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Psychology vocabulary · Personality

Personality

Meaning in psychology, with examples

/ˌpɜːsəˈnæləti/nounCore term

In psychology, personality means: The fairly stable pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving that makes a person different from others and consistent across situations and over time.

In Turkish: kişilik

How it is used

A whole subfield, personality psychology, studies it through traits, types and theories. You will often see personality traits, personality tests and personality disorders. In everyday English 'a big personality' means a lively, noticeable person.

Example sentences

  1. Personality was measured with a 60-item questionnaire based on the Big Five.

  2. Twin studies suggest that genes explain a substantial part of the differences in personality.

Common collocations

  • personality trait
  • personality test
  • personality disorder
  • personality psychology
  • traitA relatively stable tendency to think, feel or behave in a certain way across many situations, such as being outgoing, anxious or organised.
  • Big FiveA widely used model that describes personality with five broad traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
  • temperamentA child's inborn, biologically based style of reacting to the world, such as activity level, mood and how easily they adapt, which forms a basis for later personality.
  • self-esteemA person's overall judgement of their own worth, that is, how much they value, accept and respect themselves.

More terms: Personality

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.