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Personality
Personality: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The Trait Approach: Identifying Patterns of Behaviour
Traits as Behavioural Dispositions and Motives
HOT SCIENCE Personality on the Surface
The Psychodynamic Approach: Forces That Lie beneath Awareness
The Humanistic–Existential Approach: Personality as Choice
The Social–Cognitive Approach: Personalities in Situations
The Self: Personality in the Mirror
OTHER VOICES Does the Study of Personality Lack…Personality?
GROWING UP, STEFANI JOANNE ANGELINA GERMANOTTA seemed to have personality. As a child, she was said to have shown up at the occasional family gathering naked. As the pop star now known as Lady Gaga, she continues the tradition of being different. Her first albums, The Fame and The Fame Monster, and the fact that she calls her fans “Little Monsters” and herself the “Mother Monster,” hinted she might have issues. But she, like most of us, is not one-
THE FORCES THAT CREATE ANY ONE PERSONALITY ARE ALWAYS something of a mystery. Your personality is different from anyone else’s and expresses itself pretty consistently across settings—
Personality is an individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling. Whether Lady Gaga’s quirks are real or merely for publicity, they are certainly hers and they show her distinct personality. In this chapter, we will explore personality, first by looking at what it is and how it is measured, and then by focusing on each of four main approaches to understanding personality: trait–