Your character and personality differ from one to another. Personality shows your outer personal traits. Whereas character shows what you are inside. These two words might confuse you. But, Personality and character links with personal characteristics and traits.
Personality and Character with the definition:
Personality is your moral behavior, traits, or qualities.
Qualities of personality are thinking, feeling, and acting.
It is your habit to think, feel, and behave in different situations.
Personality traits examples are your attitude, thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
The main characteristics of personality are the BIG Five. They are introverts/extraverts, openness, carefulness, goodness, and concern.
Character is your mental and moral behavior. It chooses whether to react or respond to a situation.
It is your way of thinking and being in control. Your character is affected by your environment, mental ability, and ideas.
Example of characteristics are;
- Loving
- Self-control
- Loyalty
- Kindness
- Leadership
- Honesty
- Bravery
Below are the main differences between personality and character;
Personality VS Character
- Personality is your personal qualities, attitudes, and behavior. It makes you different from others.
But, the character is your trait. And mental qualities and beliefs.
- Personality is who you are to others. A character is your inner self.
- Personality is yourself. But, a character is a behavior that you learn.
- Your personality may change over time. Yet, your character lasts longer.
-Personality is different than the character. Your personality traits show outside to others.
While your traits show who you are.
Carl Jung's personality theory
Carl Jung was a therapist who created a theory on eight personality types.
He took inspiration from Sigmund Freud's work. Carl Jung explained four traits.
The four traits include feeling, thinking, emotion and instinct. The feeling is your physical feeling to things.
And thinking is your idea of different things.
Emotion is a feeling such as joy, love, and anger. Instinct is the natural behavior that you have naturally.
Jung advised that we not only have one of these traits. Instead, we show all four of these traits.
The eight personality types include;
1- Extroverted Thinking:
If you are an extroverted thinker, you make your decisions on facts and logic.
You focus on rules and laws. And you usually work in a math or science career.
2- Introverted Thinking:
You see how the world works. You are shy and quiet.
3- Extroverted Feeling:
You rely upon facts and knowledge. You make decisions based on your ideas. And you often have a career in business.
4- Introverted Feeling:
If you have this trait, you make your opinions on emotional feelings.
And you often work in the art field.
5- Extroverted Idea:
You often follow your vision of the world. You do not make a decision based on other ideas.
And you often work as a reader.
6- Introverted Idea:
You often look for meaning in things. And you make your decisions on your ideas.
7- Extroverted Instinct:
If you have this type, you make your ideas on facts and reality.
And you usually avoid your opinions.
8- Introverted Instinct:
If you have this trait, you always focus on your ideas. And you are shy to other people.
Personality Traits Theories:
Eysenck's personality theory:
He created a personality theory based on natural parts.
He said that we grow a type of nervous system that affects our skills to learn and adapt.
He named the theory the PEN model.
It included three personality traits;
1- Extraversion/Introversion;
Extraversion:
You are social and want thrill and change. You are carefree and cheerful.
And you are more likely to be brave. And you look for fun.
While if you are an introvert, you are quiet and shy. You plan your actions. And control your emotions.
You tend to be focused and fair.
2- Anger/Emotional Stability;
Anger:
If you have this, you have a high level of stress. And worry about everything.
You focus on negative things rather than positive ones.
If you do not have this trait, then you are calm. And do not worry too much.
3- Mad/Normal;
Mad:
If you have this trait, then you do not care about others. You like to be alone.
This trait links to a higher level of the male hormone.
With a higher level of hormone, you have a higher level of this trait.
Eysenck was interested in two traits, anger and extroversion.
He believed that these traits form our different personality characteristics.
Cattell 16 personality trait theory:
In 1965, Cattell disagreed with Eysenck's theory. So he came up with a large number of traits.
He gained enough information from different sources.
- L-data: this data deals with our daily situations. It had school grades, work history, and so on.
- Q- data: a test made to rate our personality.
- T-data: got from various tests.
He said that the 16 personality traits are common to all of us.
He created two traits, source traits, and surface traits.
Source traits are less visible to other people. And have different types of behaviors.
But surface traits are visible and can be seen by others.
Allport’s trait theory:
Allport theory focuses on the different personality traits.
He organized these traits into three levels;
Cardinal traits: these traits are rare, and they form later in our life.
Central traits: this trait makes a basic personality. You use these traits to define another person. Such as honest, shy and, smart.
Secondary traits: these are alike behaviors or wishes. They appear in your specific situations.
He believed that our personality forms at birth. And is affected by our surroundings.
Personality theories give a different way of learning our personality.
