Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and its variation among individuals. Its areas of focus include construction of a coherent. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing AACN is the national voice for baccalaureate and graduate nursing education. AACN works to establish quality. Psychology And Personal Growth 4Th Edition Pdf' title='Psychology And Personal Growth 4Th Edition Pdf' />Personality psychology Wikipedia. A picture of the depictions of personality dimensions. Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and its variation among individuals. Its areas of focus include construction of a coherent picture of the individual and their major psychological processesinvestigation of individual psychological differencesinvestigation of human nature and psychological similarities between individualsPersonality is a dynamicclarification needed and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquelyclarification needed influences their environment, cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations. The word personality originates from the Latinpersona, which means mask. Personality also refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments, and behaviors consistently exhibited over time that strongly influences ones expectations, self perceptions, values, and attitudes. It also predicts human reactions to other people, problems, and stress. Gordon Allport 1. Nomothetic psychology seeks general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle of self actualization or the trait of extraversion. Idiographic psychology is an attempt to understand the unique aspects of a particular individual. The study of personality has a broad and varied history in psychology with an abundance of theoretical traditions. The major theories include dispositional trait perspective, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behaviorist, evolutionary, and social learning perspective. However, many researchers and psychologists do not explicitly identify themselves with a certain perspective and instead take an eclectic approach. Research in this area is empirically driven, such as dimensional models, based on multivariate statistics, such as factor analysis, or emphasizes theory development, such as that of the psychodynamic theory. There is also a substantial emphasis on the applied field of personality testing. In psychological education and training, the study of the nature of personality and its psychological development is usually reviewed as a prerequisite to courses in abnormal psychology or clinical psychology. Philosophical assumptionseditMany of the ideas developed by historical and modern personality theorists stem from the basic philosophical assumptions they hold. The study of personality is not a purely empirical discipline, as it brings in elements of art, science, and philosophy to draw general conclusions. The following five categories are some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions on which theorists disagree 3Freedom versus determinism This is the question whether humans have control over their own behavior and understand the motives behind it or if their behavior is causally determined by forces beyond their control. Behavior is categorized as being either unconscious, environmental, or biological by various theories. Heredity versus environment Personality is thought to be determined largely either by genetics and biology, or by environment and experiences. Contemporary research suggests that most personality traits are based on the joint influence of genetics and environment. One of the forerunners in this arena is C. Robert Cloninger, who pioneered the Temperament and Character model. Uniqueness versus universality This question discusses the extent of each humans individuality uniqueness or similarity in nature universality. Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers were all advocates of the uniqueness of individuals. Behaviorists and cognitive theorists, in contrast, emphasize the importance of universal principles, such as reinforcement and self efficacy. Active versus reactive This question explores whether humans primarily act through individual initiative active or through outside stimuli. Traditional behavioral theorists typically believed that humans are passively shaped by their environments, whereas humanistic and cognitive theorists believe that humans are more active in their role. Most modern theorists agree that both are important, with aggregate behavior being primarily determined by traits and situational factors being the primary predictor of behavior in the short term. Optimistic versus pessimistic Personality theories differ with regard to whether humans are integral in the changing of their own personalities. Theories that place a great deal of emphasis on learning are often more optimistic than those that do not. Program Semester Ktsp Sd. Personality theorieseditThe study of personality is based on the essential insight that all people are similar in some ways, yet different in others. There have been many different definitions of personality proposed. However, many contemporary psychologists agree on the following defias differentiating the HEXACO model from other personality frameworks. Specifically, the H factor is described as sincere, honest, faithfulloyal, modestunassuming, fair minded, VERSUS sly, deceitful, greedy, pretentious, hypocritical, boastful, and pompous. The H factor has been linked to criminal, materialistic, power seeking, and unethical tendencies. Trait models have been criticized as being purely descriptive and offering little explanation of the underlying causes of personality. Eysencks theory, however, proposes biological mechanisms as driving traits, and modern behavior genetics researchers have shown a clear genetic substrate to them. Another potential weakness of trait theories is that they may lead some people to accept oversimplified classificationsor worse, offer advicebased on a superficial analysis of personality. Finally, trait models often underestimate the effect of specific situations on peoples behavior. Traits are considered to be statistical generalizations that do not always correspond to an individuals behavior. The importance that genetic influences have on personality characteristics can change across a five year period. Age differences create more variables even within a family, so the best comparisons are found using twins. Twins typically share a family environment called a shared environment because they may share other aspects like teachers, school, and friends. A non shared environment means completely different environment for both subjects. Biologically related children who are separated after birth and raised in different families live in non shared environments. Identical twins separated at birth and raised in different families constitute the best cases for heredity and personality because similarities between the two are due only to genetic influences. Vulnerability was a factor in this study that was taken into consideration regarding the issue of genetic influences on vulnerability. The study concluded that the monozygotic co twins would be more similar than dizygotic co twins in change over time. The data concluded that there were no significant differences for either variances between the monozygotic and dizygotic co twins. Another current open question is whether genetic influences are important for the likeliness of co twins to change in the same way over a period of time. A link was found between the personality trait of neuroticism and a polymorphism called 5 HTTLPR in the serotonin transporter gene, but this association was not replicated in larger studies. Other candidate gene studies have provided weak evidence that some personality traits are related to AVPR1. A ruthlessness gene and MAOA Warrior gene. Genotypes, or the genetic make up of an organism, influence but dont fully decide the physical traits of a person. Those are also influenced by the environment and behaviors they are surrounded by. For example, a persons height is affected by genetics, but if they are malnourished growth will be stunted no matter what their genetic coding says.