figures, including at least one that appears in the DSM-IV-TR: the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
(named after Narcissus, from Greek mythology). Another example would be to describe someone as Christ-like. Personalities that posses one cardinal disposition, however, are quite unusual.
Much more common are central dispositions. If you were asked to describe a good friend, you would most likely over a handful of distinguishable central dispositions. The interesting question, of course, is how many central dispositions does a typical person have? Allport suggested that a person's central dispositions would be those things one would mention in a carefully written letter of recommendation, a response that
might make sense to someone like a professor, who often writes such letters.
Of lesser importance, according to Allport, are the secondary dispositions. These are less conspicuous, less consistent, and are less often called into play. In concluding his discussion of cardinal, central, and secondary dispositions, Allport acknowledged that these gradations are arbitrary, and presented primarily for convenience. In reality, he said, there are many degrees of personality organization, from the most loosely structured and unstable to the most pervasive and firmly structured. The value of these distinctions is to provide a relative measure of the influence of traits and dispositions when discussing personality.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d0DjymKmWN5HtcFWSLLJ22mC8hvYZlWG/view
Personality Types
Personality Research
Info/Articles
The Five Factor Model (also known as the "Big 5") is based on the idea that five main dimensions are necessary and sufficient for broadly describing human personality.