The main characteristics of personality are Extraversion/Introversion. Openness, goodness, carefulness, and concern.
Openness
This trait focuses on personal characteristics such as creativity and knowledge.
If you score high in this trait, you have many interests. You are always trying something new. And you want to learn new things.
If you do not have this trait, you are much more reserved and struggle with creativity.
Some traits people with openness are;
- Creative.
- They like to try new tasks.
- Enjoy new experiences.
- Think creatively.
Traits people with low openness are;
- They do not like to change.
- They are close-minded.
- Enjoy having a routine.
- They do not like to try new things.
- Struggle with creative thinking.
People low in openness often have negative personality traits. They do not like new things. And life changes make them worried.
Some example of negative personality traits include;
- Lazy
- Rigid and selfish
- Quick to anger
- Disloyal
Your character is visible to others. If your personality is bad, your character will also be affected.
Bad character traits include;
- Arrogant
- Cruel
- Rude
- Angry
If you have an openness trait, you have a positive personality trait. And good character.
Traits such as;
- Friendly to talk to others.
- Nice to others.
- Calm
- Happy
- Honest.
Carefulness
This trait focuses on traits such as interest, self-control. And excited behavior.
If you score high in the carefulness trait, you are organized and careful of details.
You plan and think about how your behaviors affect others.
People with high carefulness trait include;
- Spend time preparing things.
- Get useful tasks done.
- Enjoys daily routine.
- Pays attention to small details
People with low carefulness trait include;
- Does not like schedules.
- Less driven to success.
- Delays on useful tasks.
- Lazy
- Fails to complete useful tasks.
If you score low on this trait, you are likely to have negative qualities.
Negative qualities of a person include;
- Dishonest
- Impatient
- Moody
- Close-minded
- Lack knowledge
If you score high on this trait, then you mostly have good character.
Example of a good character includes;
- Being careful
- Want to do a task well
- Loyal
- Active and organized
Extraversion
This trait focuses on kindness, excitability, confidence. And a high level of emotional feeling.
If you score high levels of extraversion, you are outgoing and gain energy by talking to people.
Being around other people excites you.
If you score low levels of extraversion, you are quiet and do not like to talk to people.
You prefer loneliness and a quiet setting to gain energy.
Example of traits people with high extraversion has;
- Loves to talk to people.
- Enjoys meeting new people
- Likes having attention on them
- Easily makes friends
- Get excited about having other people around them
- Prefers to have many friends
- Thinks before saying things
Example of traits people with low extraversion has;
- Likes to spend time alone
- Does not do small talks
- Difficulty in starting a talk
- Does not like attention on them
Goodness
This personality trait includes traits such as trust, affection. And social behaviors.
If you score a high level of this trait, you are more kind to people.
If you score low levels of goodness, you are selfish to people.
And you do not show your emotions.
People high in goodness trait have:
- Caring towards others
- Enjoys helping others
- Helps people in need
- Feels pity for other people
- Shows an interest in other people
People low in goodness trait have:
- Shows little interest in others
- Do not care about others feelings
- Insults others
- Like to manipulate others
Concern
This trait focuses on emotions and sadness.
If you score high levels of concern, you are always sad.
You have stress, and you get sad quickly.
If you score low levels of concern, you are calm.
You do not get stressed or mood swings.
People with a high level of concern has;
- Always feel stress
- Has many things to worry about
- Get easily upset
- Feels worried all the time
- Struggles recover after stressful events
People with low levels of concern have;
- Are calm mentally
- Deals with stress easily
- Do not worry too much
- Are very relaxed
- Are rarely sad
There are multiple traits that you own. Such as you can have deep character traits.
You can also have evil or worst character traits.
Moreover, you can also have nice and poor personality traits and character traits.
Social traits are most common to have. If you are social, people can talk to you.
It is easier for you to make friends.
Most traits are the result of high or low levels of the BIG Five personality traits.
Yet, some natural traits are with us during our life.
For example, when you are born, you have baby instincts.
Your need to play around. And your desire to learn.
This article explains the meaning of your personality and character.
There are many good traits, bad traits. And a good and bad character that you own.
Below is the list of positive and negative character traits with the definitions;
Positive traits include;
- Hard-working; you put effort into your work.
- Caring; you show concern for others.
- Loyal; you are faithful to others.
- Cheerful; you are always happy.
- Honest; you are honest and do not like to lie.
Negative traits include;
- Disloyal; you are quick to talk about others.
- Rude, you talk badly to others.
- Selfish; you only worry about your wishes.
- Lazy; you do not put effort into doing things.
- Mean; you do not like to have friends.