The Measurement of Personality

One would come across many treatises on personality. ‘What is Personality’, ‘Personality Building’, ‘Magnetic Personality’, ‘Personality Cult’, ‘Personality Disorder’, are some of the well known captions. They prescribe and recommend many personality aids, improvement recipes and cures and correctives as if personality is a simple and common trait which can be acquired easily; or it is some thing objective which can be everybody’s property.

Personality is not such a common and cheap human property. In philosophic sense personality is systematized, integrated and disciplined self. There are three important aspects of human personality namely physical, mental and moral or ethical. A harmonious and conscious development of all the three, is the test of good or balanced personality.

Development, dedication and discipline are the three mansions of personal ethics. Development is growth, enfoldment of body, mind and expansion and enrichment of personality to utmost extent. It is positive as the gardener gives manure, sunshine and air to the plants. Dedication consists in the consecration of the disciplined and developed personality to some noble cause. Discipline is a negative quality; and it aims at the control of passions, impulses and appetites as a gardener prunes the plants.

We often hear the phrases, beautiful personality, attractive personality, impressive personality and imposing personality. These epithets refer to the physical aspect of the outward traits of personality. Actually personality is sum-total of various objective and subjective qualities displayed by a person. When all these qualities are assembled in one place, or one is blessed by the virtues like self-confidence, will power, power of concentration, power of discrimination, earnestness, integrity of character, pleasing manners and simple life habits, he has a great personality. No doubt attractive appearance and pleasing out-looks do have external beauty.

As we should not judge a book from its cover, so we must not judge a person from appearances which are often deceptive. It is said that each of us has a personality. A person is handsome if he is a male, beautiful if she is a female. According to dictionary meaning, personality is the integrated organization of all the psychological, intellectual, emotional and physical characteristics of an individual as they are presented to the other people. Ordinarily it stands for individuality, a distinctive or well-marked character. It is man’s most precious possession.

A person may be well built, muscular, tall, fair, deep- voiced, short, slim, a talker, or a light upper, a leader, a musician, a painter, an architect, a man of letters and so forth. There is no limit to various divisions, various dissections that a man as a subject of inquiry, can be classified. All these qualities and traits - external, inherent or acquired go to build up his personality or impart individuality.

Frank Desantis is a philanthropist from the U.S.A. He is a writer by hobby and writes on various topics, especially Literature and Life in general.

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